We made our way on the small roads to Castelo de Vide. This town is perched on the hill with a Medevial castle at one end and a lovely white washed town at the other. We managed to follow the signage up the narrow cobble streets to the centre of the castle. This can be a bit hairy at times as the road is narrow and the turns can be quite sharp with little warning. Riding at slow speed on cobbles up and down these narrow passages is quite something. There is a nice chapel to visit and you can climb on the battlements.

Coimbra to Esperança VIDEOS


Part 1 https://youtu.be/Ih-VWBFW1hc?si=qIXGnGd7PH0Kn5ap

Part 2 https://youtu.be/DV5tFzWpU2U?si=Riw2SlMx_zjwGVtz

Part 3 https://youtu.be/1a8Bmotu_u8?si=MyCSeL2Jrbwqqb0U

We have another blue bird day on our hands for a 416 km trip south east to Sevilla España. We had a few more castles to visit today, but if you stopped at all the hill top towns with castles the trip would take days.

We did visit the castle towns of Elvas and Monsaraz. Riding up to Elvas you can see the massive aqueduct. We rode up thru the castle town to the gate of the keep.

Monsaraz Castle is perched on the cliff at the end of the town. Here again we rode up to the keep.

We lost an hour of time by crossing the border to Spain from Portugal. Our apartment is on a pedestrian street, but you can drive up to at least unload the luggage and the underground parking is just 100 m away. With the time change we didn’t arrive until 5 and so we didn’t do much other than wander a bit and stop for drinks and tapas.

Watch video here : https://youtu.be/WpOxutqcfjA?si=c71vQuTmsjRj8B2z

We booked another bicycle tour here in Sevilla, which is a great way to see a lot of the main sights and orient a first time visitor to the historic center. One important detail we learned was how long there has been human inhabitants here and how pivotal Sevilla was in history. The boat is a replica of the only one of the 5 ships of Magellan to circumnavigate the globe and return to Sevilla. The gold tower is 700 years old. We visited the first school of Navigation and the Plaza Major.

We had a night out in the city and met up with our friend Jose who we first met in Morocco in 2015. He was also the one who by some miracle got us into the center of the Farias and actually up to the gate for a photo and into the celebration.

With a late start and some curvy roads we took until almost 6 pm to get the 260 km on our planned route south to Cadiz. This includes one of the most famous motorbike roads in the region thru the Grazelema National Park.

We passed by the Zahara de la Sierra castle as we will return this way next week from the south. It is very picturesque hanging on the cliff. After the crossing of the mountain pass we stopped to see the castle and basilica at Arcos de la Frontera . Cannot get these photos to load properly very frustrating to use this blog.

Sevilla to Cádiz part 1

https://youtu.be/OnCYTXTpcgs?si=MZWLHgH4-jxwB8qZ



Sevilla to Cádiz part 2

https://youtu.be/sePq9Z4PjbM?si=T518ElVaEYHTwVIl

Cádiz is a fort city on the seaside. Too many cruise ships here for sure!

our next destination is only 125 km away if you go directly, but on the small roads it was closer to 200. We made a stop in El Palmer where Trevor’s bike crossed 100,000 km!

It was pretty windy all day, but the last 50 km along the sea shore it was very windy and gusty. We made a brief stop to see the beach at Bologna and we may come back here to see the Roman ruins. It’s only about 20 km from Tarifa.


Cádiz to Tarifa video here: https://youtu.be/nCItcUwCGU8?si=c5OE7Ub2Mw2PJ63p

We have seen lots of kitesurfing, winging, and windsurfing. Arriving to the city we got settle in our apartment for the next three days. The forecast is not too optimistic for kiting tomorrow but we will see. There was some pro action on the main beach in town. We also did a bit of a walk thru the old town.