Three days around the Ribatejo and Alentejo

[Pedro]

Almost two weeks ago I spend a couple of days riding around Alentejo with @Sofia, I didn´t take many pictures of the roads themselves as we covered areas that I´ve posted several times before in a few of my amazing ride reports 

This is more of a mood and food report, with a few pictures of old stuff we found along the way.

First day, a day ride near my home, left mid morning and came back mid afternoon, only about a 100km roundtrip. First stop was in Santarem, for a coffee at the "Portas do Sol" (Gates to the Sun) old fortification walls overlooking the Tejo river and the Leziria.

The Tejo looking rather sorry for itself mainly because of our esteemed neighbours from the other side of the border: 

 

Morning coffee next to a statue of D.Afonso Henriques, Portugal'l first king who conquered these lands and further south from the Moors.

 

After a very short ride over that bridge you see in the previous pictures, we went to Almeirim to have a spot of lunch and visit a local wine producer, stopped by our table, a great older 50cc bike, so typical in Portugal and with amazing patina. It started first kick and rode off with hardly an effort.

 

 

Lunch was mainly coal grilled codfish with garlic and olive oil, and a tomato salad. It was quite great.

 

Fiuza, the winemakers whose shop I went to visit had the place decorated with a pretty cool mural outside

 

The ride home was uneventful, through farm roads during very busy tomato harvesting season with plenty of overloaded trucks driving too fast. 

Next day, we left for the Alentejo, brief stop to show Sofia the RARET broadcasting station 

 

And onwards, we stopped for a few phone calls and while Sofia was busy I took a few pictures of the riverside in Coruche. We had amazing skies that day, and plenty warm enough.

Coruche is very big on bullfighting, and although I prefer to see bulls lose on the hills than being tortured on the arena, there is a specific form of bullfighting that I do appreciate. The "Forcados" face the bull head on, and when it charges they grab it by the horns and hold on while a few of their team mates grab it and try to stop the bull. Simple as that, it does goes wrong for the guy in front sometimes... here are a couple of pictures in a small outdoor exhibit where we were stopped. 

 

Carrying on inland, casually cruising on a national road I spotted a secret spot that makes the best "Empadas" ever, which is some sort of small pastry usually filled with chicken. Sofia is a fan and I made an emergency exit to go have some along with coffee for breakfast. The lady that makes the famous pastries was on holiday so no Empadas, instead a delicious sort of Rissol complemented the expresso perfectly. Took these pictures to remember where the place is, I stopped by once with Maria and never can remember where it is except when passing by chance, now I now.

 

 

A few kms ahead and we stopped by Mora, in a small river nature reserve 

 

Last time I was here was on Christmas day two years ago, I saw a beaver cross the street while riding over, today there were plenty of people about and the wildlife was probably more reserved.

A nice road and warmer weather took us to another dam:

Barragem do Maranhão was a relaxing stop 

Riding further to the warm Alentejo, I took this moving cockpit picture of a loaded trailer being towed by a tractor, weird distortion from the moving phone camera

A few kms ahead, and we stop at another water crossing, this time on a narrow bridge

 

On the pictures above you can see my hillbilly top case. It's an empty cardboard box meant to be filled with cheeses and preserved meats for dinner with hour hosts.

As i said, we had great looking skies throughout this day:

 

Stopping for lunch at the small town of Fronteira, we sheltered from the heat under some shade outside a cafe/restaurant and had some ham sandwiches and an "empada"

 

After a stop in a cheese maker's shop, where we filled my cardboard top box with delicious things, we had only a short ride to Estremoz where Sofia had a meeting in the center of town. While waiting I went to buy some local bread to go with the meats and sat on a terrace under the shade and had some water. There I became quite disturbed to see the most evil looking statue I've ever seen. It's a boy Satyre:

I swear that thing has an expression of wickedness while it's planting evil thoughts of destruction and mayhem on your mind.

Walking past a few food stalls it smelled of Moroccan markets, pretty colors too

 

Some enormous pumpkins:

 

Translation to the two teas closer to the camera: "Tea for Hemorrhoids" and "Tea for Menstruation" 

Having some time to kill before meeting Sofia's friends at their place, we went to a wine farm intended on buying a few bottles to complement the food we were already carrying, "Herdade das Servas", a nice place near Estremoz:

There, we found an Olive tree aged 360 years:

 

And one aged 1100 years, still producing fruit, it's great to think what this tree has seen in it's life:

 

After picking a few bottles, we had a mini tasting outside, just a sip to go with some cold water

this is me packing a six bottle box under the cheese and meats box, all super safe. 

It was only a short ride to Sofia's friends farmhouse, 

 

 

 

It's an old farm house, first built to the farm hand, a place full of soul and character:

Sun was starting to get lower:

 

And I decided to go see some cows closer and marvel at the low light and golden grass, the black cow wasn't too happy about my unannounced visit and proceeded to stomp around, so I made my way back to the house:

 

We had a delightful evening, eating snacks and soup and drinking wine and talking into the night. No pictures of this. In the morning I planned on leaving early but that failled, the three mares that live in the property escaped their fence and were happily running around having lost their way back in. After running around a little on account of the mares, we proceeded to get lost in talks yet again, and only ended up getting on the road near the end of the morning. Rode to the Alqueva dam, but took no pictures, it was pretty familiar and documented roads. We had a snack there sitting by the water on the marina, and tried to book somewhere to stay with a swimming pool, being a warm September saturday and doing this at 2 or 3PM meant everything was full, so we gave up on the countryside and went to Beja, one of the most important big towns in the Alentejo. There we stayed in an old monastery now converted to a very nice hotel

 

 

For dinner, we walked a little through the historical center of Beja to find a small typical place

 

A statue of our Queen Dona Leonor, know for her work for the needy:

A Pipa, where we enjoyed a pretty great grilled pork

 

Walking back to the Hotel at night, we walked past a communist party rally, complete with Sr. Jeronimo de Sousa having a speech, although I'm not one for politics and not one for communism, he is a political dinosaur and will be missed as a true believer of a cause when he eventually quits, so I got a kick out of seeing him.

Morning saw me enjoying the breakfast worthy of a king before getting on the road, here I am waiting for eggs and bacon... 

 

After a really great hotel stay, we headed off on a cool Alentejo morning, first stop was on a Roman bridge, the bridge over the Ribeira de Odivelas was firstly built in the first century, with future add ons on the V and XI, it's currently 120 meters long and still open to traffic. It used to be over 5 meters tall but has been slightly buried and currently little water goes under it. I suppose they might be waiting for the Romans to come back and fix it up again instead of getting on with it ...

Anyway, it's cool to ride over something that's been used by traffic for almost 2000 years:

 

A couple of km next to it, we stopped again to look at a another dam, probably responsible for the bridge's low water flow but a nice place to stop anyway

Nothing quite like having a wee with a view:

 

Onwards, being quite the intrepid adventurers we rode for maybe 5km to another stop, this time at an old estate house, this is very typical of this area, to have a few houses where the workers used to live forming a small village, surrounding the lord's (usually nobility) house in the center, this is Sofia talking to the only current resident, who is telling her she loves motorcycles and rides a scooter herself:

 

Our road turned out to be unpaved for a few kms, which was quite fun but dusty and a bumpy:

 

 

 

After rolling off we had a couple of stops for fuel and a snack, and made it home in the afternoon after a few kms of uninsteresting roads of which I have no pictures. It was a good couple of days relaxed and easy riding and hanging out.

 

[boboneleg]

Great report Pedro, unfortunately I can only see the last 7 photos .  Is it just me ?

[Pedro]

22 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

Great report Pedro, unfortunately I can only see the last 7 photos .  Is it just me ?

I must have had some issue with the post, but just uploaded all the pictures again, can you see them now?

[Sofia]

It was great fun!!! Great report! 

[Specs]

Looked amazing! Plenty of photos.

[XTreme]

Fantastic shots Pedro..... @Sofia looking as lovely as usual! 

And there's you, out with a classy sophisticated lady and you just pull your dick out on the street! You fucking savage! 

Hopefully nobody got rammed up the ass this time did they? 

[boboneleg]

All photos present now.  Great ride report Pedro, fantastic photos 

I don't think I've ever seen a bike with a fully enclosed engine like that before, or is it 'fan cooled' like a Vespa ?

[boboneleg]

This is a great photo of a study in concentration 

[Sir Fallsalot]

16 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

This is a great photo of a study in concentration 

Looks like hes contemplating whether that's enough wine to me 

[XTreme]

17 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

This is a great photo of a study in concentration

Looks like he's having another piss to me!

[Sir Fallsalot]

Looks like you had a great trip @Pedro 

[Pedro]

45 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Fantastic shots Pedro..... @Sofia looking as lovely as usual! 

And there's you, out with a classy sophisticated lady and you just pull your dick out on the street! You fucking savage! 

Hopefully nobody got rammed up the ass this time did they? 

No ramming of asses this time, fortunately! 

I do enjoy a scenic piss, it's the heat and all the water drinking ...

 

25 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

All photos present now.  Great ride report Pedro, fantastic photos 

I don't think I've ever seen a bike with a fully enclosed engine like that before, or is it 'fan cooled' like a Vespa ?

I've got no idea what is happening in that engine. The other side of the bike had no foot peg so the guy just put his foot on the engine cover when riding off 

[boboneleg]

5 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Looks like he's having another piss to me!

It's a cultural thing I reckon Pete, a Brit would NEVER have a piss in front of a woman , they'd run across the field and hide first .  Southern Europeans are not so hung up on those sort of things, it's either that or they have bigger willies than us

 

What say you @Pedro

[Pedro]

Just now, boboneleg said:

It's a cultural thing I reckon Pete, a Brit would NEVER have a piss in front of a woman , they'd run across the field and hide first .  Southern Europeans are not so hung up on those sort of things, it's either that or they have bigger willies than us

 

What say you @Pedro

Being a gentleman and modest, I did piss towards the view and away from the lady! Also, I've no idea about dick sizes in the UK, nor is it a matter of any interest to me . 

 

It's all about the scenery:

[Grasshopper]

Lovely ride report, those old olive trees are really cool! 

 

The peeing pics, not so much.....

[XTreme]

I gotta ask why @Sofia kept on taking photos of you pissing though?

[Pedro]

Just now, XTreme said:

I gotta ask why @Sofia kept on taking photos of you pissing though?

She probably spent too much time in the UK  and found it as weird as you 

[XTreme]

Just now, Pedro said:

She probably spent too much time in the UK  and found it as weird as you 

I actually got prosecuted in 1973 for pissing in the street......2 quid fine! It wasn't a big piss! 

[Pedro]

2 minutes ago, XTreme said:

I actually got prosecuted in 1973 for pissing in the street......2 quid fine! It wasn't a big piss! 

I don't do it in the street like a savage! You probably did it on someone's building entrance, I do it on the empty outdoors while enjoying nature, it's a lot more bucolic 

 

There's history and stuff in the report, not just me pissing!

[yen_powell]

That should be your bike of the month shot, a cheeky thumbs up shot. Although I am torn between that and the 2000 year old cobbled low rise viaduct roadway.

[Pedro]

2 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

That should be your bike of the month shot, a cheeky thumbs up shot. Although I am torn between that and the 2000 year old cobbled low rise viaduct roadway.

I thought so too, but people never go for the ones I really like

[Sofia]

7 hours ago, XTreme said:

Fantastic shots Pedro..... @Sofia looking as lovely as usual! 

And there's you, out with a classy sophisticated lady and you just pull your dick out on the street! You fucking savage! 

Hopefully nobody got rammed up the ass this time did they? 

Thank you so much!! To be fair, @Pedrois very discrete at this Sport of outdoor urination, a true gentleman! 

[Sofia]

6 hours ago, boboneleg said:

This is a great photo of a study in concentration 

Special skill to keep 2 wine boxes secure with only 1 elastic and a small net, needs focus!! 

[Sofia]

5 hours ago, XTreme said:

I gotta ask why @Sofia kept on taking photos of you pissing though?

I have a big collection!! 

[XTreme]

5 minutes ago, Sofia said:

I have a big collection!! 

I think we could do with a "Pedro having a piss" thread you know!