"The Hammer Song"

(Trini Lopez)

I have used web sites for maps for a long time but I must recommend Google Maps (thanks Tim). My enthusiasm for Michelin started to take a dip after leaving France, where they are immaculate, and using their Spanish ones, a few routes appeared to be inaccessible to bicycles but on my journey to the border I saw, via Google, that a minor road ran alongside the motorway….yippee! It was such a road that took me to the Portuguese border where there were petrol stations with long queues as people entering Portugal filled up with cheaper Spanish fuel. As I crossed the border a fetching young lady in blue, working for a bank, handed me a cake…something a cyclist would never refuse although this was available to all. Maybe RBS might think to greet Sassonachs as they venture north with such a gesture? Immediately it was quieter and the roads were winding with trees alongside. In the early afternoon I started to feel hunger and I arrived into a small town called Sabugal where I found a restaurant that proudly announced….”ici on parle français”. So I got the plat de jour which were pieces of ham on the bone with lots of vegetables and a standalone salad. Fortified, I climbed out of the town and cycled on for many hours. The temperature climbed to 37 degrees and when I descended after some demanding climb you could feel the intense heat come back off the road in waves – its sudden sensation was like when you go from the winter cold into a departmental store and that doorway invector heat hits you as you step inside. Fundão eventually came round and what struck me immediately was the number of Chinese shops….I wondered whether this was a legacy of being the colonial power in Macão? The camp site was poorly signposted and eventually I found it on the other side of the town up a steep hill…..a regular pattern is forming! When I went to Reception I paid my dosh and then asked if I might borrow a hammer/mallet to bash my tent pegs into the rock hard ground….the chap on Reception then gave me a rendition of “If I Had A Hammer”…..I would hammer in the morning etc…..nice.



With one final push I beat the donkey up the hill...

Portuguese roads