THE MEDIA BUZZ AROUND WERIDE
Sometimes, Christmas makes us have the best ideas. “Dad, you should just come down here. To Portugal!” Hop on a plane and escape the miserable weather! He was lucky. Window seat on a direct flight. Three days in Lisbon, the day after Christmas Eve. A Christmas present. A gift for both of us! Aboard two new eMTBs, the age difference shouldn’t matter. Or so I thought…
To get to the north we decided to go by train rather than automobile or plane, relying on our previous travel experience to “wing it.” How hard could it be anyway? Most of the time it can be as simple as getting on the train, buying a ticket and figuring the rest out as you go. Sometimes you get it wrong, and in the case of traveling from Sintra to the northern city of Braga, we got it really wrong. Like we got kicked off the train wrong. Thankfully we took it all in stride and arrived only 5 hours later than expected. The more I travel, the less I worry about these situations. My motto is, someone will tell you if you are doing it wrong, otherwise act like you have been there before.
Based just north of Lisbon, in the historic city of Sintra, we were now immersed in one of the more popular tourist zones in Portugal. Our lodging, Casa Do Valle, was perched on the edge of a mountain of trails, an ideal spot for a smooth transition from the ultra rural setting of the previous week’s bikepacking adventure. It felt more like a mountain retreat than a bed and breakfast in a busy visitor area. Certainly, we intended to take advantage of the good eats and sights of Sintra, but our main priority was to soak up the mountain bike experience.
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