clairedavieswriter

So how are you doing the end-to-end of Portugal? This is the general idea: Starting from Faro: (Technically the water taxi wharf was the furthest south I could get) We’ll make our way to the country’s most northerly point, which, according to my calculations (and I’m making the rules here) is the old customs post…

Getting two bikes and their riders from Tarifa to the start of our Portugal end-to-end in Faro turned out to be one of the most challenging parts of our Iberian adventure to date. After much fruitless research into Andalucia’s public transport network, we concluded that hiring a van was the only way. That meant an…

So what was it like? I hear you say. There are so many highlights, it’s hard to pick favourites. For me, it would be the epic scale of the scenery, under cloud-dotted skies. Jonis picked the silence, high on the meseta on a windless morning. From our vantage point, you couldn’t see a single building,…

Spain end to end complete ✅.Team Bernard have pedalled 1,196km from Bilbao in the north to Tarifa, Spain’s most southerly point. And this time I had someone to celebrate with This last leg was not a long ride, but we were made to work for our podium place.The summit of Cape Trafalgar was cloaked in…

Yes, it was a long way, but oddly, we don’t feel too knackered. Perhaps we were right to opt for chickpea stew last night instead of snails, like everyone else did (it’s the season for them apparently) Or perhaps our relative sprightliness is down to the ease with which we sped out of Sevilla –…

Cycle from the north coast to the south coast of Spain?Looks like we can tick that off the to do list. The water was a nicer blue than in Bilbao, but it’s still the Atlantic, and we had a few more miles to pedal, so we didn’t go for a dip, much to Bernard’s chagrin.…

At the risk of repeating a joke, Sevilla was very Bizet… In fact the streets were so crowded, we thought it was another día festivo.If you’re fond of military history or the paintings of Goya, you’ll know that Dos de Mayo is a holiday in Madrid, commemorating a famous rebellion against French forces in 1808.…

Overnight, rain hammered on the terracotta roof tiles directly above our heads. This morning, in our windowless sitting room, it was hard to believe the weather could have improved, but when we opened the door we found the cycling gods were smiling on us once again. They even laid on the best value breakfast of…

Yesterday’s blue skies and warm sun deserted us this morning, and we were back to wearing every layer we could find. It’s fair to say it was not the weather I had been expecting, this far south. The offence was compounded when, soon after taking the photo below, celebrating what felt like a significant moment,…

I knew nothing about Zafra before we arrived this afternoon, and had very few expectations. In my mind it was just a convenient stopping off point between more significant and exciting places. But that’s the beauty of these trips: they can reveal hidden (to me) gems. Looking for our guest house, I glimpsed a pretty…