I started the day by riding inside the walls of Almeida.
On every side of the town were walls 30 feet deep with heavily fortified gates both on the outer ring and the inner - The whole defences were set out in an octagonal star shape and as I alluded there was a double set of walls protecting from the Spanish invaders - I could imagine many a siege occurred here, inside there was the Kings Bakery so I guess the King of Portugal was once here defending his land.
The ride itself was pretty standard, I headed south into that wind again across a plain so there was no hiding from the wind.
I reached Vila Formosa which has a great tiled train station. This town is built on the border and obviously was separated before the EU and you can still see today there are two sets of streets and very few linking across. I briefly dipped my wheels into Spain !
There was an old steam locomotive which once held the world record for speed which used to run this line.
After 30 minutes sightseeing I headed off for a further 30 miles of punishment across the plain where very little changed slowly let alone quickly.
I had planned to stop for a snack at Soito which was only 10 miles before the finish but my route seemed to bypass any cafe the awfully cobbled town might have had.
I continued and spotted a cafe in Quadrazais ... too late, there were only 5 miles left to do.
I quickly polished them off and was in tonights stop, the town of Sabugal. Yes Ive never heard of it either but it was the right distance away at 40 miles and big enough to have hotels and resraurants. Its actally on the river Coa which runs down into the Douro eventually and has a castle on top of an old high part of town overlooking the river (Stream ! )
I was here at 2:30 so plenty time to refresh the body before tomorrow's ride and more importantly, time to actually plan how Im going to get back to the Algarve from here 😅