Day Seven: Roman ruins, and a short ride to a rest day

 We stayed at the hotel until about 10:30 am.  Our ride from this hotel to the next was about 16 kilometers and we were backtracking a few in order to visit the ruins at Conimbriga.  They'd been closed in the spring and I was impressed by the little I did see then.  Sandy wasn't convinced it would take much time to visit the ruins and museum.  Our ride, we figured would take about an hour and we didn't want to arrive at the hotel too early in the day - which creates difficulties checking in.

The ruins did not disappoint.  They were more extensive that either of us imagined.  Conimbriga was a settlement well before the Romans came to the Iberian Peninsula during the first Century before Christ's birth.  It is my understanding that the Roman "conquest" of Portugal was not complete until shortly after Christ's birth - around 12 AD.  Regardless the ruins show some of the history and development of the community that inhabited it during the next five hundred years until, and shortly after, the fall of the Roman Empire.  The mosaics that have been uncovered and incredible.  Artifacts in the museum give a fully picture of some of the art, sculptures and building that were a part of it;

We spent about three hours exploring and reading the displays which (unusual for Portugal) are in both Portuguese and English.

Finding our way back onto the road we made our way back through Condeixa a Nova towards Coimbra.  Our route traced in reverse our travels in the Spring which caused some difficulty when RidewithGPS tried to send us the wrong direction up a narrow one way street.  Finding a legal route took us down a slope only to have to turn left up a significantly steeper hill.  Both of us found ourselves walking having not been in the proper gears for the slope.  A minor inconvenience.  Before long the landscape became more familiar.  An old factory alongside the road.  Fields, which in the spring were only just being cultivated full of corn.  The stork nests on the power lines abandoned - where do the storks go from Portugal - North or South - during the summer.  The ride follows the Mondego river into Coimbra where we will have our first rest day since arriving in Lisbon.  There are several places to see in this university city.  More on that tomorrow.