Seville and to Portugal

Today’s plan was to get to Tavira Portugal in 372 KM.

We drove thru Ronda again and then made for Sentenil where the village is built in a narrow valley and the old cave dwellings have been used to build the houses and shops.

Then we made for Sevilla. Here we contacted Jose, who we had met on the road from hell in Morocco.

He has a 1200 and wanted to give us a tour of the city. There is a massive festival here in April called the Feiria de Avril. Basically the city “lives” casa’s in the fair. They dress in costumes and party day and night for an entire week. Jose managed to talk the police into letting us into the restricted area with the bike so we could get a photo at the “gate of the fair”.

After this he convinced them to watch our bikes so we could walk around. They even invited us into their “ casa or house” so we could try the traditional drink “Manzanilla”.

Then we continued west. “Welcome to Portugal”.

We booked the night in Tavira, which was once a small fishing village and is in summer a tourist Mecca.

Today we rode from Tavira to the southern most tip of Portugal and then back to the small village of Espargal for XXXX KM.

From Tavira we rode 170 KM along the coast, which here in Portugal is not a coast road as you see say on the west coast of the USA, but it slightly inland and very built up. We stopped in Albufeira, but it is really not that nice a town. The beach to the south is more scenic.

Further south and west is Sagres, which is quite nice and the fresh grilled red snapper for lunch was delicious.

There is a large fort here at the point that in the past was to protect the city from raiders from North Africa. It is more of a wall that closes off the 60 m cliffs than a traditional fort. The huge sundial is read from the top of the ramparts. The locals are actually fishing from these cliffs.

Further west 8 km from here is Cabo San Vicente, which is the most south west point of Portugal and where it was thought “that land ended” before the discovery of the “new world”. The lighthouse is built in 1846 on the ruins of a 16 th century convent.

We had been invited to the home of Annette and Tony in the tiny village of Espargal. To get back the 150 Km we did take the highway to get back faster. They are the parents of Neil who we had met at the ferry to Victoria this past summer. Neil and Franziska had spent the summer crossing Canada and were headed south. They are currently in Ecuador. We had a lovely night out at a local place with a number of their friends. The villagers still uses the Roman well here.