Category: Spain and Portugal 2021

The 634 from the outskirts of the seaside village of Ribadesella to Ariondas is wide and smooth with sweeping bends pretty much all of the nine miles, and completely traffic free, at 7am. 

Six days ago I went to visit the lake at Covadonga, but once too much traffic gets up there they barrier the road off, maybe we should do that with The Lake District? 😆 So the only way you can see it once the barriers are down is to go by paid coach. The friendly girl on the gate said if I got there before 8.30am I could go up on the bike, free of charge as well!  When I was up in the mountains at La Raya it was too far to ride there so made a point of booking some accommodation not too far away to give it a second attempt.

It’s a 45 minute ride from here to the entrance so, to be on the safe side I got up just after 6am and was on the road by seven. I was looking forward to it but started to doubt things as I headed up the only road leading to the ‘check point’. Traffic was starting to build and I knew that all this wouldn’t be for just the monastery situated near the entrance. Knocking off a few overtakes ended up being a pointless exercise, and by the time I was about a mile away it was like Ambleside to Bowness on a Bank Holiday Monday. I got to the barriers to find them down at 7.45. The young man said that they closed them just after seven, but said I could come back at 9pm!

Having pondered my options, including setting off at 6am tomorrow, I decided that I won’t bother as the place will obviously be rammed and therefore diminish the whole appeal of the place. So we’ll have to do with an internet photo.

The plus side to just turning around and riding back meant that I will get some breakfast, which is only served from 8.30am, AND I can hopefully find my wallet, which like many things now, I seem to be misplacing. Back in my room I reverted to talking to myself yet again “Now don’t panic” I kept repeating as I searched through all my belongings whilst at the same time running images of the last 12 hours through my mind. I was right not to panic, isn’t funny that when you find what you lost everything fits into place and the memory comes flooding back? “Oh yeah, I remember now”!

Continue reading “A Different Kind of Day”

Carlos has just sent me this of their tour 🤗

My present stopover is a family run B&B three miles east of Ribadesella, and as FB friends have been urging me to get out swimming, from one of the many beautiful beaches, I had to think ‘travel light’ from a completely new angle. 

I managed to wrap my two Liteloks around the tiny backrest, as these would be needed to secure my helmet jeans and jacket whilst swimming. There is just enough space under the seat for my wallet, phone and room key. The rest of my stuff was in the Triumph shoulder bag which I left on a rock not far from where I swam. Everything went, dare I say ‘swimmingly’, and after my dip I dried off by walking the mile beach and back.

Continue reading “Being a Bather not a Biker”

Sunday was always going to be my non biking day, so the fact that I woke to rain hammering down on my skylight window had no detrimental effect to my mood whatsoever, I might even go for a jog as I like running in the rain!

The main reason I wanted this to be Reg’s rest day is because I need to plan my route to southern Spain, taking into account the intense heat of the inland areas and the Covid rules should I decide to stick to the coast for the 800 mile journey. That will entail Spain, Portugal, Spain and having the attention span of something that doesn’t have a very good attention span, I’m veering towards the ‘wing it’ approach.

Nothing really seems to fit, I have no set destination in Portugal, am double jabbed and have all the documentation to prove it, the chances of being stopped and checked (if I can find a suitable gap in the border crossing a la Steve McQueen in The Great Escape) is almost zero, and in the worst case scenario, *Reg can outrun anything else that the authorities have*.

*Although this is true, I won’t actually do it, as spending a week reliving Papillon’s life on Devil’s Island, surviving off the occasional cockroach isn’t the type of holiday accommodation I was hoping for. You sense a Steve McQueen theme developing?

Update: Carlos lives close to the Portuguese border and he reckons (with having the documentation I already have) I won’t have a problem, any issues I’ll just mention his name 😆

Continue reading “It’s a Beautiful Life!”

The two ‘Munsters’ who appear to be, and I use this term loosely, running this place, seem to delight at trying to outdo each other in surliness, they make Basil Fawlty look like he’s been to charm school!

On the plus side the room is cool, in a temperature way, without having to have the windows open to invite the local mozzies in for a party, so a decent night’s sleep is assured. It’s a large room with a good sized bathroom and all the hotel has varnished wood floors which gives a different, but pleasant feel. It’s very clean and the food in the restaurant was actually good, even though Herman barked at me “No paella” when I requested it. For the princely sum of £27 a night (room only) I can’t complain, and to be fair, if it wasn’t for those two it’d actually be excellent!

Continue reading “Fawlty Towers”

Yesterday was a bit of a toughie, 250 miles and eight hours on the road (stopping for coffee, lunch etc) so it was with some relief that I arrived at a lovely small family run hotel which oozes the quality I’ve been missing.

Let’s get the biking stuff out of the way first.

Imagine somebody said to you “We’re going to close the Lake District to everybody but you for one day. We’ll resurface all the roads you want to ride on, make them half as wide again, choose the perfect weather and whatever bike you want”. That’s what the first 100 miles were like yesterday, for fear of becoming boringly repetitive, for a motorcyclist or even a cyclist, northern Spain, I suppose like many hilly and mountainous places in Europe, is a ‘biker’s’ nirvana!

A fault with Reg though, I think his speedo must be far too optimistic and the position of the footrests seem to be too close to the road surface! 🤔 

Continue reading “Galicia -It’s Green!”

So much has happened in such a short space of time you might actually fall asleep reading this!

A Quick Recap

After Santiago de Compestella and World’s End, I had another day (Friday) at Gres for a shorter ride out, I took photos and video but all you’re getting is one and a very short story.

I stopped for morning coffee at a place I assumed was run by a lady, I don’t know why I thought that, it just had an ambiance about it. Now don’t get the impression that I’m particularly looking for establishments run by ‘ladies’, I can assure you that’s not the case at all! So I was surprised to find an old geezer behind the bar, in Spanish I asked for a coffee and it was like I was speaking to him in a foreign language, eventually we got there and I got a small cake, all for just one euro! 😱

Continue reading “A lot has happened (and it’s not all here)”

As I ride out of the underground car park from the rather excellent Ibis hotel in Coimbra, I am greeted by a remarkable light! Maybe because the last few days have been dominated by various levels of cloud interspersed with sunny intervals, but the brightness of the blue sky with just a few tiny white clouds, was quite striking. It reminded me of the light in Greece, it just seems different, and as I head south resuming my journey along the same IC2 road which had brought me to Coimbra yesterday, I felt a certain dread that I was in for another tedious ride. I needn’t have worried as it’s a different kettle of fish to the previous section. With the light coloured road surface reflecting the amazing light it gave me a feel good factor. 

To say that after two weeks I am now feeling ‘on holiday’ wouldn’t be true, on two counts. Firstly I don’t have holidays because I don’t work, this is my life just in a different location. Secondly, this is not a story about some guy riding his motorbike across Europe, it’s far more than that, and as most, if not all of you know, this isn’t just a ‘Voyage of Discovery’ geographically, it is also personally.

Further south the condition of the road surface of the IC2 deteriorated to such an extent that at times I could no longer weave between the bad bits and had no option but to reduce my speed to within the legally permitted limits.

Fortunately things improved when it shared its number with the N1, and I could start to enjoy some smooth black tarmac which meandered a path through some more attractive countryside, until I hit the suburbs of Lisbon. 

Continue reading “Voyage of Discovery”

You are playing a very important part for me on this trip

There are times when I’m riding the bike I want you to feel how I feel, how good it is to be sweeping through corners on lovely smooth roads and taking in the stunning scenery. 

I’m not eloquent enough to properly describe this journey, but I enjoy striving to find the words and phrases to adequately convey how it would feel to be travelling with me. This occupies my mind in a good way, and if I didn’t have you to think about and write to, then this truly would be a lonely experience, so thank you!

Continue reading “My Virtual Travel Buddies”

Hi,

Reg here, I thought it was time I had my say for a change, especially as we’ve been on the road together now for three weeks and three thousand miles. Between you and me I think the old man is getting a bit long in the tooth for this blog malarkey, so as he’s having a day off I’ll get my tuppence worth in.

I heard that Bramble used to do a quality blog when she was around, so really Bri is just filling in until somebody/thing can do a proper job!

Continue reading “One Lump or Two?”