Viseu to Luso

October 21, 2021

Today's ride started on the Ecopista de Dao, 49km of paved rail trail through three river valleys including the Dao (wine producing region). From Viseu, it is downhill all the way and being a rail trail the inclines are gentle, which made for a welcome comfortable cruise after the intense hills of the past weeks.

As others have commented, it was a bit tricky to find the start of the trail, but once we spied the red pavement it was easy to follow out through the suburbs and into the countryside. The Ecopista is colour coded: the pavement starting in Viseu is red, then it changes to green when it enters a different district, and then blue at the Dao valley. The trail is smooth, the views are lovely and there were just enough other people to make the trip interesting. Normally, we are not big fans of rail trails as they tend to go through the middle of nowhere, but today that was just what we wanted.

The most scenic part of the ride was definitely the last 15km from Tondela to the end of the trail at Santa Comba del Dao with views of the smooth rocks, river pools and, of course, vineyards. But then we had finished the Ecopista and needed to figure out our next stage to Luso.

The beautiful river Dao also is a geographical divide which had to be crossed. Option 1 was south for 40km through very hilly terrain to skirt around the river reservoir- no thanks! Option 2 took us to where we could see a long stairway leading down to a pedestrian bridge, again no thanks. Option 3 was to get on the highway shoulder, to cross the main bridge and exit into Santa Comba. After weeks in the hinterlands we were nervous of riding with cars and trucks, but the traffic was light so we opted to stay on the main roads with moderate traffic but also moderated hills and a more direct routing. For the next three hours we were glad to have chosen the easier route as the climb up was still one brutal hill after another. Finally, we crossed the last pass and coasted down into Luso, a spa and mountain resort town where we happily checked into a rather faded but still elegant inn with a marvellous, therapeutic hot tub.

The views and towns have been beautiful, but we will be glad to be done with the mountains and get to the relatively flat coastal paths tomorrow.