Thursday 05/05/2016
Another very warm night but this time I slept with the sleeping-bag open and also with the door to the porch open. Slept much better but we were awoken by the sound of light rain on the tent. It was a good excuse to quickly pack our stuff up and find shelter for a sandwich breakfast before another long ride.
The weather was drizzly and foggy for most of the day. We rode through Porto along the river - very cool bars / cafes looking a bit shabby-chic if you like all of that kind of stuff. We continued along the roads that followed the Duaro river - very nice road with great views but it was hard work in the wet with shiny man-hole covers in the middle of the road on most corners.... Very few straight sections made it difficult to take in the views whilst riding.
We stopped for fuel, coffee and cake in a small village. It was good to get out of the rain, but our waterproof gear kept the rain out and it was nice not to be boiling hot like yesterday. Progress was really slow, hours went by and we didn't seem to be covering any distance. Saw some more shocking driving - nobody looks in their mirrors and people just pull-out in front of you. Saw a HGV driving like a nutter down a very windy road. As he approached blind bends where he needed to use both lanes then he just 'beeped' and carried on with slowing down much. Inevitably as he rounded another bend there was a loud bang and he hit a Transit van that was in the middle of the road waiting to turn at a junction.... Glass, plastic and metal everywhere but no flesh & blood damage. The whole road was blocked, but being on a bike we managed to squeeze through.
The Duaro Valley really is stunning. Such great views with Vinyards absolutely everywhere along the 'Porto Wine Route'. Lots of river cruise ships heading up and down the river. Shame the weather spoiled the views. It was very rural and the road constantly twisty but we did ride through some pretty towns by the river.
We decided to break off from the Duaro Valley road and head to Braganca en route back to Spain as it would have taken us hours to finish the road. A new road heading North had just been built, which was empty, so we covered loads of distance in a short space of time. We stopped again for a meal in a roadside restaurant which looked quite posh. We didn't really fit-in well with our soaking bike gear. Nobody spoke English so our food order was a lottery. We got Goulash, Sausage Roll things, bread and Tuna with crackers as a starter, followed by soup, followed by belly-pork / potatoes / salad and finally warm-cake & fruit-salad to finish (with some great coffee). Not eating again tonight - we were stuffed! All for €20 in total! The nice velvet seats were left soaked from my wet motorbike trousers!
We started looking for camping in Braganca and found a sign which took us way out onto the sticks to a place called Cepo Verde where we have rented a wild-west looking little stone house which is actually very nice with all the mod-cons. Good value at €35 - it even has a wood burner!
Nice bar - sampling all the local brandy varieties. Some are excellent! They also have the world's biggest pen-knife!
Tomorrow we head back into Spain. We are due more 'light rain' tomorrow and then 'heavy rain' on Saturday so I think it won't be much fun going forwards.
Mileage: 942
Beers: 9 + wierd coctail + 3 big vodka's + 3 big red vinos + 1 massive G&T + 4 white ports + 10 brandys
Ass pain: 5/10 (Krysia) / 2/10 (Me)
Mechanical issues: 0
Accidents: 0 (1 witnessed)
Coldness: 2/10
No comments:
Post a Comment