This was the first time Santana Cycles had run the Spain/ Portugal trip so there were a few kinks to be ironed out. Bill McCready, the leader of the trip and owner of Santana Cycles, is very good at getting things back on track when they look like they're about to go sideways. There was the time that
Another time the Spanish authorities got a little nervous because they thought that our group would be like the Tour de France closing down roads and disrupting traffic. With the help of a volunteer translator from among the cyclists, Bill managed to allay the governor's fears and we were off the next morning as planned, albeit with a fairly heavy police presence at the pier where we started.
Our last stop was Lisbon, during the NATO summit. All cars were being searched on the way into Portugal and a number of roads that we would have taken were closed. We ended up doing quite a bit of riding in traffic to get to our ship, not our favourite thing to do, but at least we've done it before and know how to do it.
All in all, the cycling wasn't the highlight of the trip for us, a few too many unknowns and a bit too much time pressure. We broke a chain the first day and that put us behind so that we missed a winery tour which, apparently, had fantastic architecture. We rode like crazy one day to make sure we got to the ship in time only to discover that we had the wrong time in our minds and the ship hadn't even arrived when we got there.
Richard says he saw a lot of Spanish pavement as we didn't really take much time in stops. The weather was perfect, for us, highs in the low 20's. Some folks from warmer climes found it chilly but I had my tights on for all of five minutes one morning before getting too hot and taking them off. We rode mostly in shorts and short-sleeved jerseys, although the wind jackets were handy first thing in the morning. The only time we used insulation clothing and our rain jackets was in Tangier where it had rained and was cooler than most of the other places we stopped. Who would have expected that?
Gibraltar was fascinating and I would like to go back and spend more
Much to my delight, we had two bird surprises. In Barcelona I elected to stay in the hotel room and get som
On the Danube trip two years ago, I was disappointed when we elected to stay on board one day and missed seeing storks. Well, this time we saw storks in Portimao. They really are as large as people have told me!
All in all the trip was enjoyable. We'd like to return to some of the places we
The next adventure awaits.
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