Porto

Friday, May 2nd, 2014

By Friday morning the situation was looking brighter. An 8:00am walk back to the airport to get an update on the situation:

And fortunately BA advised the bike would arrive in Porto that night and then be shipped to the hotel in Valenca, hopefully in time for a Saturday morning start. I'll believe it when I see it, but I'm more optimistic than when I went to bed last night.

In the morning we were collected by Rob and Mike from Bike Adventures. I knew Rob from my ride from Lands End to John O'Groats in 2010, and Mike from the same ride as well as last year's Pisa to Sicily ride.

They took us north 120 km to Valenca on the Spanish border and the start of the Portugal Top to Bottom ride. The hotel was nice, but unusual in that it had a fortress on the hill opposite, some rather dingy shops on either side, and a market garden complete with rooster at the back.

 

After settling in, we caught up with Dereck from last year's Pisa to Sicily ride over a few cheap Portuguese beers. The price of food and alcohol in Portugal will become a recurring theme during this blog!

After the beers we set off to explore the fortress which was much larger than I expected. It also reminded me of similar structures in Pamplona and Barcelona in Spain.

  

The particular building in the old town inside the fortress reminded be of the architecture of Galicia in Spain to the north.

 

We did a bit of exploring of the fortress, returned to the hotel, and then went back for dinner at a restaurant in the old town. Sadly, while this area is quite a tourist trap, business appears to be bad in Portugal at the moment, especially those associated with tourism. On the other had, there seems to have been a lot of investment in infrastructure in recent year.

After dinner we returned to the bar near the hotel to catch up with old and new friends.

I went to bed around 11pm still not knowing whether I would have a bike that night or the next day.