| June 12, 2002 Hello all, I had a wonderful bike ride two days ago that I thought I would describe to you. The stats were 200km in 8 hours and 40 minutes with a total of about 4000m of climbing (3 times up to 1000m or more starting from around 400m, plus some other climbs!). What really struck me was the sheer beauty of where we were riding. We left in the morning and at the top of the first big climbe could see some clouds in the distance (it was otherwise a clear sky). It didn't take long to realize that the clouds were hovering directly over the river Douro as it wound its way through the mountains. Later in the day the clouds disappeared and we got close enough to see the river. The river is about 100m wide all along with steep mountains rising on either bank along its whole length in Portugal (at least what I've seen of it). It's a spectacular sight when you're speeding towards it at 60km/h on your bike. After seeing the river we headed back into the mountains, stopped for lunch, and then proceeded to the top of Serra de Montemiro at 1200m, the highest point of our journey. Even at only 1200 meters there are almost no trees and the plants are very low. The landscape is mostly covered with huge boulders about the size of cars which have been sitting there for who knows how many millions of years. A rather large downhill followed (to 400m), but then it was back up to 1000m at 'Sao Macario'. The views from this point were incredible. Steep drops into deep valleys with tiny little old villages sitting at the bottom or partway down. The houses in these villages are made of stone, so they just fit into the landscape. The huge valleys just seem to go on forever, with undulated banks where mountain after mountain rises from the valley floor. There's also the occasional mountains which is more like a rocky spike sticking out of the ground - but huge enough to be a mountain. After these wonderful views we descended again and then climbed up our 'home' mountain range, Serra da Freita (1100m) , which means that, once you're at the top, the next 40 minutes to get home are mostly downhill! All-in-all a wonderful ride. Talk to you soon, Phil |
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