Description

This route joins together the gravel bikepacking routes of the Via Algarviana trail and the traversal of the Sierra Morena. It’s also the transition from Portugal to Spain.

It starts in the village of Vaqueiros and follows an offshoot of the Via Algarviana up to Martim Longo. This section is all off-road with a lot of ups and downs. In places it is overgrown and in at least one part (when crossing a river) it was difficult to find the track.

Martim Longo is a pleasant enough small town with a few cafes and bars, I tested the one near the roundabout.

You then head out of town towards the cemetery on a very quiet road before starting on what I’ve described as the greatest gravel track I’ve ever ridden. It is fast and flowing with no great ups and downs. But in spring there are so many wildflowers that you could be racing through a Disney film set.

You’ll join the asphalt M507 which you then follow to the equally desserted N122. Perhaps it was the time of day I travelled but many of the asphalt roads in this part of Portugal were empty. I literally cycled 5km on the N122 (supposedly a major road) without seeing a vehicle.

The major town on this route is Mértola, a good place to stop overnight.

Next up I took a walking path almost vertically up the far side of the river to try to get a view of Mértola in the morning, but it was foggy. Still quite atmospheric.

Theres’s then a bunch of small roads and fantastic gravel tracks, sometimes passing through farmland, on the way to Santana de Cambas which is a good place to stop for coffee.

You’ll next pass through the other worldly São Domingos Mine along a 5-8km abandoned railyway track. Now deserted but still somewhat polluted, the place again feels like a film set, this time less Disney and more dystopia.

The European Divide Trail map suggests crossing into Spain further North on the main road, but there’s an amazing detour on gravel tracks on the old smugglers path. The only issue: you’ll need to cycle across the river. This wasn’t an issue when I did it (perhaps 20cm deep and slow flowing), it’s also on a concrete base. But you may want to check the weather, had it been raining heavily it might well have been unsafe, noting that this is a very isolated part of the world (perhaps 10km from the mining town).

The first town after the border is Paymogo and then I took roads to Santa Bárbara; however you can take a northern detour to stay on some gravel.

Past Santa Bárbara the terrain gets much hillier: there’s now a 40km trip on gravel roads over the mountains (hills?) without any supply stops. I only saw two vehicles on this section: a big lorry throwing up all sorts of dust and a park pick up truck who actually slowed to check that I was ok.