09/27/2023 Bikepacking Spain Day 50 : Part One Done

Last night, we stayed at a parking lot. It was listed on an app called “park4free”. I was walking to get water and noticed a “D” on the license plate of this couple (Germany) and figured they spoke English - which they did. I deliberated a bit because I’m introverted, but glad I went and talked to them because we ended up spending the entire evening chatting. Thomas and Silvia are traveling with their dog Julie and they have two home made e-bikes on their RV. She gets 500W motor and he only has 250W because he bought his first. He is a bit jealous of her, but she pulls the dog in a trailer with her motor. They will do an entire month in Portugal and then another 1.5 months in Spain. They can do this because they bought apartments, rent them out, and that pays their “rent”… which is free if you “park4free”. —

Today was kind of a commute for us. It is such a change after being in lots of mountains and nature to transition to urban areas. This part of travel is so hard for me… urbanity. After being in mountains for so long, the juxtaposition becomes extremely pronounced. Going the other direction (from urban back to “nature”) is always so much easier. This is a necessary evil of the route.. and we will be back to remote villages soon. If you’ve been following our tracker, you can see the next leg by scrolling to the South of Spain here: —

We approach people with a “good day” in Portuguese.. but then ask if they speak Spanish. Many say yes, but they barely do. Everyone so far has been really nice to us about that and works hard to help us out. They all understand everything we say; they just don’t speak it so we can understand! —

Once we hit the wide part of the river, we saw lots of these ferry boats going up and down. This one is entering a loch. We thought of our friends Jo and Kevin Shaw who just did a trip like this… and also Ann, Gordon, and Terri where they could ride bikes during the day and meet the boat at night. —

Always seeking the “unique” routes, we found a hole in the fence to take the old bridge instead of the new highway one. —

To get to the South, we will (hopefully) take 4 trains. This is the first. These slower trains accept bicycles… however there is no guarantee that your bike will be accepted. We just showed up early and had good luck with this train. There are 3 more trains (though the last one is only 1 hour, so if it doesn’t work out, we could feasibly ride). We tried to book the bikes - there is an option to buy tickets online - but no matter what route you try, it fails with bikes added and only works with people. This means you have to hedge your bets on being allowed to board. You can’t take full size bikes on any high speed trains in Spain or Portugal - but if you package them up in a small bag (think complete disassembly, including swingarm) then you could travel 200mph across the countryside. You can take bikes on all the slow trains in both countries - but you might get turned away by a conductor. In 2019, I got a free 45 minute Spanish lesson from a hard headed conductor in Spain (he didn’t like the size of the tandem). Unfortunately, free or not, I am not looking forward to any Portuguese lessons, should they arise. 🤞 —

Sorry guys, but it’s always hard for me to resist a little potty talk. In the center of the photo, that illumination you’re looking at the train rails zooming by at 50mph. The hole you’re looking own is the train toilet. Lesson: be careful when crossing the train tracks in Portugal - for more than one reason! 🚽

Excellent write up as usual Brian! I also hope you don’t get any free lessons in Portuguese.

Jörg Jorge George Giorgio G.