September 28, 2013
Torreira: A very happy day on Bill's great route
Last night we ate at the Santiago Café next to where we were staying. The waiter had been smiling and waving at us every time we went past. When we went in we actually found out why. He had seen us arrive dripping wet with our heavily laden bikes on Wednesday and when he got out of the café to see if he could be of help we were inside with everything under control. He is a keen cyclist and had many photos of him on his bike on his smart phone. He has toured to Santiago and to Fatima. He was a lovely young guy and we had a very nice meal of cheese omelette and salad.
The route out of Porto this morning that Bill had told us about was not only easy and safe but also very beautiful. We rode over the iron Luiz 1 Bridge that was designed by Eiffle of Effle Tower fame then right along the Douro Estuary with magnificent views of the city – we saw much more than we did on our Yellow Bus Tour yesterday. This led us to a dedicated cycle path which wound its way along the Atlantic Coast through one beach place after another. The Atlantic was in a particularly wild mood today with huge waves crashing on the rocks. The wind was very strong and head on for the whole day. We didn’t mind too much as it all felt so exhilarating even though we were right down in the gears and travelling very slowly. It was certainly good to be back on the bikes after 2 days off them.
After the cycle path came 15km on a rather narrow and busy road to Ovar. There were hardly any trucks though which helped and most of the cars were very considerate. A detour into Ovar was interesting. It is a reasonably large town that has certainly gone in for tiling their outside walls in a big way. Here however the tiles are not restricted to blue and white and instead of being pictorial are patterns much as we would use on floor tiles – even new looking houses have tiled walls.
Just leaving Ovar we had a nasty shower. We had been lucky all day as the forecast is still bad. We sat in a bus shelter and wondered what we would do. There was a biggish beach town a bit further on so we thought that we would find somewhere there and call it a day. By the time we got there however there was another break in the weather so we decided to push on. We were now travelling along a narrow finger of land that goes between the Atlantic and a very long inlet. The sandy soil is obviously great for growing vegetables as there were magnificent semi market gardens with people selling their wares all along the way. We had some concern as to what the road would be like after we had crossed on the ferry to the other side and thought that if we saw a hotel we would stop and face that problem tomorrow.
As we came into Torreira there was a hotel so in I went. It is not the usual sort of place we stay at complete with a gym and a swimming pool. There was a wedding going on. I insisted that we must have a swim and give the wedding guests something to look at - it was absolutely freezing, we did resist riding the exercyles in the gym! Ken is pleased as he can get CCN.
Torreira is interesting as there are all these wonderful highly coloured little wooden fishing boats. We wondered if they were used to catch sardines but the hotel receptionist said no sardines were caught in the Atlanic here they caught other sea food but couldn’t explain what they were as she didn’t know the words. They all have a brightly coloured flag. Is it some sort identification? Some have nets, some have cage like things and all have many anchors.
We have now done over 3000km
Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 3,100 km (1,925 miles)
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