I'd been looking forward to this day since the spring. We'd be riding over roads that we travelled the opposite direction on in May. On May 1st we rode from Coimbra to Ansaio through Rabacal and Condeixa. I was anxious to revisit Condeixa where the Roman ruins at Conimbriga sit alongside the Camino and Fatima trails. There were places along the way that I wanted a closer look at, and I expected the ride would be relatively easy once we climbed over the ridge at Alvaiazere on our way to Ansaio. Ansaio is the place where my bike broke down in the spring. Our ride from Ansaio to Tomar included several signifcant climbs and is notable for the fact that I did the ride on a proper bicycle having taken Huw Thomas' bike for the day (my e-bike was repaired in Tomar).
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| Alvaiazere - the hill on the left is our climb for today |
The day began as one of the coolest of our trip and there was a small possibility of rain during the day. I pulled out my raincoat which is the warmest jacket I have on this trip and we set off. The climb was relatively steep, with 10 percent grades in places. Sandy slogged her way up the hill and I yoyoed around her - sometimes ahead, sometimes behind. These grades are where the e-bike holds a decisive advantage - some would say an unfair advantage. Honestly, if it wasn't for the e-bike I would be walking a sizable number of the slopes and Sandy would be waiting endlessly for me to catch up. On the other hand I am not exerting myself during most of these climbs - my maximum heartrate has kept to somewhere around 120 beats per minute. I internalize the disconnect as stress and worry about the inequity of the rides.
At the top of the climb we found ourselves buffeted by winds from the north. For the rest of the day as we rode through Ansaio and towards Condeixa a Nova the winds made the ride more difficult. As Sandy said, "You know there's a wind when you have to pedal going downhill. For the most part it was downhill. Our ride reached an altitude of approximately 500 meters at the top of the ridge outside Alvaiazere and dropped to about 100 meters at Condeixa. We passed through an arid landscape with a few olive groves and vineyards. Some forested areas and scrub. The pretty church in Rabacal reminded us of our lunch stop in the spring and as we came close to Condeixa a pilgrims rest stop at the side of the road exhibited the devotion of a stranger.
The Camino in the final stretch into Condeixa is uniquely beautiful. The pine trees on the mountains alongside the road are particularly striking to me as they essentially cover the landscape. Our route took us past the springs that were the source of water for the Roman community at Conimbriga 2000 years ago still today filtering the water in a way that is visible to all who go past. Before long we'd made our way to the hotel for the night. The hotel owned by a non-profit foundation supports educational and development programs in the region. They were encouraging a visit to an "Ecumenical Universalist" Temple about 20 kilometers away near a nature reserve. I was intrigued by the connections - who was the foundation? What did they actually do besides running a couple of hotels? The building we were in was an ancient villa/palace that had been renovated in the 1990's into the hotel it is today. A lovely grounds with a pool. Marble surfaces. A bit of investigation online and I found two news items from last week announcing fines the foundation was assessed for failing to get proper permits in the building of the "Temple." While I was unable to discover much about the individuals and others connected to it - "Ecumenical" and "Universalist" covers a lot of territory. It appeared that some of the work for the foundation is not as altruistic as the literature would have us believe. Regardless, our stay was comfortable and the staff friendly and helpful. The bartender/waitress that served us an afternoon snack and breakfast in the morning is a young woman who immigrated to Portugal from Brazil three years ago. In Brazil she was a psychologist. Here transferring her credentials is difficult but she feels safer than she did in Brazil, and for her three children.
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