We’re back on the Camino de Santiago. But now we’re biking on the French Route, heading away from Santiago. The thorns in our tires - probably acquired back in Portugal - continued to plague us by causing flat tires. A poor routing decision ended up sending us over 60 km on gravel roads. And we’re pretty sure we discovered the steepest hills in Spain, because if they were any steeper, you just wouldn’t be able to get up them at all. It’s been a busy few days.

After nine days biking the Camino de Santiago (Vía de la Plata route), we are now leaving the Camino to head northeast on EuroVelo 1. The route takes us across the vast agricultural plateau of Castilla y León, where you can bike for many kilometers without seeing a single tree. 

On 9-10 March 2019 we biked across the remaining mountains of the Cordillera Central, and descended onto the high plateau of Castilla y León. The contrast in terrain, scenery, land use and architecture between the ring of mountains and the plateau was striking.

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.

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.