The festoons on the trip were amazing along with the experiences and activities along the way. I would recommend that the walking tour in Tangier is dropped as it was rushed and wasn’t of much interest to myself or the group, instead spend more time in Chefchaouen. I would also have liked more time in Lisbon but I understand this is a new trip split into two from an old tour. I also thoroughly enjoyed the second night of Fes where the local guide took us out for the night, this should be included in future trips as it was a highlight for the whole group. Finally the best part about this trip was our guide Laura. She’s was amazing at every turn from her knowledge to her energy. There is nothing she wasn’t willing to do to make our experience better and of the many tours I have done she is the best and my favourite guide I have ever had and hope to travel with her again.
Do you like gravel or MTB bike riding? Then this is the trip for you. Do you only like road bike riding? This isn’t the trip for you. While there are sections on smooth backroads and bike paths, there are many sections on cobblestones, single track, forest trails, lumpy, bumpy and rocky paths. Some of these trails will be too steep or too rocky to ride and you will need to push your bike up these sections. There will also be times (mostly on day 1), where you will need to carry your bike up and down the stairs of flyovers of railway line crossings. There will also be times where the gps/Camino trail takes you down one way streets. There will also be a few times when the gps track differs from the Camino trail markers - we defaulted to following the Camino trail markers. The challenge is worth it. Experiencing different scenery, visiting interesting towns, meeting walkers (we didn’t meet any other riders).
Comparably to my 2019 experience with topdeck I was rather disappointed. Being twin accommodations I thought there would be a higher quality that was not the case. The local tour guide provided in Morocco wasted a lot of our time taking us to sightsee 4 and 5 star hotel (because of this we only had 1 hour the next morning to go on a walking tour of CHEFCHAQUEN which we all would have wanted to spend more time and he didn’t bother to answer the question we had he kept saying later. We missed the status of Hercules because it was closed? He took us to “shop” where we were ripped off by the merchant found the exact same item 10 times less but that wasn’t as big a deal just annoying. If you are going to call a tour Spain morocco, and Portugal then I feel like you should spend more than the night in Portugal, otherwise call it a morocco Spain tour. last comment if we have a bus driver it would be nice to use the bus when possible not having to pay to get to the walking tour another added cost which was not a thing in the past