bigjim
Legendary Member
- Location
- Manchester. UK
Day 1.
So. Done France for the last two years. Can’t go this year until late September. French weather may be dodgy. Hmm. Need to go further south. Spain? Maybe but could be too hot and those Pyrenees look dodgy for my old knees and lungs. Portugal? OK. Never cycled there. Porto looks nice. Time to do a bit Googling. Looks good, but inland it’s hilly. Avoid Lisbon! So say the experts. Okay seems reasonable, major city and all. Best route. Down the coast from Porto. Turn left before Lisbon and head inland for a slow ride down to Faro. Twelve days to cover 450 miles including a few days off and it looks promising. Something different. Easy stuff. Don’t you just love the confidence? If I’d known then etc.
My mate is up for it but he wants to be away longer. His idea is to start from Bilbao and meet me in Porto. Okay Henry. Deal. Go for it! Henry wants to camp so he’s taking the full Monty. Me? No way. I’ve read B&Bs are cheap and plentiful. I’ll take my silk liner and a foil blanket for emergencies but that’s it.
Flight is booked from Liverpool and return from Faro to Manchester. Henry is now out there and e-mailing me regularly from his route. Weather is scorching I’m told and hills are killers. He seems to be on a lot of buses and trains as well. Oh and he’s sending heavy camping stuff back to the UK. My kind of cycling this. Avoid the pain at all costs.
Departure day for me arrives and my long-suffering wife drops me at Liverpool airport. It’s a sad goodbye [big soft me] and I trundle across to departures with my big cardboard box. I sadly look back. There is a woman skipping towards my car humming a happy tune. She looks like my wife but that can’t be. My wife would be desolate and in tears. Still. It does bear a strong resemblance…. No. Can’t be. I’m off to check-in. Talk to a guy in the cattle Pen at the gate. He’s off to Portugal to busk his way around. No return plans. Smells a bit iffy but a nice guy. They take his guitar off him and put it in the hold. Amazing who you meet when travelling.
I’m installed in a window seat next to two huge ladies who are in love with their mobile phones. I think they are texting each other because they are more than two inches apart. “Hi Janice I’m just taking off.” “Hey so am I, Got a weirdo bloke sitting next to me though, wearing funny shoes”. You know what I mean.
Never raise their heads from the screens. No conversation with each other or me. Sod this! As soon as the seatbelt lights are off, I’m squeezing past their plump knees and grabbing a set of empty seats opposite for my 6’2” frame. Why do airlines do that? Cram you all together when the planes half empty? Oh well. Comfy flight for me.
I find the bike box hiding in a corner of Porto airport, keeping company with a Guitar case.
Henry is having a few rest days in Porto and has booked a studio apartment in the city. He has used the Metro into the airport to enable him to give me a lift with putting the bike together as it is now after 9pm and I don’t know the Metro system. We soon assemble the bike and head out onto the Tram. The bike is accepted on the trams there and we take seats next to my bike, as it’s sometimes a rough old ride. At one point I end up with a beautiful young Portuguese lady on my lap as she is thrown off balance by the tram. I’ve had worst days.
We are soon in the city and I experience the Portuguese cobbles for the first time and the very steep hills. It’s a nice city apartment, but small with one of those double beds that fold up into the wall. Double beds! We’re friendly but not that way. I make a bed from the settee cushions and bed down on the floor of the kitchen area. Earplugs in to hide Henry’s snores and other unmentionable noises and drift away.
Big day tomorrow.
So. Done France for the last two years. Can’t go this year until late September. French weather may be dodgy. Hmm. Need to go further south. Spain? Maybe but could be too hot and those Pyrenees look dodgy for my old knees and lungs. Portugal? OK. Never cycled there. Porto looks nice. Time to do a bit Googling. Looks good, but inland it’s hilly. Avoid Lisbon! So say the experts. Okay seems reasonable, major city and all. Best route. Down the coast from Porto. Turn left before Lisbon and head inland for a slow ride down to Faro. Twelve days to cover 450 miles including a few days off and it looks promising. Something different. Easy stuff. Don’t you just love the confidence? If I’d known then etc.
My mate is up for it but he wants to be away longer. His idea is to start from Bilbao and meet me in Porto. Okay Henry. Deal. Go for it! Henry wants to camp so he’s taking the full Monty. Me? No way. I’ve read B&Bs are cheap and plentiful. I’ll take my silk liner and a foil blanket for emergencies but that’s it.
Flight is booked from Liverpool and return from Faro to Manchester. Henry is now out there and e-mailing me regularly from his route. Weather is scorching I’m told and hills are killers. He seems to be on a lot of buses and trains as well. Oh and he’s sending heavy camping stuff back to the UK. My kind of cycling this. Avoid the pain at all costs.
Departure day for me arrives and my long-suffering wife drops me at Liverpool airport. It’s a sad goodbye [big soft me] and I trundle across to departures with my big cardboard box. I sadly look back. There is a woman skipping towards my car humming a happy tune. She looks like my wife but that can’t be. My wife would be desolate and in tears. Still. It does bear a strong resemblance…. No. Can’t be. I’m off to check-in. Talk to a guy in the cattle Pen at the gate. He’s off to Portugal to busk his way around. No return plans. Smells a bit iffy but a nice guy. They take his guitar off him and put it in the hold. Amazing who you meet when travelling.
I’m installed in a window seat next to two huge ladies who are in love with their mobile phones. I think they are texting each other because they are more than two inches apart. “Hi Janice I’m just taking off.” “Hey so am I, Got a weirdo bloke sitting next to me though, wearing funny shoes”. You know what I mean.
Never raise their heads from the screens. No conversation with each other or me. Sod this! As soon as the seatbelt lights are off, I’m squeezing past their plump knees and grabbing a set of empty seats opposite for my 6’2” frame. Why do airlines do that? Cram you all together when the planes half empty? Oh well. Comfy flight for me.
I find the bike box hiding in a corner of Porto airport, keeping company with a Guitar case.
Henry is having a few rest days in Porto and has booked a studio apartment in the city. He has used the Metro into the airport to enable him to give me a lift with putting the bike together as it is now after 9pm and I don’t know the Metro system. We soon assemble the bike and head out onto the Tram. The bike is accepted on the trams there and we take seats next to my bike, as it’s sometimes a rough old ride. At one point I end up with a beautiful young Portuguese lady on my lap as she is thrown off balance by the tram. I’ve had worst days.
We are soon in the city and I experience the Portuguese cobbles for the first time and the very steep hills. It’s a nice city apartment, but small with one of those double beds that fold up into the wall. Double beds! We’re friendly but not that way. I make a bed from the settee cushions and bed down on the floor of the kitchen area. Earplugs in to hide Henry’s snores and other unmentionable noises and drift away.
Big day tomorrow.
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