Day 58: Pinhao to Peso da Regua

April 28, 2023

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We left Pinhao today, scared off you might say by all the surrounding hills. It's not that we hopped a train, but we did pass the station. Here then is the overview of the blue tile panels they have, telling the Douro story.

Next it was time for a glance back at Pinhao. At a slight distance it looks really nice, nicer than Peso da Regua for sure, but it just didn't win favour with us.

Grampies, what's your beef with this cute town?

As we headed off, we got a good look at what we assume was a vineyard wiped out by phylloxera. We thought we had read about desperate toxic soil treatment to prevent spread, but that does not seem to be what happened. Vineyards that were affected were bought up by foreign investors, though, and these hung on until the fix was known. The schist soils in Douro plus the dry climate helped to fend off the pest, but eventually (late 19th century) the Valley fell victim as had most other places in Europe.

Once again, as we pedaled we were wowed by the hills and the terraces. Here are four more of our glances over the valley:

Something we had not noticed on this road, as we cycled in on "mountain" rather than the "cliff" side, was figs. There were a lot of lush trees just over the side, and they were loaded with baby figs. Too bad we could not bring back some cuttings for our friend Marvin, who grows many varieties of figs.

There were other plants that were not grapes around as well. How about this Eucalyptus, that needs a haircut?

A cormorant was hanging out on a lone branch - great for a portrait - but he quickly took off. His flying style looks rather ungainly.

Looking way up in the hills we would sometimes see cars moving, revealing where there are roads, and we would sometimes see tractors. But generally the vineyards seem too steep or narrow for motorized vehicles. We were intrigued then by a large truck that came inching down a very steep track, intrigued enough to take this one photo, and then to watch the drama for a while. When the driver got onto the main road, he pulled over and we had another show, in which a winch like arm picked up what was a large metal container filled with heavy rubble from the back of the truck and placed it on the ground. The driver then covered the container with a plastic mesh, and the truck put it back on its back.

We watched all this, proving that the landscape alone was not endlessly fascinating. Once done, the driver came over to us and said hi. He spoke English, having spent some time in Florida, and warned us of hills on the way to Porto. Later I regretted having forgotten to ask him some of my most nagging questions - like who and where are the workers that are caring for all these vines? Instead we just let him trundle off towards Regua.

From there, it was just terraces and vines and stone walls and houses on the hills, as we made our way toward Regua.

The stone walls typically do not use mortar!

Quite quickly we arrived at the dam just above Regua, and we were fortunate to see one of the large cruise ships going through the lock. The clearance on either side seemed incredibly tight, but the ship just slid on through. These ships are clearly set up for overnight, but we have not taken the time to find out where they go on an overnight. Peeking into their windows, the beds and cabins did not seems at all exciting.

The narrative on the boat tour out of Pinhao mentioned the various dams on the Douro and their heights. It would take some research to learn if the dams are high by dam standards, but this one near Regua at least seemed very high, looking down the valley from it.

Looking from beneath, it seems the ship went into that little black hole, with concrete overhead. We wonder if we have that right. Good thing we are not applying for jobs as dam operators!

Below the dam, Dodie (and the camera, but not me!) spotted a lot of fish. Are they carp?

We arrived in Regua way too early to check in to the Original Douro Hotel, where we had booked for the night. But we did drop some of our bags with them and set off along the N108 to see how tough it might or might not be when we would use it to head toward Porto. We have been trying to get a firm grip on the possible routes - N108, N222, or any of the other goofy routes suggested by various algorithms we have queried. There are two parts to "getting a grip". Part one is how hilly and/or dangerous is the route and part two is can we find places to stay, that are both available and reachable, given the aforementioned hilliness or danger.

We set off toward the west, taking the north side of the river, that is, N 108. That had us with hills to our right, and the river and the hills on the other side of it, to our left.

Looking across the river as we headed out toward the west.

I really like this shot, as it shows Dodie pedaling off, amidst such idyllic green land, with the river on the left and the N108 marker for orientation. Too bad I could not avoid or take down that power pole!

Here is another shot I really love. We have been calling nespera by that Portuguese name so long now that "loquat" seems strange. A nespera tree within reach is a big score! And here we have one with the terraces in the background!

Looking down the river. In this section we have a lot of very small villages and not so much of the big corporate quintas.

Here in Granjao some of the housing is abandoned or derelict. That's N108 passing through it for us, eh.

Looking across the river just beyond Granjao we had an info panel that expressed with more authority than I have what we are looking at.

Corgo is a river, so this is the lower Corgo region. Corgo is also the name that was on that rail trail we never found.

This has a rather "old Portugal" look to it.

We were still having fun looking at the landscaped hills, when N108 decided to climb up into them. That's when we decided we had seen enough. We turned tail and sleazed on back into town.

Back at the hotel we began to plot out exactly how we would follow N108, finding places to stay at feasible intervals. This would all be in aid of getting to Porto, from which we intended to head off north, along the Atlantic with EV1. But checking in Porto we found no vacancies at almost any price. This could be related to May 1 being a holiday. We also could barely find places to stay along N108. We talked to the people at the hotel here - could we hang out here one or two days longer? Nope, fully booked. The nice desk staff then phoned every other hotel and BnB in town for us. All booked!

Ok, fine then. We changed plans completely and will now go straight north from here, still on N2, to Vila Real. From there we will somehow head for the coast - north of Porto. We seem to have found bookings to do this with, though we are not quite sure we have found roads. The adventure continues, though we will never be able to advise other cyclists on what the famous (but never well described) N108 and N222 are really like.

Today's ride: 48 km (30 miles)
Total: 2,486 km (1,544 miles)

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