Four Days of Andalusia, Ridden in Two
I planned a slow ride from the Costa Blanca to the Algarve and did it in two stages, mostly because of a thunderstorm and a craft beer.
Late September 2026
Planned as four days. Ridden as two. Nothing went wrong, which is the embarrassing part.
The plan was civilised. Leave Dénia after two weeks at Co-Co Coliving, take the slow way through Andalusia — Málaga, Tarifa, a night at the Portuguese border — and arrive in Olhão with a day spare before the flight out of Faro. Andalusia being the part of Spain everyone tells you not to rush.
Ninety kilometres in, at a petrol station, I checked a distance. I could not un-know the answer.
Two things argued against the slow way. A severe thunderstorm sitting in the forecast, directly on the Andalusian half of the route. And a craft beer in Fuseta, at a brewery that shuts at a specific time. Only one of those is a defensible reason to ride 838 kilometres in a day. I used both, which is how rationalisation works.
So: motorway west at whatever the signs allowed, until the sun made the decision for me and I stopped in Vila Real de Santo António. The hotel’s private parking turned out not to exist, so the bike spent the night on the street and met the rear end of a small transport van. My hips spent it discovering what eight hundred kilometres of sitting still does. Nobody mentions the hips.
The next morning was 53 kilometres of country roads into Olhão, taken deliberately slowly, as an apology.
Andalusia is still there. I rode past it at a hundred and twenty.