Day 60: Vila Real

April 30, 2023

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Our cycling adventure finds its continuation just now with exploration and challenge in a four star hotel. The Miracorgo affects not one but two doormen, and quite expansive lobby spaces. But it seems to stumble over its own magnificence, affording us some entertainment and adventure. It started when I went by elevator to our 5th floor suite (!) to begin dumping some of our gear. I made it there fine, but on the return journey the car stopped at 3rd, where a cleaning lady had pressed the button. She let me get on with it, but after the door closed the lights went totally out. It was really totally black. Not even a glow at the floor zero button. Total blackness can be restful, but it did hamper what would have been efforts to keep punching the zero button. But soon the lights came on, and I was heading for 7. I picked up a Portuguese speaking couple there, and we all punched zero. So, we stopped at 3. Hi cleaning lady! The door closed, and we went to 12. More zero punching. The elevator did have a floor indicator, which was helpful in communicating with the couple about where we were heading. When we stopped again at 3, I used the age old sign for slitting the throat, and we all bailed out for the stairs, which by the way had slow to respond motion sensor and anyway dim lights. I arrived back at zero, and Dodie said, of course, "Where were you?!". "Do you really want to know?"

At breakfast, we made it to the dining room at -1, but not before a nice visit to 7. We found the dining room to be huge, and buzzing with people, no doubt related to two giant tour busses parked outside. The staff was actively restocking the buffet table, but often lost out to the ravenous horde, who could grab up a tray of pastel de nata in a flash. It was often difficult to see or get through to any of the food items, but the single coffee machine was a particular pressure point. I did get one, but abandoned any hope of a refill. I mentioned this as a further period of exploration and challenge in our tour. What I mean in this case is that Dodie might say "I think I saw some yogurt, do you want to try to snag some?" "Ok, I'll explore, and accept the challenge!"

Fueled up on hard won yogurt, we set off in search of that illusive rail trail. It's irrelevant now, because from Vila Real we will strike off west (see below), while the trail runs from Regua through Vila Real and north to Chaves. Even so, we were curious.

The major feature of Vila Real is the gorge of the Corgo River, running right through it. To get to where the rail trail was supposed to be, we would have to cross a bridge over the gorge, and search on the other side.

Picturesque but dilapidated buildings by the bridge.

We ran into our first clue about rail trails in the form of a preserved locomotive. It was made by the same company that had supplied that one at Santa Comba da Dao. Our next clue was the actual abandoned station. We were getting warm!

OK bingo, here was the former track. There was no paving, but we were thinking maybe it's being worked on here in the city. We started to walk down it, but were fortunate to encounter two cyclists coming toward us. We flagged them down and dragged out the Google Translate. They confirmed that the trail is rough like this all the way to Regua, except that it is rougher near Regua! However they also said that it becomes good between Vila Real and Vila Pouca, which is half way to Chaves. After that, they recommended switching back to the N2. So from that information, the paved bit of the rail trail is about 30 km. That could be worth it.

Clearly not paved here, but not too bad.

One of the few residents of the station area.

But look, here is the trail going north. Looks great!

Our next bit of exploration was to delve "deeper" into the Gorge and the walkway along it, that we had seen from the hotel. we went to the end of the bridge and tried to generally bushwhack down. But we bushwacked into a lady's yard instead. She kindly directed us to cross on the old bridge and to find the correct path off the end of that.

See the old bridge way down below the new bridge?

There is an old community beneath the new bridge.

This is starting to feel like rather authentic old Portugal.

Aha, the rather cryptic and also pretty much the only sign explaining where to go (there was a faded direction sign on a post, that we did later find).

This is it, the way to the town's most obvious special feature.

We begin with a descent - that makes sense.

The walkway in the gorge is sturdily constructed, but necessarily wiggles this way and that.

It's pretty nice, and dramatic down here.

That's our hotel up there. I express the hope that they pounded their posts in well when building the place!

The river is small, but it flows nicely.

We cross to the other side, on a small but sturdy bridge. We notice the remains of a former crossing system, which seemed to be some form of suspension bridge. Dodie is ok with heights, but hates suspension bridges!

We thought that once we were back on our hotel's side of the river there would be a way to climb to the hotel itself. But no. The walkways just continued going up and down on the hotel side of the river. Dodie here is clearly on an "up" bit.

We began to despair of there being a way out of the gorge without returning to where we had begun, some kms before. We encountered two girls coming toward us, who swore there was no way out. But a runner coming from behind us was reassuring that we would find a way out, so we carried on. This path turned out to be the way.

Heights make me nervous, and so it was with this gorge. We did run into some evidence that one has to take care. in the form of a car that had clearly rolled off the top. Indeed, there was a precarious parking lot up there, with the need to back your car down a tricky lane and to stop before tumbling to the river. Maybe one can get used to this if born here, but sheesh.

We climbed out of the gorge and found ourselves again in a picturesque, but perhaps also run down, part of town. One of the houses had a plaque indicating it was from 1774 (just before the big earthquake).

Soon we reached the main square of town, the one we had pictured yesterday, and somehow failed to shoot again today. We stopped in to a bar for a much needed drink (no, not that kind of drink), and found as expected that fresh orange juice was not available in this land of orange trees. Fanta Orange, it was. The sugar in there was a good pick me up this time!

We passed some cafes, which Google was labelling "unusually busy", and it was true. Everyone had come out for this holiday Sunday. We settled for a seat in the cathedral. The cathedral here, it must be admitted, was very plain. It also must lack some stone work, because it was not as cool and dark as expected.

We trudged on back toward the hotel, and enjoyed the cooling sight of pigeons playing in the fountain and resting on the lawn. Inside the hotel we also had the nice touch of a resident Grey Parrot, messing up the formal decor, plus an impressive display of orchids. We took our chances with the elevator, and were rewarded by being delivered without fuss to our floor and suite, for a well deserved nap!

Orchids are a nice touch in this otherwise formal hotel.

We woke up in time to stroll back along N2 to the Pingo Doce, which is a large grocery store and a chain that is seen all around Portugal. We find the Portuguese grocery prices to be quite low, and you can go crazy in a Pingo Doce for a day's supplies for about 15 euros. Dodie says she does not like taking me into grocery stores, because I will look at everything in the place, and also put a lot of junk in the cart. I think it was pretty good this time, as we chose some giant salads (greens or other veggies are hard to find here in restaurants or breakfast buffets), extra tomatoes, carrots, and fresh orange juice. Of course some of my new favourite, Doce Pingo Doce - a sweet multi-layer pudding, went in the cart as well. I spent some time looking at the huge display of wines. We don't drink wine, but all the varieties and producers are fascinating anyway. And of course, we held our noses to walk by the huge stacks of (in our view) slowly rotting salt cod.

So much wine, in a grocery store. If this were France, this would more likely be cheese, in Canada - soda pop!

Here is a random close up. I have no idea what I am looking at!

We slightly screwed up when we were in the beautiful Alentejo region, forming the impression without really checking that we needed to hurry to get back to Porto in time. Now we find ourselves little more than 100 km from Porto, with days and days before we have to leave the country. Our solution is to head up north (but nothing crazy like a last minute Camino to Santiago de Compostella) and then to slide down the Atlantic coast, into Porto. We are once again so sure we know what we are doing, that Dodie has booked us into places for the whole way. This is despite the fact that we have no idea, whatever, what terrain or road conditions we will encounter. One thing, we have set some very short days, so how bad could it be?

We will wander almost out of the country, before turning south for Porto. Oh, oh - errata - we will also drop by Braga!

Today's ride: 6 km (4 miles)
Total: 2,519 km (1,564 miles)

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Kristine OvensYou are so inspiring!
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Kristine OvensThanks Kris! We plotted a route to our next target, Amarante, for today. But northern Portugal is very tough. We hope we inspire ourselves and make it!
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1 year ago

Kelly IniguezAs our trip approaches, we have more questions! Todays - do you use blinky lights and are you allowed to set them to blink in Spain/Portugal? I've read somewhere that all rear facing lights have to be on steady mode. Our lights have a much shorter life span on steady.
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Kelly IniguezWe have heard of the antiblink law too, but nobody, including us, pays attention to it. When it comes to our safety on no shoulder roads with cars breathing down our necks, silly rules have no weight. In fact, Dodie's light has a "daylight piercing flash" mode that we rather like!
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1 year ago