I’ve had three days off and am now riding again. Lisbon was great as I got to see my mum and sister, but it was not totally without stress. Problems with the bike and Garmin (the latter of which is still not resolved) meant I had far less time than expected yesterday.
It was good to get back on the bike this morning and clear my head a bit. I’m really looking forward to getting home now so it’s good know I’m working towards it again. I now have 9 days riding before England but whilst that isn’t very many, they are all going to be long.
I owe thanks to RodaGira bike shop in Lisbon who helped me out yesterday. Coincidentally, they are also the only shop in Lisbon to be in contact with Condor.
Lisbon was a bit of a nightmare to navigate without GPS but I made it out with only one wrong turn. My legs felt good this morning despite the early hills and headwind. (Lisbon is really nice by the way).
Once out of the city, the scenery and towns reminded me a lot of some parts of the South of France; although not the Riviera.
Having been off the bike for a few days, things like my hands were always going to hurt and it was around the 180km mark where it became more than just ‘mildly annoying’. The heat also hit me a bit towards the end of today. I’ve had it a lot worse but it was still mid-thirties and I don’t think I drunk or ate enough.
When I arrived in Nisa (actually quite a nice little town) I had to wait about half an hour for the owner of the B&B to come to work and ended up just sitting on the pavement in salty mess.
Dinner tonight was really good. I didn’t know what I had ordered and it ended up being a bit of everything – steak, rice, chips, salad, spinach, some kind of beans, carrots and what turned out to be grilled banana.. I thought it was aubergine and ate the skin – not something I recommend; although having said that, I don’t like aubergine either. Regardless, it pretty much had everything I needed.
I could write a lot about today but I really need to get to bed, apologies for the short America summary as well
Distance: 126.3miles / 203.1km
Riding Time: 8:48:43
Av. Speed: 14.3mph / 23.0kph
Tom Davies RTW 
Let’s hope today sets the tone for the remainder, bit tricky without your satnav working correctly, but if the sun is rising on your right and setting on your left then roughly you are heading in the right direction.
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