20 years ago today – Day 11

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March 14 – Beja to Mertola, 439 km



We spend the first two and a half hours of the morning visiting Beja Castle and the former monastery, which is now a museum. It was almost noon before we are on the road again.


For the past three days we have been crossing the Alentejo, a plain that makes up most of south-central Portugal, but now we are moving inland. Our destination is Mertola, south-east of Beja about 85 km, but first we head east to the town of Serpa. There is a headwind which, according to Mike, explains our beautiful morning, our first cloudless day.

Serpa looks great from a distance. It has both a castle and an aqueduct, but we only have time to ride around the town and take a few pictures, before stopping for beer and a snack. We find the restaurant that the American couple in Evora had recommended but it wasn’t open for lunch. I apply my first sun screen of the trip and we’re back on the road at 2pm.

The rest of the route is scenic and peaceful. A kilometer outside of Serpa we take a small, unnumbered road south to the village of Salvador and from that point there is hardly any traffic. We are entering the broad valley of the Guadiana River which forms the border with Spain. We can see Spain in the distance though we quite a ways from the river itself.

A couple passing in a car stop to talk to us when they see Mike’s “Captain Canada” cycling jersey. They tell us they spend half the year in Hamilton, Ontario, and the other half in Loule in the Algarve just south of here. Loule is where the Americans we met in Evora love too. We’ll have to check it out when we get there.

We have definitely beyond the Alentejo plain. The hills around us are partially wooded and sparsely populated. There are many rocky outcroppings. Mertola sits on a particularly large outcropping, rather majestically on the far side of a river as we approach it from the east. The setting is spectacular and makes the town look much larger than it is, with its castle at the crest and the rest of the town cascading down the hillside beneath it.

There are only two main streets, one twisting and turning through the town with several short sides streets connecting to it. The other forms a T-intersection with it at the newer end of the town. There are only two pensions in town. We find a room in the one near the T-intersection.

Being much smaller than either Evora or Beja, I expect it to be quiet but it’s not. There are gangs of noisy youths shouting and carrying on outside. At 8:30, after dinner, I take a walk alone to check out the town. I encounter one group of youths, about 15 to 17 years old. They lock eyes with me as I walk past. We passed the same group as we rolled into town on our bicycles. They are probably as curious about me as I am about them, but there is a language barrier, no way to talk to them. I stopped at a patisserie for a snack before returning to my room.

PHOTO 1: tower on Beja Castle
PHOTO 2: Mike at Beja Castle
PHOTO 3: Beja, from Beja Castle
PHOTO 4: the Alentejo
PHOTO 5: Serpa
PHOTO 6: aqueduct in Serpa
PHOTO 6: Mike ahead, riding through Sapres
PHOTO 7: road south of Sapres
PHOTO 8: valley of the Guardiana River
PHOTO 9: Mertola