Biking and Painting in Portugal

OK, so the main motivation for this trip was a one week bike tour of the medieval villages of Portugal. We had two wonderful guides, Jose and Cristina. This Portuguese couple made our experience in Portugal so special. They love their country and it shows! Here are the intrepid bikers:

From left to right: Cindi, Cat, Helen, Bill, Karen, Jacqueline (all from Central Oregon)

We rode during the day, and stayed in wonderful inns, restored convents, or B&Bs at night. Jacqueline Newbold and I worked on our journals nearly every day, even on the bike trip. I love travelling with Jacqueline. She doesn't ever feel self-conscious about sitting down in public and painting, and she is never too tired before turning in to work on her journal.

We enjoyed painting a stylized map of our trip in our journals:

I tried to portray our trip in images:  Beginning in the upper right in Marvao, 

we biked to Castelo de Vide, Elvas, Redondo, Arraiolo and finally to Evora.

Our guides with Portugal Bike took us on an interesting tour of an archeological site where we got to see beautiful pottery and evidence of an ancient civilization.

There is a journal page for that:

This 8 x 8 painting is in the Tumalo Art Company's holiday show starting December 2.

In my next post, I'll elaborate on this show. But for now, I'd like to publicly thank Portugal Bike and hope others will consider signing up for their incredible tours.

Thanks for reading,

Helen Brown