To Vila Velha De Rodao, Portugal

June 27, 2023

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Even though Jacinto agreed it was better to get going and beat the heat, he didn't want to go to bed either. Upstairs was an oven. I opened the terrace doors. He brought an extra fan upstairs. It was terrible. How would we ever sleep up here? There was only one sofa downstairs. Should we draw straws on who gets to stay downstairs? In the end I came up with the perfect solution. I took a shower, and wet a towel while I was in there. I laid down on top of the bed with the towel covering my torso. The air from the fans cooled me right off! I slept well until 4:30 AM. I woke Jacinto up a little earlier than the agreed upon 6:30. We ate hard boiled eggs, yogurt, and muesli for breakfast. We had frozen some water bottles because we didn't have a bag of ice.

We were out the door a little after 8 AM, a good start for Jacinto. We couldn't get any routes to load for the day. My RWGPS route disappeared off of my phone. It was there and then it was gone. That was panic inducing, there were several turns today. For some very odd reason, I could not find the route under routes, but I could get it back if I looked at the event I created for the trip. It makes no sense, but at least I found it. Jacinto never could create a route at all on his computer. He wasn't happy. We had a stiff climb away from the house. On cobblestones. What a way to start the day.

Our riding day consisted of small ups and downs, with one big climb away from the river at about mile 16.

What was odd for this day was the amount of semi traffic. We thought we were on a typical country road. There was a lot of truck traffic. I had two semis pass me on a curve. That was exciting. We all held our line and made it through. I don't know where these trucks came from or they are going to, but we sure haven't seen any trucks the entire trip. I guess every day can't be a perfect riding day.

The sky was overcast, and we started an hour early. Our climb was early in the ride. All of those things were in my favor. I had a much better riding day today, even with the traffic.

At Castelo Branco, two road riders passed me, rotating their torsos in unison to look behind them, smile widely, and say hello in English. What we did not know is that we are about to cross through the heart of a big city. Jacinto groused that his GPS would have taken us around, had it been working. RWGPS took us right through the center. I think this is one of those places that I 'fixed', because we didn't want to ride dirt, and had that four mile dirt experiment gone bad outside of Segovia. I could see a dirt path at several of the pinch points for us, but no way to get to it. All of the cars were patient, and we were through soon enough. I was happy to be following Jacinto.

We came out of the city on an N Road, which had a little traffic, but had more of a shoulder, so it felt fine. Side note that I have seen hardly any retread tire wires on this trip. Do they sell retreads in Europe? Our N Road wasn't peaceful, as it paralleled the A Road (interstate). This wasn't a recommended day for riding, it's more of a 'got to do it to get to the next good part' sort of day.

Finally, eight miles from the end of the day, we got off on N18, which was a desirable country road. It was also largely downhill. There's nothing better than ending the day on a downhill.

As we pulled into town, I saw a gas station on the right with tables and chairs outside. I asked Jacinto if we should eat, or did he think we would find something better. The town appeared quite large. Surely we would get something better. Next was a grocery. We stopped for pickles. Last night we were graciously offering each other the last swig of pickle juice from the bottle. Does that ever happen at home? Heck no. We don't even drink the pickle juice at home! We ended up with two bottles of pickles and two bags of Doritos. Salt anyone?

There were signs for our hotel as we went through town. Do you think we could find it? Of course not. The confusion came from their logo restaurant being down by the river, and they are up on the hill, so there were directions going two ways to the Vila Portuguesa. We eventually figured it out. Jacinto had a little trouble checking in. The clerk didn't speak English or Spanish. Jacinto didn't speak Portuguese. They finally got him checked in. We are in a nice walk out apartment with TWO working air conditioners!

Next up was food. Google showed many of the restaurants in town to be permanently closed. There were two groceries - equally far from the hotel. We ended up at the Vila Portuguesa restaurant, which served the sorriest excuse for a sandwich I've ever had. A slice of ham, a slice of cheese, and bread. Jacinto asked if he had any veggies. No. I asked for mayo and mustard and did get those. Jacinto is gone now to the other store. He has a shopping list to make dinner here in the apartment and also breakfast in the morning. We have an included breakfast, but I'm going to skip it and get going early. Tomorrow is a big climbing day to Marvao. I climb much better when it isn't hot. Forecasted high for tomorrow is 106 here and 101 in Marvao. Next we go to Elvas and have a day off. Temps drop down to 'only' in the high 90's for Elvas.

Here’s our tiny bathroom window where I could barely get a bar of service.

The gas station is a focal point in town. We made several visits, including to turn in our house key.

It must not snow here, or they would have this retaining wall on the steep hillside.

Is this a Roman bridge? It’s hard to say. We are in the correct territory!

I happened to park my bike next to the Camino de Santiago sun sign. We’ve seen these signs off and on for days.

Even the AC units need a little shade from the sun!

Jacinto is stocking up on salt. He has one jar of pickles and two bags of Doritos. I sent him back for another jar of pickles. We ate one last night and another one already this night.

We are in a roomy walk out apartment tonight. We have TWO AC units and they both work. We have a fancy ceiling decoration over the bed. It is marred only slightly by the unknown black thing dangling from the white ceiling.

Jacinto’s bridge photo. We crossed over the Rio Ponsul about mile 16.

We had no idea until we got to Castelo Banco that we were crossing a major city. I stayed right with Jacinto as was happy when we came out the other side.

Today's ride: 46 miles (74 km)
Total: 469 miles (755 km)

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Rachael AndersonI’m glad you have air conditioning!
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10 months ago