Lagos to Silves: an Adventure

Oct 12 2023

Silves accommodations: Hotel Ponte Romana

We were up early — not too early, because you can’t get breakfast before 8:00 — to beat the heat. Today, we finally got to follow a Hew Thomas track, rather than winging it with Google.

Hew Thomas is a cycling guide in Portugal with an extensive website that offers an abundance of helpful information about cycling in this country. He has written two books about cycling here, basically catalogues of routes to ride, with turn-by-turn directions and descriptions. His routes are available to the public on Ride With GPS.

What a great route he created from Lagos to Silves! The hills were moderate, and the roads were exactly what we’d been craving: small, smooth, and very lightly trafficked. Google would not have found this route. 

Meanwhile, a friend has hinted that it's time we had a shot of our laden-down bikes in a scenic place, so these are for her:

A beautiful rest stop

We always choose the scenic places

 

The day went swimmingly until right after lunch. We came out from the restaurant to find Elly’s back tire completely flat. Like a crepe, not a pancake. Like the Plains of Abraham. Like the Salar de Uyuni. (You can look that up.)

Elly grew up (in the Netherlands) fixing flat tires, so we were off to an optimistic start. While the tools included in our rental package were all but useless, we did manage (Elly did; I was good at watching) to get the wheel off the bike, and the old inner tube out of the tire. But when Elly tried to use the minuscule pump to pump up the new tube, nothing much happened.

And then along came Nelson. He had parked his car near where we were attempting our repair job and said he was meeting a friend for lunch but if we were still there in an hour, he’d help us out. When we weren’t making any headway with the mini-pump, I wandered back the 50 metres to the restaurant looking all forlorn with the tire in my hand — there had been cyclists there earlier and I was hoping someone might have a better pump — Nelson came flying out and went back with me to the bike. He seemed to know what to do, where we were flummoxed, and in no time, the tire was fully pumped (and Nelson was sweating), and the wheel was attached correctly. “You tell everyone about Nelson from Portugal,” he said, and laughed. So I’m telling everyone.

This shot shows up in the Relive video, but Nelson deserves more than a 2-second glance.

Elly took a quick spin with the bike before loading it to make sure the chain thingme was working, and in that short jaunt she fell and broke off the rearview mirror. Arrgggggghhhhhhhh. Elly wasn’t hurt, thank goodness. The mirror is replaceable.

Finally we were on the road for the last 12 km of a 47 km ride. Great road, and would have been easy if we hadn’t had the rather major hiccup to dampen our spirits.

We pulled into our Silves hotel to find our hosts couldn’t find our reservation. This after Elly had talked to them twice on the phone months ago, and then our hoteliere from Lagos had called again yesterday to confirm. Elly, fortunately, had printed out every single hotel confirmation for our trip, and once she showed this one to the hotel people, they figured it out. We’re now ensconced in a very clean, very white room in a pretty cool old building. 

 

Our hotel, the Ponte Romana, with a little bit of the Ponte on the right.

 
The town of Silves surrounds a hilltop castle whose origins lay in the 12th Century. We walked up there, up up up (because one needs to burn off energy at the end of a 47-km bike ride, right?), and were glad we did. The site included an archeological dig revealing buildings from the time of the Moors, artifacts from that time, as well as gardens and contemporary scuptures. We were up there until after 7:00, when it was getting dark, and no one seemed in a hurry to usher us out.

 

Sancho I, who conquered the citadel of Silves from the Moors in 1189, supported by a Crusader army. There was a lot of back-and-forth in that era, Islam-Christian-Islam-Christian.

The next shot is of some of the archeological excavation inside the castle walls. Blogger isn't allowing me to make it bigger or to add a caption.

A view of the castle from inside the old city walls.

View from the Ponte Romana (which isn't actually a Roman bridge, despite the name.)

Silves is like Lagos on Ambien, with the same narrow cobbled streets lined with outdoor restaurants and bars and artisan shops that don’t seem to close, but none of the crowds. The town isn’t dead, but it’s peaceful.

Having had enough of fish lately, Elly opted for a veggie burger and fries for dinner, and I had grilled lamb chops. We were both very happy.

MEAT!!

 

I always say it’s the hard parts of any journey that make for good memories. Today is a day we will remember. I think Nelson will remember it too. All good.