On riding in Portugal

Portugal is nice. I like it. But traveling in Portugal isn't the joy that riding in Austria, Italy, Corsica and France was. Because I've been horny for surf, I've stuck pretty close to the coast, and that is pretty heavily developed. There are towns every few clicks, so there isn't a lot of empty country to ride through. There definitely are some fine stretches, but they don't last long. So what I've been stuck with are a ton, no, make that thousands of tons of speed bumps. And speed bumps here can be a little different. Often, they are wide, from 5' to 20' wide, encompassing a pedestrian crosswalk. But there is this other, sneaky little thing that is used in many places. It's a radar traffic signal. The speed limit is set at 50kph, and the light will turn red if you go much faster than that. The light can be in the middle of nowhere, not at an intersection or crosswalk. It's just to slow you down and it only stays red a few seconds, but it's a pain in the butt when there is one every 1/2 mile. So, you're stuck with going slowly on the back roads, or hitting the autopista, where the speed limit is 120kph, but many people do 120_mph_. It's a little strange to be doing 95 in the slow lane and get passed by someone doing 120 or more. But the autopistas are boring, so it's a tossup between that or piddling along at 30mph through town after town, most of which look pretty much the same. And along the coast, that means little beach towns much like SoCal. But much prettier.

Street scenes in Cascais:

This is a neighborhood trash bin/recycle pickup. The trash truck hooks up an air hose and the whole thing raises to allow access to the bins underneath: