August ride, no set destination.

[Pedro]

Didn't feel like taking a lot of pictures today, rode a lot leaving home around 9AM, stopping for a coffee, then stopping for a quick sandwich lunch, then stopping about an hour for an afternoon coffee, and then stopping around 7PM, so a pretty good day.

Douro river:

 

Lunch stop, near where the Tua river joins the Douro:

 

Tua river below:, some great roads in this little corner of Portugal, if you like great roads.

 

At Miranda do Douro, taken on the Spanish side, Portugal on the other bank:

 

Plan was to sleep there, and have some of the great local typical steaks for dinner, but it was sort of too early, the place was crowded with spaniards and immigrants, just too many people and I started to get Covid itches, so moved on and rode another couple of hours till where I was going to sleep.

 

Crossed the Douro to Spain and slept 200 meters into Spain. Behind my "house" and on the other side of the river is Penedo Durão, from where Sofia took her great pictures. 

Cracked open a beer after a shower, and prepared for dinner

 

Dinner was fried calamari (or squid), and a dish of huevos rotos, which means fried potatoes with ham and fried eggs.

 

Post dinner beer, and retired to bed while being mauled by mosquitoes.

 

today, woke up to this:

 

Had breakfast, went to fuel up the bike, which took forever because there were two tractors in front of me, and made it to Penedo Durão by 08:40, it's great when you sleep in spain because you get up at the normal time and gain an hour as soon as you get back to Portugal. It helped that I had no internet yesterday, and went to sleep early.

 

Between this viewpoint and the river is the N221, and the 25km from Freixo de Espada à Cinta heading South are some of the coolest twisties I know. 

Headed to Serra da Estrela, to go past continental Portugal's highest peak on the way South. Getting close to there stopped to put my plastic rain suit on, just in time for a proper downfall.

Tried an alternate route up the hill and discovered a pretty cool but of forest road. Very slippery in the rain, though, the moss growing on the tarmac didn't help.

 

Got wetter and turned to dirt as I went past the tree line:

 

This is at over 1900 meters altitude, there is a great view here, you'll just have to imagine:

 

From then on it wasn't even worth taking the phone out for pictures, too much rain, too much fog and a lot of wind. Went down the other side of the mountain hoping to find better weather only for it to get worse. Visibility was so poor I didn't feel comfortable going more than 50kmh.

After most of the mountain, first sign of light:

 

Decided I felt like some warmth so engaged mach 5 and hightailed it to Alentejo via some cool twisties, got to the hotel in time for a nice dip in the swimming pool, with a castle view.

 

Now chilling a little bit, before going to dinner, I'm proper hungry since I didn't have anything since breakfast.

[XTreme]

Superb Pedro! Image quality is excellent!

And you got rain there? I can't even remember when I saw rain last!

[Tym]

Cool pics! Except those eggs 

[Pedro]

14 minutes ago, Tym said:

Cool pics! Except those eggs 

WTF @Tym, fried eggs on olive oil, sunny side up, that’s universal. If you don’t like that I got no hope for you

(as sunny side up as a spaniard can muster) 

[Pedro]

36 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Superb Pedro! Image quality is excellent!

And you got rain there? I can't even remember when I saw rain last!

Rain at 1900 meters Pete, Galicia has been getting rain over the last few days too.

Hotel offered to keep the bike in a covered closed warehouse, because it “might rain”, class act! 
 

Hope it doesn’t rain, got laundry drying outside the balcony gipsy style...

[Tym]

3 minutes ago, Pedro said:

WTF @Tym, fried eggs on olive oil, sunny side up, that’s universal. If you don’t like that I got no hope for you

(as sunny side up as a spaniard can muster) 

They just dont look cooked, i can be daring, i ate raw brownie dough the other day...

[Pedro]

42 minutes ago, XTreme said:

 

And you got rain there? I can't even remember when I saw rain last!

When did you last ride through heavy rain? Never mind seeing it!

[Pedro]

1 minute ago, Tym said:

They just dont look cooked, i can be daring, i ate raw brownie dough the other day...

Come on @Tym, live brave, even John Wayne had eggs like this

[XTreme]

3 minutes ago, Pedro said:

When did you last ride through heavy rain?

Think it was 2004 going through Hereford.

I barely made it out alive!

[Earache]

Eggs aside, the calamari looks good!

[Pedro]

11 minutes ago, Earache said:

Eggs aside, the calamari looks good!

Thank you! FFS, compliments on some kind of not meat!!

[Pedro]

Dinner today was pigg’s cheek with migas. Can’t explain migas except that they’re made out of bread with lots of garlic.

 

It was proper tasty! I had a jar of ehine, then half a jar, then a glass, then another glass!

Am now posting this with my phone still not standing up, from a restaurant with no fixed roof except a tile top thing

[XTreme]

Pig's cheek? 

[Pedro]

FF sake, Pete, now you’re particular as to the part of the animal that’s being cooked?

 It’s delicious, end of!   

[Pedro]

17 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Pig's cheek? 

It’s the face!

[Sir Fallsalot]

1 minute ago, Pedro said:

FF sake, Pete, now you’re particular as to the part of the animal that’s being cooked?

 It’s delicious, end of!   

I cant say i like the sound of it but i'd give it a go. How is it cooked looks stewed

[Pedro]

Just now, Sir Fallsalot said:

I cant say i like the sound of it but i'd give it a go. How is it cooked looks stewed

I don’t really know the translation but it is either stewed or braised

[Pedro]

And anothe successful washing up, cotton tshirt and underwear washed before swimming pool time and fully dry after dinner! I love this place!

[Pedro]

Plus there’s a twat pulling wheelies up and down the town on a Hornet 600. I don’t condone but it sure stirs shit up...

[Pedro]

 

G&T, Covid style, all alone

[Sofia]

gorgeous!! how do you find these locations? Just great pictures and report. 

[boboneleg]

12 hours ago, XTreme said:

Think it was 2004 going through Hereford.

I barely made it out alive!

Serves you right for bringing YOUR rain to England

[boboneleg]

That's looks a cracking ride Pedro, love those little roads on top of the hills

[Pedro]

5 hours ago, boboneleg said:

That's looks a cracking ride Pedro, love those little roads on top of the hills

It was a cool ride, but I'd rather have had visibility and no rain 

 

 

Today, woke up a little too hungover, had a proper breakfast to try and wash out all the booze, and got on the road. Was pretty happy to not have rain again, but 5 minutes into it and stopped to put my plastic jacket on. It then drizzled for the next couple of hours, when I stopped for some water and a rest at the Alqueva artificial lake. Sun was now coming out so I put the pesky plastic jacket back on the case.

 

 

Entering Algarve

 

Made it to Faro a little ago, am getting ready to go and have a dip in the ocean. Bike is filthy from all this rain and dust and the Pirellis have a nice scrub to them, they're useless offroad but that's to be expected really.

 

[Pedro]

On 20/08/2020 at 19:16, Pedro said:

Headed to Serra da Estrela, to go past continental Portugal's highest peak on the way South. Getting close to there stopped to put my plastic rain suit on, just in time for a proper downfall.

Tried an alternate route up the hill and discovered a pretty cool but of forest road. Very slippery in the rain, though, the moss growing on the tarmac didn't help.

 

Got wetter and turned to dirt as I went past the tree line:

 

 

This part of the Serra da Estrela has been on fire since Sunday, it's really sad as the winds have been making it extra hard to control. Another nature reserve gone in smoke.