All in Bike Travel
Our last few days of biking through the Extremadura region of Spain included more chances to immerse ourselves in its medieval past and cultural heritage. But leaving the region to enter Castilla Y León is no small matter. The region of Castilla Y León is a high plateau surrounded by mountains. So to get there, we had to climb over the Cordillera Central mountains. That included both breathtaking views, and catching our breath while pedaling 60 km uphill.
We’re now cycling through Extremadura, the west-central part of Spain that has long been under-appreciated by the rest of the world. Spring is arriving, and fruit trees are starting to flower. A celebration seems appropriate. In our case, that’s turned out to be Carnaval.
Andalucía is the part of Spain most influenced by the Mediterranean and its moorish past. And like other regions in Spain, Andalucía has a strong identity, especially with respect to Flamenco song and dance. From a cyclists point of view, Spain also has roads and biking trails that are - for the most part - in pretty good condition. This made the biking easier than in Portugal. It also meant biking through more developed, and fewer remote areas.
The southern coastal region of Portugal is known as the Algarve. With more than a hundred beaches, it attracts tourists from all over the world. We biked eastward along the coast for three days. Along the way, Portugal continued to challenge us physically while offering incredible scenery and the chance to immerse ourselves in the mix of old and new.
The five days of biking from Lisbon to Portugal’s southwestern corner was not expected to be too challenging. With the exception of one mountain park, with a climb through a pass that is only 625 ft high, the terrain would be fairly manageable with low, rolling hills. But nothing was exactly as it seemed, and Portugal threw us a few curve balls.
Lisbon’s medieval quarter is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Europe. The Alfama’s winding alleyways date back to the 8th century, when the Arabic Moors ruled the Mediterranean. We spent most of a day wandering through the Alfama’s narrow passageways, climbing hidden staircases to the top of São Jorge Hill.
Packing up everything we would need for our European bicycle tour turned out to be a bit more complicated than we expected. But in the end, everything fit inside a couple of suitcases, carry-ons and bike boxes. Luck was on our side. We, and all our luggage, arrived in Lisbon intact - and ready to roll.
What equipment will we take with us? A lot will be the same as what we used to bike across the USA. But there are a few things we thought we could improve, and some we wanted to get more experience with for future trips that might be more remote. Check out our gear list.
Predicting the weather is probably a fool’s errand. But there’s comfort in having at least some idea about what the weather might be like for an extended bicycle tour. We graphed the average temperatures and rainfall probabilities for our planned route across Europe in 2019.
Once we decided that we would like to “bike across Europe,” we still had a lot of decisions to make about which countries to visit, when to go, and which route we would take. With more than a dozen major routes to choose from, we had our work cut out for us.
We’ve always enjoyed bicycle touring, and we want to see more of the world. Now’s the time to do it, no excuses. In February 2019 we’ll board a plane to Lisbon, Portugal, with our bikes and all of the gear we will need for 10 months cycling across Europe.
