Day 48: Pedrogao Pequeno to Gois

April 18, 2023

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No doubt a few days in a clean and white environment would make us crazy, but for one night we found it extremely restful. We went for breakfast in the white dining room, and sat at a table with a pristine white linen tablecloth. This already caused me a bit of stress, because I am famous for covering the table and myself with croissant crumbs, possible jams smears, and suchlike. I did ok, mainly by getting some of the large quality paper napkins they had, and spreading them on top of the tablecloth. After, I was reluctant to use my linen napkin to dab my mouth, but Dodie encouraged me: "Go wild, use it!".

The action started right away, as we were in Pedrogao Pequeno and our first target was Pedrogao Grande, where we had spotted a Supermercado. The difference between the two is the small matter of the Zezere, one of the major rivers of Portugal. It has a gorge right here, and that is dammed by the Barragen do Cabril, creating a massive reservoir.

The first thing we see is the highway bridge over the gorge, causing some squeaks from me about "not going on that!" I am soothed by the information that we are not taking the bridge, but rather the dam. Until I saw the dam!

I am offered a third option, the early 17th century original bridge. See it down there? All you have to do is to get to it! Ok, fine, we'll do the dam!

A lookout on the other side offered a lighthearted approach to the dam.

Some photos on an info board showed the two bridges to good advantage, as well as a nice closeup of the old bridge.

We made it to Grande, and admired its church, with an interesting tiled dome.

We found the Supermercado easily and sent Dodie in to see what snacks they might have. This allowed me to look around, and so to spot the bakery across the way. When Dodie came out (with nuts and raisins, which are good) I proposed a visit to the bakery, just to see what they might have. I did mention "eclair" which is my goto item, and Dodie had to strongly remind me that this is not France. As it happens they did have eclair, but having been cautioned, and given that the eclairs did look a little weird, I went for some other darn thing. Of course they also had pastel de nata, which could have been a good standard choice for here.

Outside the Supermercado, bakery is over there.

Pastel de nata, and related. btw, pastel is pastry and nata is cream, but in truth the thing is a custard tart.

As we passed out of town, we noticed one or two really nice houses, and lots of typical houses, with a road that was neither a problem nor stunning.

Nice house on the way out of Pedrogao Grande.

There is a whole thing in this region about "schist" villages, where all the houses are made from stacked slate. We have not yet been able to target one of these places, but we are alert for any "schist" and so snapped this photo.

Now came the opening act of what was to be the major story of our day. The opening act was the road heading down. We do not trust roads that head down! And yes, this went down to a river (their favourite trick), before turning up.

Now we began to climb, and to be able to look down at towns.

I hate it when a road is climbing that it curves also. You wait to get to the next curve and around that is .. more up and more curves. The other thing is that when there is no shoulder, a car can come roaring around that curve, hugging the edge. It's important at least to not stop just around a corner.

I would like to say "Soon we could look down into mountain bowls containing small towns", but it was not soon. In fact, to take this photo we had to push up for about three hours!

I think some road we came up is over on the right. It really was relentless climbing!

Finally we reached what turned out to be the top, although it was hard to believe, after so much up, upping.

Now the tables were turned, and it was unrelenting down, down. We had to stop periodically to rest our brake fingers. After a while, Gois appeared over the side. From this perspective, you can see that it is in a bowl, and as with other towns we had looked down on during the ride, it seemed like one would not want to live like that, in a "hole". However when we did get into the town, things seemed normal, in the sense of there being nice mountains to look at (everywhere).

Forestry is apparently a main activity here. We were hoping this machine did not come tumbling down to us.

Lots of trucks were carrying loads of Eucalyptus.

It's still a lot more down until we are in Gois and out to our guesthouse.

We are understandably tired after our sojourn in the mountains today, but we are not wiped out or anything. We are looking forward to our excursion to Coimbra tomorrow, and soon getting on to the famous rail trail to Viseu. The trip is carrying on as loads of fun!

Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 2,126 km (1,320 miles)

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