Sep 23
Ryley woke Axel and I up in our black out room at 7:45am as we’d asked for breakfast at 8. Axel is a delight in the morning – he always wakes up with a smile on his face, proclaims loudly some random fact “Axel’s sleeping bag is in his bed!” then rolls around in bed giving us a string of kisses.
Our 4b’s hosts Suzanna and Ruí were lovely, breakfast was great (coffee, homemade oat muffins, bread with Pb and homemade veggie spreads). They had a bike pump and set of hex keys for any bike fixings, and a wealth of knowledge of biking in Portugal. They run a gravel bike race every spring – there’s 750km version and a 270km version (no, thanks!). Suzanna also runs a vegetarian restaurant out the opposite side of the BnB, lunch only.
We pumped up our tires (Woo!) and rode out at 11am. It is wild how quickly you are out of town here. The town residential is so dense and the surrounding area is almost immediately agriculture. We meandered through open farmland most of the day today, heading through 3 little towns along the way.
We stopped at a shady picnic area/bird habitat (ie teeny pond) for lunch before heading into Entradas for a cold drink stop and water refill. There were several locals at the Café Centro, as usual, and our Portuguese was poor, as usual. As I went to pay and leave, the Café owner asked if I spoke French. I said yes and proceeded to try to communicate in a jumble of French, Spanish, Portuguese and English. But after a few sentences my French won through and we had a fairly good chat about where we were from, our bike trip and appreciating the friendliness of the locals.
After lunch, we went through our first Olive orchard (Grove? It didn’t feel like a Grove, though). Ryley “choo-choo’d” before a big down hill and I asked Axel, “if dada is the train engine what does that make Axel?” and he answered, “the little red caboose!”. Then he gleefully started singing the little red caboose song on repeat and we dubbed him Little Red Caboose for the rest of the day.
Next up was a big climb up to a tiny church way up on a hill (Ermida de Nossa Senhora de Aracelis). It was hot and hard, and Axel was asleep so we didn’t stop, just huffed and puffed up and over. At least the climb on the ascent was paved, although the descent was not – a bit steep, loose and washboardy.
We got some beautiful clouds for our afternoon ride while Axel napped. We’ve gone through quite a few gates and cattle guards the last 2 days, too. I’m the gate opener as it’s not very doable for Ryley with the trailer. When Axel is asleep we try to get through a gate without Ryley ever really stopping so that Axel doesn’t wake up – a bit of a challenge!
We had a trail-side break in a patch of shade just before 5 when Axel woke up, and he walked a chunk of the trail, before riding up into Alcaria Ruíva to find a restaurant for a beer and maybe dinner.
While enjoying said beer, a woman walked up chatting to Axel in Portuguese. She switched to ok English for us and translated to the restaurant owner that we’d like to eat – he said he’d already offered but in Portuguese so we had no idea 路♀️. She was quite taken with Axel and asked me where we were staying tonight, I said camping and she offered to host us saying she used to run a guest house. I said maybe as I wasn’t sure if we were going to get some cool evening km’s in, but she gave me some rough instructions to her house “the white wall, the green gate” (almost every house has white walls and a green gate, for the record) and told me her name is Anna. A minute later she walked by saying she was going to pick up milk for breakfast (I assume for Axel/us).
We had our dinner at the restaurant and it felt very authentic in this tiny town. We sat and food was brought out, we didn’t really know what. Bread, cheese a sausage to start, then tomato & onion salad in Olive oil, a bowl of olives, a basket of fries and a plate of meat, mostly ribs. And, vinho tinto! We ate our fill but it was a lot of food for 2 adults and a toddler!
The sun was setting and we heading off in the direction of Anna’s house. We found it (we think) and knocked and buzzed, we even tried the gate despite the very barky dog on the other side but it was locked. At this point Axel is fired up and saying “want to stay in Anna’s house” on repeat. It did look very nice, with a beautiful courtyard and a pool. But, no one answered and we didn’t know how else to track down Anna, so we headed out of town to find a spot to camp before it got dark. The sunset was beautiful as we rode down from the town and Axel forgot about Anna’s house in the excitement of setting up the tent and winding down after another big day. I feel bad we didn’t connect with Anna, I think she was excited to host us. Ryley was all for staying with Anna, he said “oh yes, she reminds me of my mom, but with fewer teeth”.
https://strava.app.link/8UUCxr6m8Mb
“Axel is a delight in the morning – he always wakes up with a smile on his face, proclaims loudly some random fact “Axel’s sleeping bag is in his bed!” then rolls around in bed giving us a string of kisses.”
… and I believe we have a quote for Axel’s wedding…