Braga – Portugal – Part 2 – Starting to Feel Like Home

I bought a new bike from a shop in Madrid. A trekking bike, much like Emi’s, just not electric. The plan is to do some multi-day tours on more backcountry roads — some paved, some unpaved. This bike should do the trick. Since it was coming from Spain it had to be delivered which is somewhat challenging here. Partly because we live in a condo building and partly because the delivery person will just call when they are at your front door. So sometimes we may be home, sometimes not, in which case they try again the next working day. Luckily, I was just down the street and he waited for me to rush back home 🙂

We also bought a car. If you are into cities and only exploring cities, you do not need a car in Europe. But we love the outdoors — forests, rivers, beaches, etc. For exploring the backcountry, you just have to have a car. I feel that is true anywhere in the world. We bought a little 2017 Peugeot 208. Only 3-cylinders, 1.2L, 82 horsepower but it is turbo-charged 🙂 It gets up to speed fine but definitely struggles on big hills. However it gets great gas mileage. Buying a vehicle in Portugal was a very pleasant experience. The dealer was super kind. We literally walked in, test drove the car, bought it, and walked out of the dealer in about 1 hour. Every used car you buy from a dealer in Portugal comes with a 12 or 18 month warranty. Not bad.

The vast majority of cars in Europe are still manual transmission. I never learned how to drive one so that was a bit of a challenge. We took the car to an industrial part of town in the evening when all the businesses were closed. Lots of other kids learning to drive go to the same streets 🙂 I practiced an hour each night for a few nights and then just started driving the car everywhere. I’m getting pretty good but still a little jerky with the clutch and I’ll stall it once in a while.

One of the top reasons for me to move to Europe was to do more cycling tours. And we finally did our first self-supported tour. It was only two-days but a good introduction to tour riding. I took my road bike but my bikepacking gear will fit on my new trekking bike too. We rode from Braga to Geres where the national park is located. On the ride out we did a longer, more scenic route — alot of climbing but incredible views of the national park including the Rio Caldo area. We rolled into Geres pretty wiped from a long day in the saddle. We cleaned up and went out on town for drinks and a nice dinner. Nice breakfast at the hotel in the morning and back on the bikes for the ride home. Mostly downhill so that was nice. The miles flew by and we were back home before noon. A successful tour.

We explored the coastal town of Aveiro for our first road trip with the new car. It is called the Venice of Portugal. But there is only 1 canal and only 1 block of buildings may actually be a passable comparison to Venice. Despite that, we really enjoyed Aveiro. Walking along the canal is nice. Lots of little side streets and alleys full of shops and restaurants to check out. We had a great lunch at a brew pub featuring some great beer from a Coimbra brewery. Now I need to visit Coimbra 🙂

So now you are up to speed with our new European life. We are starting to feel comfortable here and settling in nicely. We are building some good relationships with new friends. Of course we miss friends and family back in the States. But Braga definitely is feeling like home and extremely grateful to have this opportunity.