There’s no better way to see the wide-open vistas and centuries-old villages of ’s region than from the seat of a bicycle. TOM VANDERBILT dons his Lycra and hits the road. photographs by EMILIANO GRANADO

A

RIDE

The town of Montemor-o-Novo, east of Lisbon. Opposite: A view of the Alentejo countryside from IN the village of , near the Spanish border.

THE

COUNTRY I’m a keen cyclist, and have suffered through gorgeous scenery on a bike plenty of times. But this was a new level of hurt. To distract me, Junior kept talking: “So, where are you from?” I was too misera- ble and out of breath to answer. Every few miles, I pulled over to one of the gnarled, solitary trees beside the road, flopped in the anemic shade, and tried to quell the buzzing in my head. Finally, I made a command decision: “Call the car.” There’s no shame in summoning the “sag wagon,” as riders call it, but at that moment it was miles back, servicing others. I was in the horns of a dilemma: complete the last six miles to the hotel or wait in the heat. Were there no gas stations where I could find the salve of a Coke or a frozen treat? “That’s the thing about the Alentejo,” Junior said stoically. “You can ride for twenty or thirty minutes in any direction and see nothing.” I got back on the bike. Most of the rest of the way seemed to be uphill. Junior, steady as a stone, rode alongside, pushing me with his free hand. I pictured the cover of my college copy of Don Quixote: the delir- ious knight and his stalwart sidekick riding through an arid landscape. Cresting the last hill, I coasted to the hotel, where someone pressed cold towels into my hands. I looked sheepishly at Junior and finally answered his question: “New York.”

here are heaven-sent times to iding the Alentejo had been a fantasy ride a bicycle in Portugal’s of mine since a visit with the Swiss Alentejo region, a Belgium-size architect Valerio Olgiati at his neo- swath of land southeast of R Brutalist villa among the cork oaks Lisbon where cork orchards, of the western part of the region. Twhitewashed towns, rustic food, and ancient stones Marveling at the expanses surrounding us, Olgiati are plentiful. Spring, for instance, when carpets of enthused that one could drive all the way to Madrid wildflowers erupt and white storks return from on dirt roads. It was true, he allowed, that the Africa. Or autumn, when the first evening fires are lit Alentejo, like Portugal itself, was becoming more and black Iberian pigs are loosed upon the acorns. fashionable, attracting the likes of Philippe Starck and But in early September, during one of the Christian Louboutin, both of whom own homes near hottest spells anyone could remember, I was pedal- his. But the land still feels unusually wild for Europe. ing through a living furnace. The day had started Fortunately, this magnificent countryside also promisingly enough, beneath stately castle walls has plenty of quiet, well-maintained paved roads, in the medieval town of Montemor-o-Novo. But which are ideal for riding. As I listened to Olgiati, after 45 miles, the temperature had climbed above I thought of João Correia, a Portuguese native and 100 degrees. Separated from my group—too fast former professional bicycle racer based in Marin for some, too slow for others—I rolled along County, California, where he runs the high-end the blistering tarmac, straining up each hill. When bike-touring company InGamba. Its conceit is sim- I asked Junior, my jovial and faithful young ple: guests get to play pro cyclist guide, how much farther we had to go, he seemed Opposite, clockwise during the day before retreating to fumble for an answer that was credible yet from top left: Lisbon’s to a vineyard or other bucolic wouldn’t crush my spirit. Alfama District, setting for a chef’s-table dinner. seen from the At one point, I thought I could see our destina- Palácio Belmonte As cycling gets older and tion, the Torre de Palma Wine Hotel, across the hotel; a horse at wealthier (certain riders like to shimmering plains. But in a trick of perspective like São Lourenço do call it the new golf), such excur- Barrocal, a luxury some diabolical Magritte painting, the road never hotel in the Alentejo; sions, combining endurance drew me closer. I detected the faint tremors and veal with asparagus and epicureanism, have grown cruel chills of heatstroke. I drank water and poured at the restaurant at increasingly popular. São Lourenço; more over my head. Junior suggested sniffing it up a guest room at the I called Correia, who’d my nose, as if to cool my burning face from within. Palácio Belmonte. recently begun running trips to

76 travelandleisure.com the Alentejo, to inquire about going in September. in a hotel, but not really,” he told me. I could see religious statuary. When a scooter whined past, one cycling world. “The mechanic takes care of the bicy- “You know it will be very hot in the interior at what he meant. As I wandered the ornate, high- of the guides, a recently retired pro named Manuel cle,” as Correia explained, “and the soigneur takes that time?” he asked. (InGamba normally takes ceilinged rooms with my daughter in search of a Cardoso, jumped into its slipstream—“motor pac- care of the rider.” One of ours, José, had the thought- groups to the area in April and October.) But chessboard and a bottle of port I’d seen earlier, I ing,” as racers call it. We finished with a climb to our ful mien and close-cropped beard of a noble from a September was what worked for me and, more felt as if we were visiting the estate of an eccentric hotel, the Pousada Castelo Alcácer do Sal, located in 17th-century Portuguese portrait. He worked my importantly, my family. My wife and seven-year- relative. In the narrow cobblestoned streets out- a former convent in Alcácer do Sal, a town that was savaged legs with the intensity of a monk. old daughter’s patience for my extended bike side, an incessant stream of visitors to the São central to the salt trade during the Roman Empire. The true heat began on the third day. The journeys had worn thin, and so, as a gesture of Jorge castle passed on foot or in noisome tuk-tuks On the second day, we turned inland, away chatter subsided, the pace slowed, and we were all appeasement, I wanted to bring them along— belching exhaust. But behind the huge red doors from the marshes and pine forests of the coast. content to let the pros up front take the brunt of not to ride, but simply to enjoy the region. of the Belmonte, we could shut out the city and, it Cork oaks dotted the hillsides, floating like delicate the wind. Had I not been so focused on reaching Correia arranged a small group trip that would seemed, the past few centuries. green clouds above the brown grasslands. As I the Torre de Palma without passing out, I might cover a little more than 300 miles in a week, from settled into the rhythm of the ride, I found that the have wondered how my wife and daughter were get- the tip of the Tróia Peninsula, just south of Lisbon, he next morning, our cycling party greatest pleasure, even more than the scenery ting on. I needn’t have worried. When I finally did through cork farms, vineyards, and Roman ruins, gathered in the lobby. My fellow rid- and the camaraderie, was being freed, thanks to arrive, I found them emerging from a swim, having to the village of Évora, a unesco World Heritage ers were three couples, all American. the support team, from all worry. In the morning already taken a cooking class with the hotel chef. site. And so, a few months later, we found ourselves T Rather than navigate Lisbon’s hills, I simply had to report for my daily briefing with Torre de Palma, which opened in 2014 on a on a high terrace of the 17th-century Palácio traffic, and tram tracks, we climbed Cardoso. There sat my bike, tuned and polished, 13th-century herdade, or estate, consists of stark Belmonte, the beguiling hotel where Wim Wenders onto a bus for the seaside town of Setúbal. There, with fresh water bottles and a Garmin computer white buildings, old and new, surrounded by agri- filmed scenes for his 1994 film Lisbon Story. after a lunch of sea bass and sardines at Tasca da loaded with the day’s route map. Nearby was a cultural plains. At sunset, we joined the owner, Spreading out below us was the historic Alfama Fatinha, a waterfront tavern, we boarded a ferry to spread of rice cakes, energy bars, and the delicious Paulo Barradas Rebelo, for vinho verde atop the district, its warren of streets punctuated by the the Tróia Peninsula, where the InGamba crew and a Portuguese custard tarts known as pastéis de nata. property’s eponymous tower. It had a vaguely graceful dome of the Panteão Nacional. In the dis- neat row of very expensive Pinarello Dogma F8 rac- If I flatted or got thirsty on the road, the support Moorish cupola and notched openings around the tance, we could see the big blue band of the ing bikes were waiting for us. vehicle would whisk up with a fresh wheel or bottle. top, through which I imagined River. In Portuguese, Alentejo means “beyond the It was a brilliant blue afternoon, with cool ocean At the end of the day, I handed my bike to the medieval archers flexing their Tagus,” so it seemed appropriate for us to begin breezes from the west. Every cycling expedition mechanics, put my sweaty clothes in a mesh bag The bows. “The families liked to show Details here, on the other side. begins with a “shakeout” day to see what’s working on the door handle of my hotel room, and reported How to their power with symbolic ges- On the road between And it was particularly and what’s not—with the riders as much as the to the soigneurs for a massage. ride (or just tures,” Rebelo said. “From here Montemor-o-Novo visit) the and Monforte, in the important to Correia that we rides. Our pace was casual and chatty. We discussed Soigneur, a French word meaning roughly “one Alentejo, they could keep an eye on the northern Alentejo. begin at the Belmonte. “You’re a procession of gaily painted boats adorned with who provides care,” has special resonance in the page 96 workers.” (Continued on page 100)

I found that the greatest pleasure , even more than the scenery and

the camaraderie , was being freed of all worry .

78 travelandleisure.com inhabitants were pigeons. Uva was spoiled, and so, after a break for obsessive about realizing his vision coffee and snacks, someone would for the hotel. Wanting, for example, to inevitably make a move, inviting the reclad the roofs with original rust-red others to chase. Later, after returning Alentejo tiles, which are no longer to Barrocal, we would happily devour made, he recruited a truck driver to plates of watermelon, thick bread find caches on his routes, collecting with tangy cheese, and salads some 300,000 over two years. He also topped with huge wedges of tuna. enlisted high-end partners of the sort My wife and daughter, meanwhile, one might expect of a former advertis- had been doing some riding of their (Portugal, continued from page 79) ing executive, including Pritzker own with Filipe Gomes, Barrocal’s After Rebelo pointed out the Prize–winning architect Eduardo courtly, elegantly dressed horseman. Roman ruins in the distance, my Souto de Moura and Monocle pub- “The Alentejo is my heart,” he said. daughter begged to go for a visit. We lisher Tyler Brûlé’s Winkreative “The horses, they are like my sons.” borrowed cruiser bikes from the hotel agency, which oversaw the branding. In the afternoons, I’d meet up with and pedaled along a gravel road to The reborn São Lourenço do Barrocal my family to go exploring. In São the gates, only to find them locked. is an appealing mix of comfortable Pedro do Corval, we found Rui Then we spotted a small opening, rusticity and contemporary minimal- Patalim, a fifth-generation potter, in and in a moment of parental-role- ism. Our post-ride massages at the his workshop. My daughter watched, model failure—I blame the heat— hotel’s Susanne Kaufmann Spa took transfixed, as he whipped off a mug, I decided we should sneak in for a place within small chambers painted barely seeming to move his hands. In quick look at the ancient frescoes and entirely white. The ceiling hooks over- the nearby village of Reguengos de olive-oil presses. head were the only reminder that the Monsaraz, we wandered into Fábrica spaces were once used to dry hams. Alentejana de Lanifícios, the last pro- ur group left earlier the With Barrocal as our base, our ducer of traditional blankets in the next morning, to avoid group spent the next few days riding region. Inside a century-old blue- the worst of the sun. through the surrounding countryside. and-white building, originally an O Scenes unfolded before We climbed to Monsaraz, a stunning olive-oil factory, a woman worked us like a mildly nar- hilltop village with narrow passages, a looms as old as the beams above her. cotic dream: the symmetrical play of castle with an old bullring, and views On the final day of the ride, the vineyards across reddish hills, a man of Spain—everything, seemingly, but group pedaled into the town of Évora, on a horse-drawn cart laden with hordes of tourists. There, I met Thierry whisking past the Roman Temple grapes. We breezed past the ornate Bernard, a French expat who had of Diana at the center of town. That gates to distant estates and countless stocked his shop, Casa Tial, with deli- evening, I returned—by car, whitewashed houses accented with cacies like liqueur made from poejo, or thankfully—to Monsaraz with my ultramarine or ocher. We stole into pennyroyal, a popular local herb. wife and daughter. At an outdoor centuries-old villages where old men I asked what had prompted him to table at the Sabores do Monsaraz res- with walking sticks eyed us. Occa- leave a fashion career in Paris to come taurant, with a spectacular view of the sionally, a car passed by, the driver to this town of 780 people. “The enchantingly lit city, we ate platters of shouting words of encouragement (or Alentejo calls you,” he said. “There is black Iberian pork and bacalhau, fol- so we hoped). something here that people really lowed, at the urging of the matronly At the end of the fourth day, we connect with.” I felt that something on owner, by glasses of white port and rolled into São Lourenço do Barrocal, a sunset walk at Barrocal when we cake. Festive horn music played as a vast estate reached by a dirt road happened upon one of the Neolithic people wandered the old walled town, lined with holm oaks and carob trees. menhirs that dot the property. Still their shadows dancing on the walls. For generations it was a farm belong- warm with the day’s heat, the huge Back home in New York, I found ing to the family of José António Uva, curved stone jutted up from the grass. myself missing the camaraderie of who left a job at Saatchi & Saatchi to Beyond this dormant sentinel, the the ride. There is something espe- turn it into a hotel. Like many other fairy-tale visage of Monsaraz shim- cially rewarding about undertaking properties in the region, including mered in the distance. a physical challenge, in an intriguing Torre de Palma, it was expropriated new landscape, with a group. by the communist government in 1975 ith the heat wave sub- Evidently, I wasn’t alone in feeling after Portugal’s Carnation Revolution. siding and our bodies that way. For weeks, we all kept ban- It took until 1991 for the family to acclimating to the rig- tering on the team WhatsApp regain complete control of the land. W ors of daily riding, a account. “Guys,” Correia chimed in, In 2002, Uva embarked upon what sense of joviality “you know the ride is over, right?” would become a 14-year restoration returned to our group. We would start Real life was calling—work, the project of São Lourenço do Barrocal. out easy, with sing-alongs of 1980s start of the school year—but we By then the long, white buildings hits. But for some—and I am impli- couldn’t keep from dreaming of the had broken roofs, and their only cated here—a bike ride is a race next Alentejo hill to climb.

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