26.4.15 - Monsaraz | Flor da Rosa | Oliveira de Azeméis

Sunday woke up gray, rainy and cold.
After it has rained all night, it was quite muddy.
The morning meeting of adventurers dragged on due to the rain that fell copiously.
Sunday's stage contemplated 100 km, very technical and difícult.Beasides that conditions I had to ride another 400 km to get home.
At day before the Versys had already proved to everyone that, despite its vocation to tarmac, she is plenty good on gravel. But was mud and tires weren`t the most appropriate, at all.
I made a difficult decision: abdicated Sunday's stage and, for safety reasons, returned home early. The return trip was the same road that had come; but with different stops.
Monsaraz to Reguengos yet been buffeted by rain but then the sun came out and made the trip very enjoyable.
Alter do Chão had to take a detour because, at the expense of TVI and its Sunday programs, the road was cut off in the town center.
A few kilometers further on, I left the IC linking Portalegre and entered the old national road, near the Coudelaria Nacional and Crato station.
The road is beautiful, and from there to Flor da Rosa, through curves, bridges, mystical lands and full of meaning for the history of Portugal, recalled old times (here, or here). So good!
I stopped at Flor da Rosa, in front of the monastery, nd like D.Nuno Alvares Pereira, posed "my horse".
After evoking O Condestaval, it was time to return. No more stops, I thought ...
Until cross A23, I was little shower, but after that, a thunderstorm came over me.
Rain, rain, rain and more rain. Added to that, a very strong wind that made the ride very difficult and freeze the bones.
Skip Proenca-a-Nova was painful. The reach Figueiró dos Vinhos, I decided to stop under a bridge to shelter me. The rain was so much and came from all sides might as well not have stopped.
Quietly followed him to Coimbra and, even more quietly, faced traffic N1, in full sunday.
It was a hard return and fortunately I got well.

25.4.15 - The Great Lake

I woke up in Monsaraz, by the sound of birds chirping at 6:30 in the morning. Today was "the" great day, that I put the Versys on gravel.
Before the stage start, the staff of bikes with studded tires looked at me askance and friendly ironic chat.
I joined Miguel, Diogo, Pedro, Luis and João, the night before group and headed to where the GPS sent; Olivenza, in Spain.
To get there were 100 km of rubble, soil, mud, sand, rivers. There was a bit of everything and all the Versys transposed it like dog like a bone.
But it wasn`t all facilities! At about 15 km, a sharp decline with loose soil and a hole, the front wheel was where I didn`t want to and I went down the bike. "It happens," I thought. "Only me, I'll be the laughing stock of the group," rethought. Well, I just debuted the floor. From there it was such a personal view out of the bikes in unorthodox positions. Craft things.
Getting around the Alentejo plain has the particularity that we might come across animals of many species. Besides bulls and cows, donkeys, horses, pigs, storks, hares, foxes, goats, I got to know the "corkscrew tails"; is a species of ferret but with a larger tail.
Arrived in Olivenza, I came with the idea of ​​regaining and the rest of the group with ideas to have lunch. We chose the second, we left the track and headed to the gokart track restaurant.
With new forces, it was time to return to Portugal.
Villanueva del Fresno - "A Esquina" - and the Mourão Castle were the last stops before reaching the camp in Monsaraz.
Before dinner there was still time for a gin taste proof at Sharish distillery.
After dinner, with the bike well stopped, was time for more Sharish.