From October 2 to 15

Burgos–Bragança–Vila Real(–Lisbon)

After our two-days stay in Burgos we headed South-West into the Spanish High Plateau. And there it was – at least the first day – flatter as flat can be. And we had a strong tailwind which blew us through the lonesome region. There was hardly any bend in the street, neither horizontally nor vertically. And if there were any (small) elevations along our way, the wind was strong enough to blow us over them. With high speed.

 

The villages were like from an old clichėd Western movie, the streets empty, the doors closed. Only the dangerous bars were missing, and the horses. And the Music from Ennio Morricone, of course. Although we are quite sure to have heard that whistling opening tune from "Once upon a Time in the West".

The next day on this plateau was our long-distance day, we did about 130 kms. At first, we had the wind still from the back, but all too soon it turnet against us. And when it became hilly in the last third, we had to fight hard.

Soon after we were approaching Portugal. Again, there were some mountains to climb, but the lovely landscape recompensated us for everything. The weather was not as hot as a few days earlier, but we were not all too sad about that, 'cause we really had our load of sun. A covered sky and a few drops of rain were actually more than welcome.

The difference between Spain and Portugal was obvious from the moment we crossed the border. Whereas the land in Spain is left unused, in North-Eastern Portugal there is a lot of agriculture, tiny farmer villages, and whereas in Spain almost every village has its central square around the church and some cafės, those things are missing in the North of Portugal.

We spent two days in Bragança, a nice town with a castle and some shops. And in the streets you find wonderfully refurbished buildings, sometimes covered in tiles, and next to them you see a ruined old building which is about to crash – or did so decades ago.

But we found a cool bar down the road, and there are also some nice restaurants. But the town is very quiet, which we took as an opportunity to relax a bit.

On our way towards Porto we followed the old main road, the N15. This proved to be a good choice, but it was not as easy as we expected. It went up and down quite a lot, the new motorway quite often close by. Sometimes the street left into a side valley for a few miles, only to come back to the new road. The big plus: there was almost no traffic on our way.

Mirandela and Vila Real were our destinations on the way to Porto. But in Vila Real, we took the bus to Lisbon to spend some days there with friends. We had four days in the Portuguese capital, one of which it rained cats and dogs – the shop in the ground floor of our hotel was flooded and there was a power cut in the middle of the night which caused the alarms play their lovely good-night tunes.

So, Dagmar and Didi are back in Vila Real now, ready to leave for Porto. And our friends, who we spent a really nice Weekend with, are back home.

Our weather forecast is somewhat devastating, to say the least. So we wait with deciding if, and if yes, how far, we will ride toworrow.