Lisbon

Wednesday
So we found a bike shop (finally) and managed to put our bikes together properly. Jen spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun somewhere in town, while I went back to the hotel and slaved away on the bikes fitting the bike racks and putting Jen's new cable disc brakes together.

Had all-you-can-eat sushi train for dinner! It was awesome for only 9.80 euro each.

Thursday
Ben Rhee came on Thursday! We had to check out of our hotel cos it was fully booked (big European holiday and long weekend on Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun, so everyone in Europe is on holidays). Got our gear onto our panniers and rode to our new hotel a bit further out from town. On the way we passed a big marathon event; the traffic was closed off so we rode with them and cheered them on. It was tres cool.

We met Ben at the Metro near our hotel and got him settled in. Lots of catching up was done. We went for a nice wander around town and managed to get to the cool castle overlooking Lisbon. Fortunately it was free! We got a great sunset view over Lisbon and took photos galore. Had a lovely dinner together and felt fat and happy.

Friday
Hung with Ben all day; we basically spent the day wandering around Lisbon and seeing the sights. Caught a tram to Belum, about 20mins west of Lisbon and saw a cool old cathedral and other such building stuff. It was a beautiful day and we had lunch on the grass in Belum. We also tried some Port from Porto. Bought some postcards and stamps, and then promptly forgot about writing in them. Still have them in our bags.

Picnic in Belum

Then we went back to Lisbon and wandered around Bairo Alto, which is kinda the Brunswick of Lisbon... lots of cool bohemian-like shops and funky restaurants. We had the best dinner ever at a cool restaurant that should've cost twice as much; Ben had a shrimp and mango curry (ohmygod yum) and Jen had a Spinach and Ricotta tarts with strawberry sauce and apple sauce on the side (amazing) and I had a pasta with mushrooms, fruit and nuts and a blue cheese sauce (freakin' great). The capirhinas were good also.

Beautiful night views of Lisbon

Wandered back and took lots of night photos. A great day indeed!

Saturday
Ben left us early Saturday morning :(
It was sad to see him go; it just wasn't long enough! We can't believe he came all the way down from Sweden to see us. As it was a major European holiday, it was difficult for him to get flights. So he ended up flying into Porto, on Thursday caught a 4 hour bus to Lisbon that day, hanging out with us for the next 2 days, and then he had to catch a bus from Lisbon to Faro (another 4 hours!) where he caught a plane to Oslo, Norway. Then the poor bastard had to catch an overnight bus back to Stockholm!!!!

Ben, you're a bloody legend and we love you to bits.

So after Ben left, we still had to pick up a few last minute things from the bike shop, and we ended up leaving Lisbon on our bikes at 3:30pm!

Getting out of town was horrendous (as it always is anywhere in the world) and took us almost 2 hours. We only rode about 25km that day but we were stressed out and knackered, but very happy to be out of the city. Managed to find a cool campsite at a place called Almornos. This place felt very much like home; lots of cheery campers around and a whole lot of gum trees. Jen spent a lot of time reminiscing about her childhood holidays driving up country Vic and NSW.

Sunday
We rode 80km today... a good hit-out and I think we held together well. Jen's bum is quite sore however. We headed west along country roads to the coast, and then rode north up some very very steep roads (not good for unfit people like us!) until we reached a cool place called Lourinha. On the way we passed numerous surf beaches and a place called Santa Cruz. Sunny weather and tan lines already.

Monday
Today we left Lourinha and picked our way around the coast, having to go inland for quite a ways to get around an inlet. Passed a cool place called Obidos which had a cool castle. Had lunch in Foz do Arelho on the coast and then as we rode off from that, noticed my bike had busted!

It was the braze-on where the pannier attaches to the bike near the rear axle. It had snapped cleanly off! So that was where we had to stay; fortunately there was a campsite a few kms away and I carefully managed to ride back there without any further mishap.

Set up tents, then rode into the nearest town 8km away called Caldas Da Rainha and tried to find a welder! Got pointed to a bike shop called "Bike Zone" which was full of bike bling. The dudes there were speaking rapidly in Portuguese trying to find a solution to the problem. I told them the Surly was steel, but they didn't believe me, and set about organising an aluminium welder. However, I told them a few more times and pointed to the sticker which read "chrome-moly" and then they believed me (well actually Jen told the bike man's wife who spoke english and she told him, and then they checked the sticker). A few phone calls later and the dude had found a mate who was a mechanic and had a welder, so we rode over to there and got it welded! For free!!

Now we're in McDonald's using free WiFi. Tasty and good.

See yaz later.