Pedalling Portugal – the book

It’s almost three years since my last post on this blog (oops!) but I do have big news.

The first edition of Pedalling Portugal, a comprehensive guidebook partly based on this website but greatly expanded, has just been published.

Subtitled A guide for cyclists and other explorers, the book brings together everything I’ve learned while spending more than 21 years exploring Portugal on foot, by bicycle and in a car. Plus a lot of extra research on everything from history and rainfall statistics to updates on the Portuguese railway network!

Although I’m no longer leading guided cycle tours, I really didn’t want the knowledge I’ve gained go to waste. I started planning the book quite a few years ago but other projects (life) kept getting in the way. However, this summer I finally had a chunk of time free so knuckled down and got to work.

It’s more than 21 years since Carolyn and I first arrived in Portugal, crossing the border into the Algarve on our tandem and working our way north, exploring places that we later came to know in much more depth. On that first trip, we spent around eight weeks cycling the length of the country, not realising what a huge role Portugal would come to take in our lives.

Over the following years, we returned to Portugal for multiple visits before spending three years living in the country, teaching English as a foreign language – while continuing to explore in our spare time.

This website began life in around 2011, while we were living in Torres Vedras, initially as a quite a basic site. While we moved back to England the following year, various things kept pulling us back to Portugal – the weather, the people, the wine, the scenery, the prices!

In early 2016 we launched our own guided cycle tours under the Pedal Portugal name. Over the next eight years we ran more than 30 trips, mainly exploring the Alentejo, the Algarve and the eastern Beiras.

We knew we’d got the formula right when our riders started coming back for repeat trips. We had a few who rode all five of our routes and you can’t get a much bigger compliment than that!

We ‘retired’ from leading cycle tours in 2024, partly calling a halt while we were still enjoying the tours and before it became a ‘job’, also because we’d moved house in England and various other things had changed in our lives.

Pedalling Portugal draws on those 21+ years of experience to create a book packed with practical information. While primarily aimed at cyclists, there’s a wealth of information for anyone wanting to explore the country in depth and discover sights other than the usual tourist hotspots.

Whether you’re on a bike, on foot or in a car, Portugal has so much to offer: wonderful scenery, friendly people, quiet back roads and a wealth of history and culture – plus some great food and wine. Much of the interior is also largely unexplored by tourists of any kind.

Whether you want to know how to find vegan food and craft ale or explore Napoleonic battle sites, Pedalling Portugal is designed to put you on the right track.

Producing this book is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and represents the culmination of a lot of hard work and long hours. It’s been hard labour but also a labour of love. Hopefully it shows!

If you’re interested in taking a look, this link should take you to the right place.