Portugal & Spain 2008

Wednesday - To the edge of madness

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Wednesday 18th June

We had quite a decent breakfast at the Seia-Camelo hotel, it's a nice civilised way to start what's likely to be a hot day on the road.

09:13 Bills paid, we're loading the bikes ready to go. The bikes had been locked up in a small car park down the side of the hotel, and sure enough, they'd been fine all night.

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So today's ride was planned to take us some 70 miles north for a tour around the Rio Duro valley and its Port wine vineyards. I've left the Port Wine city of Porto top left of the map so you can get your bearings. As usual the route was planned to keep us on scenic roads and away from large cities. But after yesterday's performance finding a hotel we were around 10 miles away from the planned route, but no problem, I soon ad-libbed a short 10 mile route that would get us back on track, and off we went...

Well, it turned out Lucy wanted to start the day by clowning around, first she tried leading us down a cart track that was long gone, resulting in me cancelling that route and trying again, but it was no joy, so I cancelled that route too, then zoomed in and tried to follow the roads I could see, <sigh> that was no good either, the roads just weren't there anymore. In the end I gave up and rode back up on to the main road near our hotel and followed the road signs out of town, that little diversion cost us 30mins, a pint of sweat and about 3 years of my life.

11:46 Patto and John sitting in the shade of a filling station cafe after the 70 mile ride north from Seia, we're just a few miles from the Rio Duro now, what can go wrong! LOL

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Well, what can go wrong is Lucy loosing her marbles again, she managed to mess us up twice more before we got to the Rio Duro, plus at one stage I couldn't see the screen properly, it seemed to have gone extremely dark. First Lucy tried to route us up through a concrete embankment wall that had been there for just forever... then, just before arriving at the Rio Duro she routed us up an incredibly steep farm track that even a tractor would have struggled on, If we'd had to stop for any reason, Patto and I could have waved goodby to our clutches as they disappeared in a 'puff' of smoke!.

12:52 But finally, our first view of the Rio Duro. By the time we'd arrived here I was just about at my 'wits end' with Lucy, she'd driven me to the edge of madness so far today, never has a GPS come so close to being tossed in the river :-(

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So after a five minute chilling out break (and to take in the view) we started westward on our afternoon tour of the Rio Duro valley. Now, when I planned this route the roads didn't look that winding, but now we were actually on them we soon realise just how slow these roads really are. The bends were frequent and tight and on some sections fine sand or earth had drifted over the road surface ready to catch the unwary. It was obvious my planned route would have to be shortened significantly or we'd still be riding around here come Christmas time.

14:00 So, after 20 miles we took the escape route over the Rio Duro to the North bank and headed back East again cutting many miles off the planned route, believe me, it was the wise thing to do.

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14:38 We needed fuel and refreshments again so stopped at a little roadside filling station in Frende that had a cafe attached. Outside the cafe about a dozen local men were sat talking together.  Inside was a counter and a few tables and chairs and a large flat screen TV hanging on the wall. I soon got the message over to the lady behind the counter that we wanted four cokes. While she was serving us I got the distinct impression we were getting special treatment when the first set of miss-matched glasses were changed by the son for four matching glasses with ice in them, a nice gesture, thanks mate :-)

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While sipping my coke I started watching the TV hanging on the wall. The picture below really doesn't do it justice (does it ever) but it was some kind of Portuguese soap, scene after scene flitted across the screen, and in every scene there'd be some stunning dark skinned lovley in either an off the shoulder bathrobe and underwear or off the shoulder blouse (and underwear) having some intense conversation with a sun bronzed hunk (rather like a glamorous version of that very depressing soap 'Eastenders') it was great stuff to watch even if you don't understand the lingo.

But it was time to get moving again, and also keep an eye open for a hotel along the way (which so far, there had been none, nada, zilch!) Oh please! Lets not have another re-run of yesterday! :-(

15:19 Still mustn't forget to stop for photographs, the picture below was taken from the viewing point 'Miradouro de Barqueiros' on the North bank looking roughly South West, this is a really good point to look down on the river and valley.

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15:39 Eventually we pulled in to the town of Peso Da Regua, surely there must be somewhere to stay here... and in the town centre there was, the four star Hotel Regua Douro! Now normally we'd avoid a place like this as being too flash and expensive, but as we hadn't seen anywhere else all day (and after yesterdays fiasco) it seemed wise to check it out. Dave and I hopped off our bikes and ducked inside, wow, it was lovely and cool inside after the 30c heat outside. After finding a desk clerk who could speak English we found out it was just over 35 euro a night each, and without our asking she also said we could park our motorcycles in the hotel car park, right, that's it, we're stopping here tonight lads!

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Well lit, clean and roomy parking under the hotel Regua Douro, the bikes will be fine here tonight.

After parking up the bikes we took the lift up to our room, Oooh nice, just got to push them beds apart a little... :-)

Then Patto made a discovery,  we have a suite!...  right Patto, get that telly on and see if you can find that smutty Portuguese soap :-)

Then John and Dave came in... we've a double bed they said... Oops! After ringing reception it turned out we had the last two rooms too, oh really!!! Oh well, you'll just have to sleep on opposite sides of the bed then :-)

This is the view from our veranda down the Rio Duro, that tiny black blob top left of the picture is a huge statue of Mr Sandyman of port wine fame, remember him from the Sandymans adverts years ago? you don't!... Oh dear, was it so long ago :-(

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As we'd finished riding nice and early today, we had plenty of time to explore the town. Wandering down the street we came across this old bike, I'm sure its a Casal (Portuguese made, and at one time imported in to the UK during the 70's moped boom). There're hundreds of little bikes like this in Portugal, many with leg shields, screens and plastic aprons, after all, you don't want to catch a chill do you!

Walking back toward the hotel on the Rua Jose Vasques Osorio (that's a mouth full isn't it)

As we were passing the railway station we dropped in for a look (three of us are railwaymen, so it's quite normal) and spotted this rail-bike on the far side of the station, In days of old we'd just have hopped over the rails for a closer look, but nowadays you need to be more careful, anyway, you don't know what the local railway people would say to a load of gringos leaping about their railway. If your wondering if it looks a little wide gauge, it is, the track gauge here is at 5ft 6ins (European standard gauge is 4ft 8½ins) a little more useless information for you to digests :-)

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Leaving the station we wandered further in to town where I spotted these two vending machines on the chemists wall. I'm showing you this picture because, well, it just surprises me that in what I took to be a staunchly catholic country they have machines like this on the wall, in the centre of town!

We finally settled down outside a bar to enjoy a few beers and watch the world go by. People came and went, the dogs of Portugal that had been sleeping in alleyways in heaps, woke up and started wandering the street looking for supper, which reminded us, we still hadn't found ours yet...

Long shadows around the pleasure boats on the Rio Duro tell you its getting late.

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We drew a complete blank looking for somewhere to eat (except for the pizza joint that was open, but deserted, and that we walked right past) So we went back to the hotel to have our evening meal there. The restaurant was on the top floor. We were given a table overlooking the river which was really nice as we could watch the last of the boats running up and down while the sun was slowly setting. But It sure was a posh place to eat, and I didn't feel too comfortable with things until I had the opportunity of giving a plate back to a waiter with a dead fly on it, it was whisked away and replaced without a word being said. And it turned out to be an excellent meal (probably the best of the whole trip), nicely finished off with a dessert from the trolley and a glass of local port wine, I can really recommend it, and I don't believe it cost a fortune either.

Tomorrow we're heading back to Spain and the Picos, now that should be fun :-)

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This is our route in yellow, 130 miles travelled.

Detail of our route around the Rio Duro valley

Today's elevation graph, at just over 70 miles we had that horrendous climb to get our first view of the Rio Duro

Today's temperature graph, nice and cool to start with but finishing a warm 30c

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