John here:
Hah! We missed a day or two. But here we are on the coast of Portugal, south of Porto. The biking day into Porto was incredible. Pouring rain, intense long inclines, trails through mud, crazy descents on very slippery cobblestones and rocks (see the video where Patti bumps her way down a disused Roman road that we finally found after a route suggested by Ride with GPS seemingly ended in a field) fog-obscured vistas, battery anxiety, and a very long extremely hilly entry into Porto. But – highly recommended!!!! It was like Portugal saved its very best for us for the last day to the Atlantic Ocean.
Our much-earned apartment in Porto was just what we needed. A lovely view of the Douro, with its beautiful Eiffel-designed bridge. We were soooo fortunate to be able to fold the trikes up and store them on the first floor landing of the building. Leaving them outside in a busy urban European scene is very worrying. We had a day off from cycling to enjoy the hills and back-alleys of Porto, and learned much from a walking tour guide. Portugal has a fascinating and long history and its recent tourism success is quite a story. If we remember, we’ll address that in our next entry.
Patti here: I think it took us until now (a few days later!) to recover from that adventure. It was fantastic and we laughed and cussed our way through it but… holy cow. That day was a challenge.
We left the RibaDouro in light drizzle and began a solid six km ascent. And then things got worse. Much much worse. Stopped to pull on rain gear. Put the rain capes on the trike seats and pushed onward. We knew we had 76 km in front of us and over 1300 metres of climb in skiddy conditions. Honestly, every little enclave of humanity has its dogs in fenced yards and those dogs – whether they’re big or small – absolutely hate the sound of our trikes. They send out the alarm: three wheeled intruders in our midst. Yeah yeah, but… whe. You aren’t certain that all of those dogs barking and growling are contained, it’s a little aggressive Hound of the Baskervilles in the eerie fog.
Our guaranteed all-paved route was not. LOL. So, we did some very muddy almost off road cycling through forests (“put ‘er in BOOST and give ‘er, John”). When we were approaching Porto we saw a LeClerc (our favourite grocery store from a trip to France with Sue and Mark and Glen and Birgit and Will and Anna) and John deked in to pick up cheese and wine (but couldn’t make his desire for a loo understood) and we pushed on, except it started to absolutely pour while I waited for him in the parking lot, guarding the bikes. Ah well. Swearing ensued on my part. People in cars driving by were shrugging their shoulders in sympathy.
The sun came out when we finally hit old town, Porto. But then John’s RH brake seized (John being John fixed it – see photo) AND if you have never experienced Porto traffic at 5 on a weekday when they are fixing every corner…. Wow.
Plus, a very handsome police officer stopped us when we hoped we could sneak the wrong way down a one way street, forcing us to add about 20 minutes to our ride. However, he WAS, as I mentioned, very handsome. Of course, by this time we had severe range anxiety – this trip really taxed the batteries’ and our limits.
Bottom line: We found the apartment, figured out codes, threw panniers in there, broke down and folded the trikes and stowed them in the lobby, showered, plugged in all necessary devices, walked three doors west to a place that had a very attractive menu, planted ourselves and enjoyed a spectacular meal.
An octopus made that happen.
The last thing we did was reserve spaces on a “locals walk” tour for first thing in the morning, and then , oh boy, did we sleep well.
What a great day. I have the best travelling companion. We can get through anything. (And we are happy, rain-induced, octopus fuelled prunes.)
enjoy the videos. Make sure to pull left or right to enjoy John’s GoPro.
