Friday September 12, 2014
An interesting start today. The alarm went of at 7:00, we had a lie-in as breakfast was supposed to be included. We showered and packed the bikes took everything downstairs and waited for the restaurant to open. At 8:30 we went back up to our room with the breakfast panniers and made our own breakfast, we were a little annoyed but put it down to poor translation.
At 9:00 we were ready to leave. I turned my garmin on and checked the time as I usually do to see what time we are leaving. It said 8:02. Strange, we asked a guy leaving the hotel what time it was? 8:00 he said, Ralf questioned the time and said we had come in from Spain. Apparently Portugal is one hour behind Spain, we should have changed our clocks back one hour when we crossed the river – who knew. The restaurant was still not open, so we started our ride.
Today we had our first experience of Portuguese dogs. We had been warned about the local dogs chasing cyclists. The first time in 10 months, I had a bloody little yappy thing chasing me on my bike. With the load I am carrying I cannot do my impression of Mark Cavendish and outsprint the dam dog, I have to resort to shouting at the thing. Other dogs (that are fortunately behind fences) race down their property line barking their fool heads off. There were a couple of dogs wandering along a Town’s street that looked at us as we passed and decided we weren’t worth the effort.
As we were cycling up one hill Ralf commented on the cyclist ahead. No, it wasn’t a cyclist, it was a mule – his eyesight is dreadful. Sauntering up the road, staying on the hard shoulder, it glanced at us as we passed, then turned around and sauntered back down the road.

The other interesting thing we saw today was cork trees. We came across these lovely red barked trees, then realized that the bark had been stripped from them. Ralf picked up a piece of the bark, definitely cork. It would be interesting to find out how they are harvested.

Our final destination today is Mogadoura and a municipal campsite. Portugal has municipal campsites yeah we can save money again. This campsite is quite large and we are the only people here. The showers were my “favourite” push button and hopefully get hot water, not too successful on that score. Everything is clean and at E7.60 cannot complain. Wi-fi is included, but it is slow.
Our first night in the tent in 10 days. We could get used to sleeping in hotels, but the budget will not allow for that, even though they are cheap in Spain and Portugal.
This house was completely tiled in green tiles. Very Vera Duckworth – Coronation Street.

We went for a walk and had a beer in the square.

Also stopped at the Farmica (Pharmacy) to buy something for my bites. I have antihistamine tablets, but nothing to stop the immediate itch. The pharmacist gave me this wonderful cream that has stopped the itching and hopefully with the tablets I can get a good nights sleep.

The night watchman at the campsite came by and warned us it might be noisy where we have set up our tent, as young people drive their cars by the top road at night and party in the area at the bottom of the campsite. I think he thought we should move our tent to a quieter area, but we told him we have ear plugs and should be o.k.