6/5: day 10 (seventh and last day of the VBT tour)

Today was a travel day. Our routine on travel days has typically been breakfast starting @7:30, luggage outside our hotel doors by 8:00, meet for orientation and/or leave around 8:30. Today we had a more relaxed morning in part because we were not riding. We didn't leave until 10:00 so that meant we had about 2.5 hours without luggage and nothing really to do. By this point in the trip, I am usually ready to go home.

Ironically, today the weather was partly sunny and warmer than any other day that we were riding.

A final good-bye present from our resort. I got hit for a bill for yesterday’s lunch that the hotel prepared for us. It was 20 euro each. I ate only about half of it because we had another 20 miles to ride back to the start. Most of us would have been happy with snacks from the VBT van.

At 10:00 we walked down the driveway to the road and had to walk even further down the road to where the bus was able to park safely. It was nice that we didn't have to haul our luggage all that way over cobblestones. Did I say we all hated cobblestones?

The drive back was boring. We took a divided highway all the way back to Lisbon and passed a couple of rest areas along the way. We could have been anywhere except that the road signs were in Portuguese.

I think the food was a little better than what we'd see at our interstate rest stops but I have never seriously considered eating at any of the fast food places on the Thruway and the MassPike except when the kids were little.

We arrived back in Lisbon and it was a shock to be in the city after spending a week in the country. There was a lot of traffic, a lot of stop and go, and I was really glad I didn't have to drive.

We checked into the same hotel that we stayed in the for the pre-trip so getting around was easier. Walter and I actually ended up in the same room. Mike and I went back to the shop where we took the e-fatbike tour and just rented bikes without the tour. We rode to the waterfront where there was a bike path and rode it to the end.

Here's Mike riding away under the bridge that supposedly looks like the Golden Gate bridge.

And here's the bridge. It is pretty impressive. Our bus went over this bridge twice, once leaving the city and today coming back and it is a looooong way down.

The e-fatbikes were actually a lot of fun when you could air them out. When we were on the tour, we only really noticed the electric assist when climbing cobbled streets uphill. They rolled pretty well on flats and downhill. But when Mike and I got onto empty stretches of bike path, we were able to max them out on the highest setting (5) and anything over 25 kph were a function of our own legs. We got them up to 32 kph. Sure, it is possible to ride them pretty effortlessly but if you push them, it is a pretty good workout. Remember that they are probably over 40 pounds and they're not very aero and we're upright. I think by the end of the ride, I had managed to deplete my battery one bar and I had it on the highest setting most of the time.

We stopped for a drink at a shop by the water front but I seem to have missed a picture opportunity.

But here's the link to the ride on Ride with GPS since I forgot to bring a bike computer: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/23950885

27 kilometers doesn't sound quite right although I did forget to turn it off when I walked back to the hotel.

We met up for dinner and went to yet a different restaurant on the same plaza across the street from the hotel. The attraction was that it was close, it was serving food before 7:00pm and it was in the sun. We enjoyed the space for about 20 minutes and then the clouds rolled in.

After dinner and some jackets, we strolled the pedestrian plaza with touristy shops. I got lured into one with a young woman who was creating name plates on paper with a sewing machine. I thought it took some skills so I stopped to look. She offered me one with Lisboa on it. I declined, figuring then she would ask me for money. When I said no thanks, she asked me what my name was. Here's the end result of that conversation.

I still didn't buy anything but since the idea was to get you in the shop, the least I could do was go in and look around.

We strolled on and when we needed a bathroom stop, we went into a nightclub with a live band playing covers of american hits. The boyz liked it.

Here are the lounge lizards.

This seemed like an appropriate way to end the trip since we never actually heard the traditional Portuguese singing, "Fado", the entire time we were there. Instead, we heard Elvis and Stevie Wonder.