A ship is safe in harbour, but
thats not what ships are for. - William Shed

Buenos Dias - we crossed the border into Spain today and found out where all the sunshine is kept! Suddenly there are cycling paths everywhere, cafes, etc. And the fashion savvy picks up dramatically! Amazing the difference between cultures. We went from Evora to Elvas, which was another lovely walled city. We stayed in a cozy hotel by the aquaduct, and spent time wandering the cobbled city and castles. Elvas has the most well preserved military developments from the Moors (8th century) and the early europeans (through the 15th C) - it is less then 15 km from the Spanish border, so it has seen some action. The people in the little villages we cycle thorugh are so friendly and helpful and like to try and find out about us as we pass through. We are really liking being in Spain and will ikely spend some days cycling through the countryside here. Have to run, tapas to eat, museums to see!

Day late, but hard to keep track of a calendar... HAPPY MOTHERs DAY - to my mum (love you lots), and Joanne, and all my friends and family reading this who are mothers... I have the greatest admiration for all of you (and awe for what you do everyday when I can barely manage myself... and a bit of happy-felt envy)
Another grey day, but we will be staying in Evora to take a break and explore the town, hope to get out to ride along the aqquaduct if the weather cooperates.
Cycling hasnt been all bad (OK Im mellowing or just forgetting...) - people regularly honked and waved to gave us encouragement... we did see some very pretty countryside... and people have certainly tried to be helpful getting us back on track - but you can tell they arent used to cyclists when they give you directions onto a major highway (think 401 around Kingston!).
Last evening was lovely, though cold. We saw some beautiful churches and roman ruins. One had peacocks sitting all over it which really added to the overall impression of grandeur (though for birds that arent supposed to fly Im still not sure how they got up to the top arches).

I have not sought during my life to
amass wealth and to adorn my body, buut I have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty
- Socrates

OK...so I am willing to give everything a second and third try... definately what is needed in the case of cycling in Portugal. I think our mistake was trying to cycle out of Lisbon- we should have grabbed a train east or south to get us out of the populated area. We should have known when we saw only 3 cyclists the whole time we were in Lisbon that its not popular for a reason! We took a ferry across to the peninsula just south of Lisbon and started to head down the coast - what we learned is that small quiet roads dont go anywhere...which had us back on busy highways. We ended the night at Setebal, amd with all of our winding and getting lost we did over 60km on what was supposed to be oureassy start day! Portugal is all hills - ALL hills! Long slow never ending hills - which all seem to go up and never down! Our second day we got stuck in a small town with one hotel - a 4 star very expensive hotel! Wierd... Today we cycled in hours of rain... but we must have been imagining it because we were told it never rains here and if it does it just spits for a bit (this was constant blowing rain). Anyway we are in Evora and it is lovely so it may win us back...

Three days into cycling and if you asked my opinion about cycling in Portugal, I would say DONT DO IT!!!!!
OK, lets back up a bit...
We spent our last day in the Lisbon area in Sintra. We took the regional train, which took about 45 minutes. Lovely little town with lots of palaces, pretty parks (with lots of song birds), winding cobbled streets, castles on hills, etc. You could spend days in the area exploring. We hiked up to the castle ruin, 1200 metres straight up! Great fun being able to run around the walls, in NA they would have this all cordoned off for safety, here its go at your own risk. Fabulous views into the hills and valleys.
Will write more about our cycling adventures later as we are going to grab the little bit of sunshine of today and explore Evora...

Guess I came out here to see
some stuff for myself... I mean, why leave the telling up to everybody else? -
Ani DiFranco