Burgau to Monte Gordo (Spanish Border)

By Eric

Peter and Suzanne, and others, warned us that the main road across Portugal's south coast is no good for cycling. Lots of traffic. But we had a good map and for the most part we managed to stay and back roads with light traffic. Just near the cities did we encounter the stressful, heavy traffic and narrow roads that we had been warned of.

We passed the days well. We stopped frequently for food and drink. The tourists and locals were friendly.

One of the prettiest places on the whole coast was Praia da Rocha, near Portimao. It has a great, wide beach with tall rock pillars jutting out of it.

But for the most part we stayed a little inland, passing vineyards and small towns, just off the tourist track.

The camping wasn't great. The worst was on a long narrow sandbar across a bay from Faro, the largest city in the Algarve. The campground, surrounded by an eight foot tall cinder block wall, is squeezed into a small area around a disintegrating concrete water tower. Bits of fallen concrete chunks littered the area directly beneath the tower. We were camped right next a cyclone fence at the base of the tower.

Another cyclist, a Dutchman named Willie, had camped next to us. Between us we had the only two tent sites. The rest of the campground was jam packed full of little campers, lined up door to door and bumper to bumper. The strange thing was, they all seemed to be empty.

Willie was an interesting guy. We really liked him. His tour had ended abruptly in Andalucia when a board fell off a truck and hit him. It hit his rear wheel and sent him and the bike tumbling down the road. The driver didn't stop. Willie was mostly okay, just cut in the back of his heel. But his 40-spoke rear wheel was a lost cause.

Fortunately the police were very helpful. They took him to a hospital then a bike store. They spent the whole day helping him he said.

He never could get his bike fixed. it had a special wheel and he didn't want to replace it with anything else. Also I imagine he was a little shaken up. It reminded us how lucky we have been. In two years almost no accidents. (And the ones we had were minor). Willie had an accident on his fifth day.

A lot of the Algarve is just rows and rows of hotels and apartment buildings. A lot of tourists come and stay in these probably nice places. I suppose if you buy a tour package of Portugal you stay in one of these. But the more we saw of them, the more we loved our place in Burgau.

Even out of crowded Faro we discovered some great little back roads, wonderful for biking. We went through a lot of tiny little towns and tasted the beers. Many of the towns had amazing cemeteries which looked like miniature villages except all the houses looked like churches. Each tomb was really a little house. They were close together with a little sidewalk and front.

In the evening we got back on the tourist road and went through a town where all the back packers hangout. That means that instead of meeting British families of four on vacation we saw 20 something kids hanging out. We preferred the Brits but really were sort of back packers ourselves.

We stopped at an excellent bike store and got a new front derailleur for Joan (her second new one on this trip). We hoped they would have our favorite tires (Continental Town and Country) but they didn't. However, the lady managing the store was curious about the tires we liked so much so she actually wrote down the name so she could order them.

We camped that night about five km from the Spanish border near a town called Monte Gordo.

Next: Andalucia

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