After eight days of nothing but “sea days” we finally reach terra firma much to the relief of the landlubbers on board like me. Just the idea of being able to walk without feeling and looking like a sailor who has had a wee bit too much grog was appealing. Plus, for me, there’s the draw of being able to leave the ship’s stationary and get on an actual, bonafide two-wheeled contraption and see the world pass by not on a computer screen, but in real life. Lots more fun!
Lisbon Free Bike Tours: “Lisbon Center to Belem and Back”
After checking to see if my prefered method of self-designed adventuring would suffice for a day in a large port city like Lisbon I decided to opt for a guided bike tour in lieu of a possible self-guided bicycling disaster. I found a number of options online but the one that intrigued me the most was “Free Bike Tours Lisbon” and its offer of a four-hour, 20 kilometer, guided bicycle tour mostly along the Lisbon waterfront to the famous Belem Tower and back. For FREE! Well, sort of. But not really. And they were straight up with how it works. You see, the bikes are free but the guides are “volunteers” and they would very much like a tip after the tour. So I figured, what the hell, and gave it a go.
Fortunately, the free bike tours shop was not too far away from the Lisbon cruise ship terminal and not difficult to find with the help from the MAP.ME app. A visit to an ATM along the way and I was “armed” with Euros for the tip I was expected to make in a few hours. Then on to where this little, shoe-box bicycle operation was headquartered to meet cheerful Miguel, the owner and chief “volunteer” guide. After outfitting the small crowd with fairly new and well-maintained bicycles we broke into two groups and headed out onto the busy streets and bike paths of Lisbon. My guide, Pedro, was a middle-aged fellow who was simply full of historical information about Lisbon. We wound in and out of the city working our way generally toward our eventual goal – the Belem Tower. We biked across large statue-centered squares and through Lisbon’s famous “Pink Street”, Rua Nova do Carvalho, once a center of prostitution but now an upscale nightlife scene with plenty of bars. Along the way we stopped for refreshements at Gandalata, a popular local snack and beverage business (we were clearly the only non-tourists there). Later, not far away we stopped and joined the masses of mid-week tourists for one of Lisbon’s famous and historical monastary sweets (Pastes de Belem), a pastry from Antiga Confeitaria de Belem on Rua de Belem 84-92.
After working our way through huge throngs of tourists we made it to Belem Tower. The line to get in was simply too long for us to wait for so we enjoyed the moment and headed back by a somewhat different route to the bike shop.
What most amazed me was the incredible number of tourists during early tourist season on a mid-week day. And this mass of tourist-humanity was at every possible Lisbon “attraction”. At one of the cathedrals where we stopped to listen to Pedro give us his history lesson, there were two lines, each with hundreds of people in them all standing under the hot and humid Lisbon sun. And this was to be able to actually pay to go into a church!
Our last stop was at the Padrao dos Descobrimentos, a huge white marble waterside monument to many of the figures from Lisbon’s past who helped shape what this major city has become.
After over four hours of bicycling fun it was time to tip our guide (it appeared that most in our group gave Pedro 20 Euros as did I). Hot, thirsty and ready for a shower I staggered back to the Valiant Lady for a couple of very important hydration beverages. As I took my shower I painfully discovered I made the same mistake that I made in Bimini. I failed to put sunscreen on and was mildly sunburned. One would think I would know better by now!
Cadiz: Another Bike Ride + More Walking than I Bargained for
None of the tour guided offerings I found online for Cadiz looked appealing to me. They all were more expensive than the Lisbon “free” tour and their descriptions simply sounded boring to me as they focused on riding past cathedrals, museums and the like. So I decided to create my own tour – assuming I could find a bike shop with rental bicycles.
I discovered online a small bike shop in the center of old town Cadiz that had very good reviews so I did a bit of pre-departure MAPS.ME app mapping and, once the ship finally docked in Cadiz, headed to find Las Bicis Naranjas and see if I could secure a rental bike. With the erratic help from my pre-established map.me app location I headed into the bewildering maze that is old Cadiz. There is no rhyme or reason for the street layout nor why one narrow, cobblestone lane should be labeled a one way street and not another. An only a few intersection had any type of indication of their name and each little street seemed to have a different name according to my iPhone’s map app. After trial and error I spotted a small crowd of people standing next to a few bicycles that stuck out a bit into the “street”. The shop was tiny! It made the little Lisbon bike shop look huge. But it was jammed full of bikes of all types including their “rental fleet”. For a mere 10 Euros I was handed a step-through cruiser and sent off on my way.
At first it was totally fun and actually easy to find the excellent bike paths that go around the island / isthmus that is Cadiz. I was able to easily find the long and narrow path out to the isolated Castillo de San Sebastian, ride past the famous Roman Theater (Teatro Romana), past the beautiful and inviting La Caleta Beach and near the Santa Catalina Castle.
After circling back to where I started my circle-the-isthmus ride it was nearing my required 2;00 pm bicycle return time (they close at 2 pm and then reopen at 5 pm). I began the process of re-finding the little bike shop among the many narrow, and by now, very busy streets fillied with local and tourist pedestrians, delivery trucks, and rapidly moving motorbikes but only a few bicycles. It was started becoming stressful and my maps.me GPS app was struggling mightily with not being able to find satellites with the narrow streets lined with multi-story buildings. Eventually, just before 2pm, I found the bike shop and returned the bike.
Now it was time to find my way by foot to a couple of other places I wanted to visit. I eventually refound the ancient Roman theater but it was closed to the public. I then went looking for the famous Torre Tavira (an old watch tower) and its equally famous “camera obscura”. Supposedly the views from the top of the tower of the city are spectacular but by now there was a huge tourist crowd waiting to get in so I decided to pass on this attraction and head back to the ship.
While trying to use the maps.me app I discovered that my iPhone was nearly out of battery. And, to make matters worse, the app locked up and the phone locked me out – something it’s never done before. So now I was in the middle of the Cadiz street maze, couldn’t see in any direction very far due to the crazy maze-like layout of the streets and my smartphone map app was no longer smart.
After a number of tries in different directions I decided to put the sun at my back and keep walking knowing that no matter what I’d eventually reach the sea and could then find the ship. As luck and a bit of skill happened I actually walked almost directly – remember, in Cadiz one simply cannot walk directly anywhere – towards the Valiant Lady. I was almost overwhelmed at the number of people who where out and about in the afternoon compared to the morning when I was looking for the bike shop. Having to literally constantly dodge locals who knew where they were going and expected me to move out of their way and hordes of tourists who were mostly gawking at the sights added to the challenge of my trek through the streets of Cadiz. It was so good to be back on board my home of the last two weeks!
