Day 4 Douro River and N2 south

Good morning from Regua we woke up early today and for some of us it was a restful night. I was reminded every so often that Derek was next door by his snoring, and Derek was woken by mosquitos. So.not the best nights sleep. But nevertheless we were all looking forward to today’s ride. We were going to ride around the Douro river both north and south for about 2 and a half hours before heading south back on the N2. So at about 9.30 we set off on the N108 which was amazing great scenery over the river and fantastic twisties for us to carve up.

We got to the most western part before crossing the bridge to the n222 stopped and took some photos. We also looked for somewhere to stop for a coffee but not a lot was open so we pushed on back towards Regua eventually we came across a gas station with a cafe so stopped there. It didn’t have any views but we were able to rest for a bit, we saddled up and continued on the N222 almost straight away we passed a few nice cafes overlooking the river. We laughed about it and continued on the lovely n222.

We had ridden for about 2.5 hours before we got back to where we started and now would rejoin the N2 and ride south. Lemego was a main stop off  as it has an amazing building with a huge stone staircase leading up to it, so we stopped for a photo opportunity and also an ice cream Derek kindly walked all over town to find, as it was getting really warm. Now as I have mentioned we are stopping at certain mile markers to get our passports signed but today was a nightmare the N2 is really not signposted well, and the gps is always trying to put us on faster roads despite the route being specifically designed to keep us on the N2, well in Viseu we rode around like headless chickens looking for somewhere to stamp our passports in vain, so we gave up asked someone how to get back on the N2 and continued. It wasn’t long before the road signs disappeared and we were getting misguided by our gps. It got so bad in the end we just guessed it and eventually we got close enough to our days end hotel we could just punch in the hotel and have the gps takes us there on any bloody road. It was really annoying, and to be fair I did spill my toys out of the pram a bit, so we went straight to the bar after we checked in to cool down in both ways. The hotel is lovely, very peaceful and right on a river, on the way in we could see that the river was on the low side of a huge damm and Cliff was getting a little anxious as we were effectively at the bottom of it, lol.

We had a few beers relaxed then got showered and rejoined back in the bar on the terrace. Our meal was at 8pm so just before we went into the restaurant we moved onto the lounge and found 2 recliner chairs omg me and Cliff were like old men sipping our beers and trying not to fall asleep.

The menu looked ok and the guys shared a meat mixed grill and I had veal chops, but before we had some grilled prawns which were big and nice. The meat turned up and it was huge, we tried but could not finish it all, we all had meat sweats and that combined with a nice bottle of red was making us tired. Derek stayed behind for one more beer and Cliff and I went up to bed. A bit of a frustrating day with the poor local efforts towards keeping the tourists on track but a greatvday nevertheless.