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Saturday, March 23 – Albufeira to Tavira, 828 km
It’s a beautiful Saturday morning, pleasant and brilliantly sunny, but last night’s brisk north wind is still blowing. Albufeira is on a hill sloping down to the sea. We follow the road down to the shore and back again before breakfast, just to get a sense of the town before we move on. We are kept waiting 45 minutes in the restaurant for our breakfast.
Mike is anxious to make time so he torques up the hill out of town ahead of me. Seven km later his replacement freewheel that was installed in Evora falls apart and I catch up with him. He is once again scrounging ball bearings out of the dirt as though they are pearls from a broken necklace.
Once again the frozen freewheel is locked to the pedals and Mike is forced to keep his feet moving in circles without a rest. We return to downtown Albufeira only to learn that the nearest bike repair shop is located in an outer suburb called Ferreiras. By the time we get there, all the ball bearings Mike so carefully rescued have all been lost.
The bike shop in Ferreiras has no replacement freewheels suitable for Mike’s bike so we are off to Loule, 26 km east, fortunately in the direction we need to go anyway. On the way we climb a long, gradual hill that affords us great views over the Algarve coastline. But Mike is straining his best to get to Loule so I don’t have much chance to linger over the spectacular scenery.
We reach Loule at 12:20. The streets are practically dead. We find out that all stores close for the weekend at noon on Saturdays in Portugal. How is it that we don’t know this already? I find it comical after that we did all that running around for nothing, and that Mike will serve a longer penance for being too cheap to have his bike overhauled before we left, but I bite my lip because Mike is in no mood for joking.
Outside of Loule we start onto a series of back roads that take away from the busy highway traffic. The route we choose though, is torn up for sewer and road repairs and we are forced to detour. The signage for the detour is missing after the first couple turns and we get hopelessly lost for half an hour or so, but it is fun this time because we are in it together. We find the correct way eventually, and push on towards Tavira through rolling scrub-covered hills with cultivated farms sprinkled here and there. The surfaces on the side roads are generally rough, which slows us down.
We arrive in Tavira at 6pm, but we cannot find the Tourist Office anywhere. It certainly isn’t where the Michelin Guide says it is, so I suppose our planned rendezvous with Nick won’t happen tonight. We have no idea where to look first to find a room. Suddenly an angel appears – a boy dressed totally in pink on a bright yellow bike (OK, perhaps a fairy, not an angel). He steps up to us boldly and in broken English he asks if he can help. We tell him we need a place to stay for tonight and he leads us to several small hotels, where we found a room in “The Imperial” for 2500 esc.
It is a mild, inviting evening so Mike and I stroll through the town. A friend in Toronto once told me about this town. He raved about it. At first glance it is a disappointment. Many buildings look shabby and in need of repair with moss and dirt around their lower edges. The sides and back of most of the houses are decorated with gaudy, larger-sized ceramic bathroom tiles. As hideous as this sounds (and looks) it is distinctly Portuguese and not put there by some time-share development corporation. 
Tavira’s quaint charm does get through to us after an hour or so. It is laid-back, unpretentious and built lovingly along opposing banks of the Gilao River. It feels natural and warm-hearted. And those bathroom tiles do help to make it feel more ‘intimate’.PHOTO 1: Praia de Sao Rafael
PHOTO 2: entering Tavira
PHOTO 3: Tavira at dusk
PHOTO 4: Tavira harbour sunset
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