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The the north of Spain is also wet and cold these days, just going to have a look at how the coast looks like around here.

Today I had again a surprise road to ride on the calculated track.

After touching the coast it's finally time for the main destination of this tour, the "Picos de Europa", they've been on my list for years but for one reason or another I had never made it this far. The roads and scenery are amazing around here, too bad that the tarmac was still wet on the north side and could not fully enjoy the curves.

Arriving in Lisbon over the Ponte Vasco da Gama.

Cabo da Roca, Europe's western most point.

This is it, final destination, Mafra.

Crossing the Pyrenees

August is proving to be one of the worst times of the year to travel around Europe without previous reservations, (almost) every place is fully booked. Funny thing is, when I ask if they have a room, they go and ask if I have a reservation, dumb question. Besides that a lot of restaurants also profit from this weeks holiday to close for vacation.

The calculated track continues to surprise positively.

Despite the weather forecast announcing good weather for the day the sky was cloudy and after a while it started to drizzle, it was so weak that I didn't care to stop and put my rain suit on, in Portugal this kind of rain is called "wets the silly". With time though it became stronger and stronger and I was the silly who became all wet. I crossed the Pyrenees over a nice twisted road through an old beautiful forest.

Heading to Europes Westernmost point (mainland)

The rest is over, during this short pause I've done some updates to the bike that I've missed from the beginning, like a speedometer, proper tires and the ignition lock, besides that I've done service and checked everything again. My first test ride didn't went that well though, the bike entered reserve on the highway and I wasn't fast enough to turn the tap into the right position, after what the engine stopped. I tried to start the engine again after but had no luck, the fuel pump doesn't seam to build enough pressure to send the fuel from reserve level into the carburetors. Two or three weeks ago I got a tip about a website where you can calculate a route motorbiking based on your curve preferences, I did a test calculation on a known route and liked the outcome, therefore I decided to give it a try for this trip and see how it goes.

I still remember how the purchase of my first GPS changed and improved the way I travel from A to B, specially with the "shortest distance" option but the results I'm having from this site it's a completely new level. Specially now that you can hardly find paper maps in a useful resolution. Basically it searches for roads that are as least strait as possible and avoid, as far as possible, crossing villages, big ones in special. The result is that you'll be driving roads like these most of the time.

Barely no traffic and only a few small villages to cross.

I've spent the last days ridding through forests, natural reserve parks, mountain passes and as already mentioned with barely no traffic, a bikers dream as far as I'm concern.

The down side of it, if there's one, is that you're ridding far from the majority of the accommodations, restaurants, gas stations, ... and it will take you longer to get somewhere if that disturbs you.

Yesterday I had some difficulty finding a place to stay, it was getting late and I was trying not to leave the track then I finally found one where it was supposed to be none, had a nice talk with owner, we joked around, really nice. By norm I usually don't eat in the same place I sleep unless I have previously found positive information about it's food. Yesterday I broke the rule, (they didn't have a menu to choose from, just a plate of the day) then got something on my plate that I was not able to eat and got kicked out of the accommodation for it :/ if it didn't happened to me I would not believe it. Anyway, that got me a little in trouble as it was almost dawn and it started to get cold, I had to ride and search until 22:30 to successfully find a place for the night.