By Larry and Joan Dolinski
From Seville we returned to a totally natural environment as we biked toward the border between Spain and Portugal and on to Lisbon. For two days out of Seville we biked along comparatively remote roads passing through meadows covered with wild flowers, showing a profusion of colors: red, orange, violet, yellow, and white, each in many subtle shades. We identified daisies, poppies, and buttercups. There were many others. Enhancing the flowers were various kinds of bushes and frequent stands of cork trees. If all of this was not enough, the meadows were framed by distant mountains and dotted with very occasional farm houses. This would be the perfect setting to write a children's fairy tale or compose a "Peter and the Wolf." We were also treated to many sightings of storks, perched high up in their huge nests.
Passing through a number of medieval villages we arrived in Lisbon, our last stop on this Southern European phase of our trek. Our itinerary next includes a brief visit to Washington DC, then by bicycle we are scheduled to travel through MD, PA, NJ, NY, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, then into Paris by charter flight for over three months in Northern Europe.
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