The next day we wake up, put up with an annoying hostess yet a little more and have a pretty mediocre breakfast. The simple but tasty bread rolls from the north replaced with a pretentious person serving tasteless crap.
I gave the bikes a wipe to get rid of the most apparent muddy rain drops from the previous afternoon's rain, and we set off, stopping in Rosmaninhal to sort out a navigational miscommunication, and again Sofia finds herself making another friend
The tiny municipal road from Rosmaninhal through Tegueiro to Segura is only 25km but it's amazing, and I love it. It's quite narrow so that an average light truck doesn't leave much space for anything else, but it's nice tarmac, often broken in places, with patches of dirt and broken road thrown in. If there was to be a road for trail bikes or supermotos this would be it. I could spend an afternoon riding back and forward there
The views couldn't be more different to the previous days' locations up in Trás os Montes and High Douro:
Extreme heat and overloaded trucks will do this to tarmac.
We got to Segura safe and sound, and went to take a look at the Rio Erges, that's Spain on the other side of the water
We started by heading back on the same lovely road we came in before, and I tried to stop for a picture in similar style to the one I took the first time I was there, except the first time I was by myself and at 40º, today with Sofia it was about 18 or 20º and about to rain. I like these worn out by time road marks.
Stopped at Nisa for a lunch snack, and Sofia was delighted and envious that the local vet has a parking place reserved for his clients'
This Roman bridge has been abandoned from use, but clearly strong enough to handle any load, it's just that the modern two lane road built 50 meters to the side doesn't suit it anymore. It's a shame.
The plan was to go home to Ericeira from there, but plans change and instead we made way to Estremoz and then Alter do Chão to sleep in a lovely little hotel built in an old monastery. I ´ve put pictures of all these places before, and sadly took none this time. Dinner in a tiny cafe in Alentejo made up for the previous night's disgrace with a wonderful typical treat, no pictures of that either as the phone was left in the room.
Bikes slept soundly inside an old warehouse belonging to the monastery, and after a later than ideal breakfast we were off to go home to the coast. No motorways were meant to be taken, and we did just that.
Rode through lovely Alentejo plains and oaks
It was starting to warm up when we stopped in Avis for a coffee and a look around:
Tiny roads turned to 5 or 6km of dirt road, I had been through there before but I never remember what the surface is like unless it's properly dreadful. Sofia didn't back off and the Speed Triple sailed through smoothly, stopping halfway to look at a stream
As we approached Lisbon, we started seeing a lot of bikes, and a lot of foreign ones too. On a short stop we met with some Welsh bikers returning home from watching the Superbikes at the Estoril (Lisbon area). They were riding back to Santander via inner roads, and seemed to be enjoying it immensely, in their late 60s or mid 70s. Someone got really happy from talking to UK people
After that, we rode home almost non stop, it was the end of a nice few days mostly filled with wonderful northern Portuguese scenery.
