The plan

September 8, 2013

This fall's trip through southwest Iberia is a ride I've imagined for many years. The Whitehalls' classic Europe by Bike was the inspiration for our first tour of Europe 20 years ago, and ever since first reading it I've wanted to explore the Alentejo and Extramadura regions. I'm really anxious to see for myself the Portuguese marble towns and the storks of Caceres.

Also, this trip is a chance for Rachael and me to make a second and hopefully more successful pass through Andalusia. Our first visit, in the fall of 2004, still counts as our only aborted cycle tour. That excursion was meant to be a large loop beginning and ending in Malaga, taking in the white towns, Seville, Cordoba and Granada. We completed most of our planned itinerary, but toward the end we somehow lost one of our panniers by the roadside somewhere, along with our medications and passports. The tail end of the trip was a complete mess, ending with a drive to Madrid to get temporary passports for the flight home and then capped off by a violent intestinal flu attack that left me unable to leave our room in Toledo and barely able to drive to the airport. Not the best aftertaste to what had otherwise been a spectacular tour.

This time, we will travel by Bike Friday - our standard ever since the airline fees became exorbitant several years back. We fly in at Faro, where we will ship our luggage forward to Granada for the flight home. As usual, we will travel very light with an equipment list hardly worth mentioning, and stay in pre-booked inns and hotels. It's a model we've followed for years, and is perfect for us - we're getting too old to want to carry tents and sleeping bags over the mountains, and would rather give up some flexibility for the security of knowing we'll find a welcoming place to stay for the night. It should be great.

Here's how things went back in 2004 when we passed through Andalusia last time:

The good: the view from our room at Le Casa Grande in Arcos de la Frontera was astonishing. It's one of the most dramatic places we've ever stayed.

The bad: losing an entire bike bag, along with our passports and meds. This is our rental van that we picked up in Ubeda - we had to abort the trip there and drive to Madrid to get temporary passports for the flight home.

The ugly: feverous and nauseous in our hotel in Toledo, too weak to visit the city or even play cribbage. I barely had the strength to drive to the Madrid airport the next morning.

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