Thursday September 25, 2014

Yeah we are back in Spain, people are friendly and most of the car drivers give us a whole lane when they overtake.

We left Castelo Branco at 9:15 under sunny skies, a little cool, but we soon took the jackets of and didn\’t need to get them out again.  It was a great days cycling.  Really good quiet roads, rolling hills, ribbon roads and lovely scenery.

We cycled through the Tejo National Park area.  Our final view of Portugal was of a lovely village with Peregrine Falcons and Gryphon Vultures soaring in the skies above us.

I was very happy when we crossed this beautiful bridge into Spain.

It was a long ride today, but I was determined to get to Spain.  After we crossed the border, we weren\’t sure how much further we had to go to get to the first Town in Spain.  We decided to push it to Alacantra – 18 kms.

As we came down the hill towards Alacantra, we spotted the signs for the campsite – we decided to go to the campsite and then explore the town of Alacantra tomorrow.

A 2.5 km climb up to the campsite and the dam place was closed and had been closed for a while.  We checked to see if there was any water available as we were going to wild camp.  We both only had a bottle left, which would give us enough water to cook dinner and coffee in the morning, but nothing else. There was no way we could get down to the lake/river to wild camp.

We decided to cycle in to the Town of Alacantra and see if there was any cheap accommodation.

This bridge was originally built in 101-103.  Really it is that old.  Of course, it has had some major reconstruction work done on it in the 16th century after the Spanish destroyed one of the arches to prevent the Portuguese from invading Spain and then again in more recent times about the 18th century.  Awesome history.

Here we are breaking the budget again staying at a hotel, but we hope to recoup as we carry on through Spain.  The proprietor of the hotel told us about a mountain bike race that is coming through the Town on the week-end, we told him about our ride and he laughingly called us crazy.  It is so nice to be back in Spain where people greet you with a friendly hola and chat to you even if you can barely understand what they are saying.