This 4-day / 3 nights ride will take us from the capital of Portugal, Lisbon, to the deep South, a land of open landscapes, big vistas, and back.
On this tour, you will find the influence of the Moors that conquered and ruled this region for nearly 8 Centuries. The architecture and the food have nuances of distant lands with the taste of Sirocco Winds. Plains and rolling hills will expand your horizons, completing the surprise views as you ride through the shadows of tree-laden roads.
Leaving Lisbon via Europe’s longest bridge, Vasco da Gama Bridge, riding 7 miles over the Tagus River, we make our way to Estremoz. On the way you will feel the city being left behind and great motorcycling looming ahead.
A few stops are planed along the way while leisurely making our way to the night stop. They include Evora, Evoramonte, Arraiolos and a few more that you will discover on the tour!
On the first night we will sleep in a Castle built in the thirteenth century, packed with history and delightfully presented with the comforts of modern days, but with the regal beds of the past! Fit for Kings, one might say! We will enjoy typical Alentejo food for dinner as well as be able to drink wine grown in the very vineyards we rode through earlier in the day, as is the case in most of our tours and stays.
The next day, we will leave Estremoz and sleep near the Alqueva Dam that originates Europe’s biggest man lake. It is a surreal landscape, with water in the middle of dry lands and oaks and olive trees that are centuries old now finding the comfort of quenched thirst. You will have time for a refreshing dip in the swimming pool before a flavorful meal. Now fully into the trip, the Alentejo breeze with its African sent, welcomes you into a night of peace. And what about the sky? The sky here is amazingly big, almost like an African Sky, and one of the best stargazing locations in the world due to non-existent light pollution.
On the third day, we start making our way back to Lisbon via backroads, empty for the most part, with those large vistas peppered with cows and sheep, this being a very agricultural area still.
On this tour you will have been through a land that carries with it an ancient history of different influences, from the Celts to the Moors, through millennia, all combining into a mix of culture that is absolutely best enjoyed on a motorcycle; castles telling stories of war and conquer; Roman bridges and roads still connecting villages like they did 2000 years ago, Moorish architecture, monolith monuments watching the world go by for the last 7 thousand years... And then we simply show up on our bikes and roll up close to the Stone Age sacred stones in a way not possible anymore in more famous locations.
This cultural diversity is in everything Alentejo, from the food with its distant influences to the ancient monuments present in everyday life. We are excited to share all these with you, linked by lots of fun riding a motorcycle on some amazing roads!
Thanks for reading and sharing!
The Turtle