Four days of traveling in Southern Portugal

[ErikGustav2]

Finally, I could take my new touring bike, the Benelli TRK 251 on the first touring trip. It was a short shake down tour in Southern Portugal.
I hope that you can enjoy some pictures.
The red route on the map was the tentative.
The blue is the actual route.
The trip consisted of 3 riding days and 1 pure exploring day
Distance was 600 km, with an average speed of 55 km/h. (Twisty roads)
I plotted some way points. And set my Garmin to do “Adventure routing” between those way points. 100 % preference for twisty roads, 50% for hills, 0 % for highways. That worked well. I used many small roads that would have been hard to find, just studying the map.

[ErikGustav2]

I used a large bag on the pillion seat for my camping gear. It worked well.

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Typical lunch for budget traveller. Chicken sandwich and mineral water.

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First thing to do when the riding ends is to boil some coffee.

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Then pitch the tent.

[ErikGustav2]

The camping was south of Sines. Close to the Atlantic. And a harbour. Nice place to watch the sun sinking into the Atlantic, while the ships were passing by.

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[ErikGustav2]

The second day, it was time to head east. Towards the border with Spain. Portugal has a lot of outdoor cafés. With cheap and good coffee. So there were frequent stops for coffee and water in the heat.

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Every town has it own little plaza

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[ErikGustav2]

There are a lot of historic buildings from the Roman empire time. From the moors and from the catholic church to see.

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The camping site was in Serpa. South of Moura.
There was one more biker there. A man from Finland. On his way to Spain to spend winter there.. He took it easy and made a lot of detours.
You can see that there is no soil and grass. Only hard gravel. Big problems to pitch a tent. But tents are not used any more. Only caravans.

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[ErikGustav2]

Day three was used to explore Serpa.
First the Castle with its walls, building, church, aqueduct, museum and more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Serpa

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[ErikGustav2]

More pictures

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[ErikGustav2]

Next was a watch museum.
http://www.museudorelogio.com/?lv1=mnglr&lv2=2
Containing 2 000 mechanical watches. All working
History:

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Some examples

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[ErikGustav2]

The way home next day passed a couple of well known places.
Again, a mixture of architecture from different areas.
And a beautiful lake/beach. More hills when getting into Algarve again.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoutim


Getting home for shower, pizza, ice cream. pool.
And the "must to do things"

Not an adventure.
But a relaxing trip for mental boost.

=
And Chris: I also watched Nathan. But I did not got inspired of this:

[Godspeed]

The way home next day passed a couple of well known places.
Again, a mixture of architecture from different areas.
And a beautiful lake/beach. More hills when getting into Algarve again.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoutim


Getting home for shower, pizza, ice cream. pool.
And the "must to do things"

Not an adventure.
But a relaxing trip for mental boost.

=
And Chris: I also watched Nathan. But I did not got inspired of this:

Wonderful write up and pictures as always my friend!!!