Iberia

From the author of Interstate, Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year 2016.

Iberia is Julian Sayarer's account of his impromptu journey across Portugal and Spain, from Lisbon towards Barcelona, undertaken during a pandemic on an old blue bicycle named Miles. Finding himself in Lisbon amidst a pandemic, Sayarer decides simply to ride. Through hazy landscapes and on baked roads, he pedals east. During long hours in the saddle, his thoughts traverse matters big and small—hopping from post-colonial culpability to the supremacy of an orange picked at the roadside.

Across 900 miles of sun-drenched olive groves, vast mountainscapes, and dormant towns glimpsed through driving rain, Sayarer's journey is punctuated by fleeting, beautiful moments of human connection. Iberia is a celebration of a shared humanity and community found in a uniquely fragile time.

"Sayarer is a brilliantly thoughtful writer... One can't help thinking that the future of travel writing lies in this adventurous, post-modern genre."—Sara Wheeler
"Sayarer has made something of a specialism of reporting on the world from the roadside."—Daily Telegraph
"Sayarer's love of the open road and his ability to evoke the beauty of travelling by bike are a potent combination that makes you itch to go cycling."—Cycling Active