It was good to be leaving the high fliers resort I’m not sure we exactly fitted in wearing our bicycle gear.Tim likes to arrive at places like airports, stations well before departure time so we had a very fast 5km pedal to start our day to get to the ferry before it arrived. There was a bedraggled cyclist with his panniers and tent who just muttered something about crap weather and didn’t want to chat.The ferry took us to Setubal with all its charm and tall Portugese tiled buildings. As our route was quite rural today we stopped for a coffee and tea first.It was great to be paying normal prices.I had the most expensive cup of tea I had ever had in Troia, 7 euros 20.ie.12 aussie dollars.The cycle lane in Setubal took us through a sculpture park which was quite fun before we tackled the serious stuff of climbing out of Setubal.

This was meant to be a gentle day for us but on verifying Tim’s route on google maps we discovered part of the coastal road was closed till Jan 2025.This meant the hilly route with narrow roads.Fortunately the only cars using it were sightseers who were happy to take their time to pass you.It was Saturday so there were groups of fast cyclists shouting out comments like “Go bro” to Tim and “go,go,go” to me as I frantically peddled to get up the next rise.It was fun time for motorcyclists aswell whizzing around the hairpins.I was slowly peddling up an unending hill when I came fact to face with a huge camera, if I stopped I would never have got back on the bike with the hill being so steep.So I am featured on somebody’s video with a great recording of 3 motorbikes leaning over then he gets me as he turns to follow them down.Sorry.

The scenery was spectacular we climbed from the coast to 360m and then undulated along a ridge.The scenery is unusual ancient Mediterranean so the area is all part of the Arrabida national park to preserve this unique vegetation type which also has its own fauna and wildlife.It was worth all the effort to get to the top but we daren’t stay in normal mode on our bikes too long as we knew Sesimbra is a town built into the cliffs.

We zigzagged down the hillside which was dotted with shrines to the Virgin Mary, there was a turn off to the large convent of Our Lady of Arrabida and crosses on all the hill tops.I hoped this didn’t mean an unsafe road.We reached the bottom and it was up and down through small towns.The cars joining the road now were going places so no time for cycle tourists and the motorcyclists not so friendly. One motorcyclist passed so close my leg I felt the heat of his exhaust.

We finally reached Sesimbra and started descending into the town.I had no idea where our appartment was so we stopped for lunch at a really small Cafe with a lunch sign out the front.This was entertaining as we could have either meat options or fish options.We chose fish; she then brought out 3 whole different fish on a plate so we could choose what we wanted.I chose the fish with the brightest eyes, from my working in a fish shop days, no idea what it was.Then the proprietar asked or rather pointed at her limited menu what did we want with our fish? I knew potatoes and mixed salad so that’s what we got.This gave us time to work out how to get to the appartment.It was the other end of town and we were early.A good opportunity to go to the beach so we sat under a coconut palm leaf beach shelter and had drinks pretending it was warm and sunny.We couldn’t start beers as we still had to get up a very steep hill to our appartment. So steep I wasn’t in the right gear and rather than mangling my chain got off and wal,ed, luckily walk mode changed down into the gear I’d selected at the last minute.At the allotted time we returned to the gated complex of appartments and I phoned up on my local sim on my old phone and managed to understand that Irene who looks after the appartment would be with us in 2 minutes with the key.

The appartment has only 2 flights of wide stairs to get to it so Irene said it would be fine to carry the bikes up and put them on the balcony.We did this without battery’s on.It had been difficult to choose an appartment in Sesimbra where we could firstly get the bikes to, many streets being made up of100s of steps and secondly had somehere to put the bikes.Great to get everything thrown into a washing machine again. Supermarkets are not too far a walk away as Sesimbra is not a place you can easily cycle around. We managed to get the essentials food supplies in and were more than ready to chill after the ride today.

We were thinking of cycling tomorrow out to the Cape on the west of Sesimbra but not sure if the roads are sealed or not, otherwise there is a castle here somewhere.So 3 nights to chill, how will we manage not peddling?