{"id":1793,"date":"2010-07-19T20:39:25","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T19:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/?p=1793"},"modified":"2010-07-19T20:41:48","modified_gmt":"2010-07-19T19:41:48","slug":"montalegre-northern-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/?p=1793","title":{"rendered":"Montalegre, Northern Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The venue for this years World MTBO Championships was Montalegre, in northern Portugal near the city of Chaves. Nestled in hills of forests and open scrubland, the vistas seem to remind me of a mixture of various UK landscapes. A sort or Dartmoor crossed with the the Peak District (but bigger), all with a distinctly rustic Portuguese flavour. The area is famous for its tourism: outdoors and the lakes (created by great dams), smoked meats (which feature on all the menus) and witches<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Montalegre itself is based around a castle perched on top of a spur overlooking a river valley. Its medieval, narrow, cobbled streets are lined with a mixture of old and new buildings sitting comfortably together and seemingly endless cafes and restaurants, little shops and small squares. The Event centre was Montalegre Pavilion, a huge exhibition centre\/theatre in the heart of the small town, a great asset for an event like the MTBO World Champs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Team GB enjoyed the landscape for its spectacular views, and its towns and villages for their old world charm. The owner of our appartment showed us a gorgeous, not quite secret, swimming river with a series of waterfalls and\u00a0sink holes, creating a perfect place to unwind after a race in the cool water.<\/p>\n

A family adventure holiday in this region would be simply fantastic and I would love to return, but perhaps with a decent phrase book as I have been<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

doing much pointing and gesticulating this week. The food has been good value and the residents warm and friendly. A great World Championships, well organised and in a wonderful location.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The venue for this years World MTBO Championships was Montalegre, in northern Portugal near the city of Chaves. Nestled in hills of forests and open scrubland, the vistas seem to remind me of a mixture of various UK landscapes. A sort or Dartmoor crossed with the the Peak District (but bigger), all with a distinctly … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Montalegre, Northern Portugal”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-competitions","category-mountain-biking-cycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1793"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1804,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions\/1804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}