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Cyclists Without Borders

Creative, cycle nomad and nature lover.

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- Lisbon | Nordkapp
- Munich | Norcia
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Creative Recycling

Shell painting

How to turn seashells into beautiful paintings. Continue reading Shell painting

FranzJune 27, 2017October 1, 2017Leave a comment

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Lisbon | Nordkapp >> Cycling in Belgium
Lisbon | Nordkapp >> Cycling in Normandy and the French Flanders
Lisbon | Nordkapp >> Cycling La Vélo Francette
The Greenhouse Effect.
#2 Planting time. Vegetable garden on the balcony.
Lisbon | Nordkapp >> Cycling La Vélodyssée
Shell painting

Someone is hiding here 😻🐞

Welcome to Pamplona 😍

After Santo Domingo de la Calzada and Viana, the road to Pamplona was more difficult than I thought because of strong wind but I eventually made it through. With patience...lot of patience 🙏

Getting to Santo Domingo de la Calzada exactly when the village was celebrating 'la rueda' (the small village celebrated until 8 in the morning) was just one of a crazy series of coincidences which never ended meanwhile I was on the move. I turned a pilgrim, as I was on the Camino de Santiago, who was riding on the 'wrong' direction. An amazing wrong direction.

Soup, enough sleep and a warm shower. That is all I need to recover from fever. Cold nights in Burgos.

After Tordesillas and Palencia, for a couple of days I could not make any right decision. I just wanted not to lose time and follow "the timeline" that I found myself with a flat tire, riding in the mud, with stomach problems, fever and pushed away from a storm in the middle of the Spanish countryside because I was so stubborn that I was not listening to environment. Everything was telling me to get lost, to go with the flow, to forget any timeline, but I was not ready yet. The city-machine follows you even when you know you do not belong to it. Listen.

We have visitors :-)

If on a rainy day you just will to reach Palencia riding on the caminhos, well, better to look for an alternative route unless you like swimming in the mud! #localsarebetterthangooglemaps

From Salamanca to Tordesillas the sun kept shining but I reached the town just in time to find shelter in my beloved moving 'home'. An orange tent. A good tent and a good sleeping bed are forever. Almost.

I left Ciudad Rodrigo pointing Salamanca. It was raining that morning, and with a warm cup of coffee in my hands I was hesitating. Why not waiting for a day or two and enjoy good weather? But when you are cycling you can not be afraid of getting wet, I pushed myself on the street and faced the first rainy day, and 24h later the sun was shining again.

On my way to Ciudad Rodrigo I definitely said goodbye to Portugal and did not take the last chance to go back ;-) With a full stomach I reached the city quite early, pushed by yellow clouds rolling through the trees and spanish bulls. Slowly rolling north on empty streets.

Atè logo. The last glimpse of Portugal from this no man's land on the border. Here I faced my first real climb. 15km always up. But all the effort was compensated by an insane descendent and especially by the hospitality of a tiny spanish village on the other side of the mountains that welcomed me for lunch.

I left Monsanto on a sunny and extremely hot day pointing Spain. I was alone on the street in this wild region so close to Serra da Malcata that a huge iguana crossed the street just in front of me and a lynx was having a nap under a tree. It was an incredible unexpected experience but I run, yes I run. To Spain.

One of the most absurd place I have ever seen in Portugal is Monsanto. A town built on huge rounded rocks in the middle of a valley. I first stop at Castelo Branco ready to move to Sabugal but thank to my first experience with a series of crazy coincidences I changed my plan and rode to Monsanto where I found shelter at a permaculture based eco-project.

Do you know that feeling when you reach the peak twice, you are sweating...the vegetation it is all around you, no cars, no humans around, only trees. You see the river from the top. It is immense, it flows down to Lisbon and the air smells like eucalyptus. Finally it is time to ride down, the wind it is challenging but the beauty of this natural gorge is priceless. Pure nature, pure happiness.

Cycling across Alentejo was great, basically nobody on the secondary small roads surrounded by cork trees. Warm sunsets, bird flocks and the inevitable company of disoriented cows and proud storks.

This is Évora, where the air tastes of orange. As one of those oranges which felt on the ground, I was also rolling somewhere, to that north you can not find on a map. Here I met Pedro, Pablo and other crazy world travelers who left home to look for a different kind of life. Cycling for all those km that day was really exhausting. I thought I could manage but my body disagreed. After a couple of days, a warm shower, enough sleep, and good food I was ready to move to Alter do Chão.

From Lisbon I reached Setubal and then I hop with my bike on a ferry to the troia peninsula, an infinite sand beach on the ocean. It was hot, too hot. End of April felt like summer. That day I cycled to Evora, my muscles were hurting and the first thought was: how the hell can you get to Norway Francesca if you are almost collapsing the first cycling day???

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Creative Recycling
Cycling
Environment & Sustainability
Lisbon | Nordkapp

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