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Portugal


My bike at Cabo da Roca, Continental Europe's most Westerly point and the starting point for this ye... Tourists, some on bikes. These were the only cyclcists I saw at the Cape, although there were severa... The lighthouse at Cabo da Roca. Me at Cabo da Roca. I'm afraid there isn't a picture of the bike and me together here. In this wind,... Another view of the lighthouse and the motorbike congregation area. The Atlantic Ocean, some 130 metres below me. Tourists. Cabo da Roca. Cabo da Roca. A better picture of my bike. Cabo da Roca. The car park, although there aren't many cars in it. Cabo da Roca again. A view of the Atlantic coast. Views from the road. The wind is incredibly strong here. This photograph was taken facing into the wind. When I came up t... I'm not sure what that it but I don't think it's a tree! This motorway ends here. This slip road seems to have been built ready for some posible future exten... My lunch. Lunch. The old part of the town of Cascais. Cascais. Cascais. Cascais. Cascais. Cascais. Cascais, seen from the coast road. That looks like a four-person jet-ski. A view from the coast road. A view from the coast road. A view from the coast road. A view from the coast road. I did consider staying in the hotel on the right but it was a bit expensive. Estoril Casino. Estoril. A view from the coast road. A lot of this coast reminds me of California. Oeiras. I didn't use that McDonalds. Most of the road names in this area are painted on tiles like this. I'm now going slightly off the main road. The view from a railway bridge. The view underneath the same bridge. This rocky track only lasted for about a kilometre, then it turned into a four-lane highway without ... The approach to Lisbon. The approach to Lisbon. Buildings. A war memorial. The wall at the back is covered in names. Flags. The area around Belem Tower. Belem Tower. A tourist on a hired Segway. The area around Belem Tower. The coastal cycle way, the Explorers' Monument and the 25th of April Bridge. An old lighthouse. The area in front of the Cultural Centre and Archaeological Museum. The area in front of the Cultural Centre and Archaeological Museum. Remote-controlled sailing boats on the lake. The Archaeological Museum. The Explorers' Monument. San Francisco or Rio de Janeiro? Under the bridge. The traffic on it makes a lot of noise. The underneath of the bridge. I had to get off and walk here, where the path goes between a row of restaurants and their waterfron... There are some fish in the foreground. Some recreational space near the docks. The docks. Lisbon. Lisbon. Lisbon. Praca do Comércio, Lisbon's main square, where I fell off the bike but somehow nobody seemed to noti... This photograph was taken from the same place as the previous one. This waterfront area is part of t... Another view of the same place. The Military Museum. A back street. Another back street, with the Oriente station in the distance. I'm now entering the area created for Expo '89. It's all rather modern and swish around here. Part of the Expo '89 park. This is some kind of acoustic exhibit. People were shouting into the ends of it. Part of the Expo '89 park. The large stone in the foreground is a marker for the Camino de Santiago. I saw another one ... Part of the Expo '89 park. Part of the Expo '89 park. This was a kind of water volcano. Every now and then, it would errupt, startling onlookers. A better view of the Oriente station. I'm still in the Expo '89 park. Another of those volcano things. Part of my route out of Lisbon. Canoeists. Sugar cane growing at the side of the road, and occasionally impinging on my hard shoulder. I'm getting hungry again now. I've never used a drive-through on a bike before so this was something new. Dinner! A view from the road. The Bull Ring in Vila Franca de Xira. Vila Franca de Xira. Vila Franca de Xira. This tree was crammed with noisy birds, with more flocking to it from all directions. Vila Franca de Xira. I saw this collection of buildings from the air as I flew into Lisbon a couple of days ago and knew ... The view from my balcony of where I won't be having breakfast in the morning. Another view from my balcony. Somewhere just behind those trees is a railway line. It sounds pretty ... I had intended to have breakfast here but it doesn't open for another 42 minutes. I thought this road looked almost tropical. Interesting rock formations. Also, look how wide my hard shoulder is! I wonder if the risk of a forest fire was shown as higher yesterday when it hadn't been raining. It looks like something big is being built under Cartaxo. I have seen several illuminated archways like this across roads. They must have big birds here! One of the entrances to Santarém. One of several adverts fot the Communist Party which I saw today. The church in Santarém. Santarém. Another touring cyclist! I think he was French. He's going in the opposite direction to me, towards ... I made up for missing breakfast by having a large lunch. My lunch stop in Santarém. My lunch stop in Santarém. Another entrance to Santarém. A pretty view from the road. This is how a speed recommendataion for a corner should be done. Our silly signs in Britain have wri... The motorway, seen from the alternative road which I am using. I saw trees like this in the Isles of Scilly last year. Are these olive trees? Another of these tile murals. They are everywhere. I must be heading into a drier region. Cacti have started appearing along the road. Every roundabout on the Torres Novas bypass seemed to have interesting statues on it. I like this road! Here's another of those statues. And another. I don't know if these things have anything to do with that distillery in the background... And another. Torres Novas Castle. I seem to have inadvertently made a stereoscopic version of this picture. Try i... Torres Novas. Torres Novas. Torres Novas. Torres Novas. There's a giant flag on the left. It must take a lot of wind to make it fly properly. My bike locked up for the night. Torres Novas in the evening. Every town and village has an array of bins for different types of rubbish. They aren't always toget... A noria, a water wheel which lifts water into the pipe which runs off to the left. The village of Arripiado, seen from Tancos. The river here is the Tagus, the longest river in Iberia... Just a train and a church. A couple of minutes earlier, I saw some workmen laying the white strip in the middle of another road... Another wiew of the river and Almourol Castle. The road may be straight but it isn't flat. I didn't realise when I took this photograph that this was a military establishment. A little furthe... A tupperware factory. The A23 motorway. I showed you a square speed recommendation sign yesterday. The blue sign here show... My breakfast picnic. I brought four burgers along to eat on the ride today but wasn't that hungry an... Another view. I wasn't sure what was being farmed here: the straw, the trees or both. Another view. The line just below the horizon is the motorway. This church was loudly chiming the hour just before I got here. I think it might have been a recordi... Another view. Is that meant to be a penguin? These were the first grapes I saw. A rather conical hill. All afternoon, I was going up and down hills like these. I suppose the road shown in the previous picture has avoided a little bit of climbing by not going d... I stopeed in this village to buy some water, not noticing that there was a drinking fountain just op... Tiny Haystacks, one of the 1980s' lesser know wrestlers. I don't know what these are. Is this how you grow boxes of wine? The view from part-way down a rather exciting descent. Another view from the same place. Okay, let me get this right. The slow lane is closed so everybody has to use the overtaking lane, wh... The view from part-way up the last big climb. It's good to see my next country appearing on signs already. I will be going a different way though ... In a way, this is copying the style of some of the very earliest McDonalds restaurants by having an ... There goes the Sun. Another view of the sunset. A policeman who had been driving quite some distance behind me shouted a... A fountain in Castelo Branco. The best place I could find to lock the bike in Castelo Branco was to this dog waste bin. There's plenty of room for drying washing on my huge balcony. This place didn't open until ten o'clock and even then wasn't ready to serve any food. There were no... Castelo Branco. Castelo Branco. The old part of Castelo Branco is quite steep. I thought this arch was worth its own picture. Castelo Branco. Castelo Branco. Just outside the crowded old town with its narrow twisty cobbled streets, I was surprised to find th... Another view of Castelo Branco. The last one. There were quite a lot of these growing along the roadside. I don't know what has happened to all the bark off the trunk of that tree. The motorway on the left and my road on the right. I passed several of these today. Oranges on the near tree and pears on the far one. A view from the first of today's big climbs. The writing on this milestone seems to have changed over the years. I've noticed over the years that there seems to be a kind of karma which means that if ever you're a... The French people in that car are braver that I am to try ordering through a drive-through intercom ... Covilha, which calls itself The view from part-way up today's second climb. Every second pole along this road had what looked like coils of spare cable. Self portrait. Another view. A view of a village across the valley. You can hear the sounds associated with this picture ... Some of the things that grow here. Yet another view. This GPS gives height relative to the WGS84 ellipsoid, rather than relative to sea level so my heigh... This little horse came over to see me. I was a bit sorry to ride off and leave it. The evening colours on the field on the left looked better than this in real life. Because of the late breakfast, the puncture and the hills, it was getting late when I reached Guarda... The view from my hotel in Guarda. I didn't get to see it when I arrived here because it was complete... Rock formations. The motorway running alongside my road. A view along the road. According to the sign, this 21 km section of road has been improved at a cost of € 1,682,159.59... Cows. I think that's a railway viaduct. The modern motorway viaduct seen from below. I didn't have the luxury of a viaduct so I had to come all the way down here and back up again. The village of Castelo Bom. Like the small horse yesterday, this one came over to see what I was doing when I tried to photograp... These cameras look like they are monitoring all traffic on the motorway going over the border. The railway station in Vilar Formoso, the first station in Portugal on this line.