Category: Portugal 2025

May 15, 2026 – Back in Canada a few days now, a bit of an epic with my VW Van (Ruby), but up in Edmonton for Adele’s niece’s wedding this weekend!

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Another fantastic day, full of up and downs and beautiful scenery. It all started with a climb out of Sabugal to a high point, where we came across this beautiful view!

After a quick look at the map, we realized all our climbing was in vain. See that water in the distance? That’s a hydroelectric dam, and we are going to cycle around the resevoir and climb out once again!

The road was so narrow, it felt like a very steep downhill bicycle path. In the distance, there was the enemy of cyclists… wind turbines indicate that it’s a windy place, and they are turning today. The gamble is what direction is the wind coming from???

The dam is an earthen filled dam, similar to the Mica Dam north of Revelstoke, but on a MUCH smaller scale 🙂

The landscape is radically different from the coast, more agricultural, larger fields and a variety of animals.

Up again, and again!

See the top of the “hill”? Be careful of what you ask for when you make a reservation at the B&B “at the top end of town”. Our final climb of the day is almost right to the top of that hill!

Getting closer, and it still doesn’t look any easier!

It was all worth it, and the B&B was THE one with a view. Absolutely stunning patio all to ourselves!

This is such a unique city, we asked if we could stay another night here!

May 13 – We are back in Canada and I am in a tire shop in Calgary waiting for the work to be finished on some new tires for Ruby. Bound and determined to finish this blog!

We woke up to a foggy morning, so foggy it probably wouldn’t be safe to cycle. But our accommodations included breakfast, so we loaded up on carbs and barely adequate coffee and waited for the fog to burn off.

It was a beautiful day cycling, quiet roads with a variety of road surfaces.

And as always, there has to be sections of cobblestones 🙂

And even some gravel, just to make us appreciate the smooth pavement 🙂

The route had it’s ups & downs, as they always do, including down to cross a river on an old Roman bridge that’s still in use today!

There was a lot of varied scenery today. Most impressive was the use of local materials as fence posts. When your rocks are too big to stack them up nicely, barbed wire connecting big ones works!

When you have enough of them and they are kind of the same shape..

Occasionally, there are artistic leanings towards fence building.

We concluded the day with a wonderful uphill climb into another walled, castle town!

The place we had reserved had a beautiful private balcony to relax on and enjoy some beverages and snacks we picked up on the way into town.

It’s always interesting to see the contrast between the old and restored, the new, and the abandoned as we wandered around town looking for someplace to have dinner.

I am a bit behind! I typed this up in the Lisbon airport as we were waiting to board our flight! We got to the airport 4 hours ahead of our flight because of previous experience, but went from taxi to boarding gate in 1:15 minutes!!

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Luckily Adele was feeling strong enough to cycle today, so we packed up and headed out. We had a plan that followed a larger (still small) main road with a gentle grade. We left town on some quiet roads, a fantastic 300 meter downhill on beautiful pavement to cross the Coa river where we went upstream yesterday to visit the rock art.

Across the river, there were some trails marked on the map that looked like they would be a “short cut”, or at least a very quiet way to climb back out of the river valley. It was paved, but as we climbed higher and higher, the road got steeper and degraded.

One of those “shortcuts” that really wasn’t shorter. But it was nice to be riding again!

We climbed higher, above the remnants of the partially constructed dam, and had an amazing vista back down the valley we had just climbed.

Once we got to the top, it opened up into large vineyards. As we head south, we will leave the official region of Portugal where Port Wine originates. Today will all be in the DOC, so any of the vineyards we say could be producing port wine as well as regular wines.

We also saw Almond and Pistachio trees along with the normal olive trees. A new addition was “orchards” of cork trees, with the bark harvested for wine corks! Interestingly, peeling the bark off the cork tree (presumably very carefully) doesn’t kill the tree. The bark grows back and they can get another harvest in 10+ years.

On our line art tour yesterday, we learned from our tour guide that the round houses dotted across the landscape are older buildings that housed pigeons! The pigeons could fly out and feed in the area and come back to their “home”. Periodically, they were dinner.

We cycled close to one of the abandoned pigeon houses and an investigation revealed another application of stone work! The pigeon cubby holes / nesting sites are floor to ceiling and form the structural basis of the walls, and are just stacked up rocks!

We cycled into the ancient fortified town of Almeda. It has a long history and is an amazing work of engineering! This photo was from the Internet, it’s not mine!

When we checked into our accommodation, we were overjoyed to find the following layout in our bathroom 🙂

A wander around town to examine the fortifications, dinner, a long, hot bath and off to bed after an excellent day of cycling!

Adele woke up this morning very weak, but felt up to doing the prehistoric rock art tour. We decided to prepare for the best and hope we could cycle this afternoon so packed up and rode the 2.5 km to the museum which was the start of the tour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Rock_Art_Sites_in_the_C%C3%B4a_Valley_and_Siega_Verde

It turns out the entire river coa drainage was planned to be flooded by a hydro dam. There was a huge initiative to save this from flooding, politics got involved, an election was had and the newly elected head promptly canceled the dam after construction had been happening for 4 years! Quite a bit of the preliminary work had been completed, a diversion tunnel for the river, rock stabilization, roads built, etc.

We started the hike and visited 5 of the 1200 rock art sites. This is now a world heritage site, and was one of the quickest formed world heritage sites ever created once the dam project was cancelled!

The rock art was very difficult to photograph!

There was no paint visible on any of the rock art as these are all fully exposed to the elements and over 13,000 years any paint that might have have been was no longer visible. There was one rock art somewhere in the area that was protected by a large overhang and had paint on it, so it’s possible they would have been painted.

Interestingly, these rock art samples cannot be directly dated. The rock is quite acidic and there are very few organic remains to be dated. All the rock carvings are dated by the style, in comparison to other rock art in the area from Spain and France.

Adele was quite week after her food poisining ordeal and we decided to not cycle to the next destination. We paid to tour the museum associated with the rock art, and she had some soup at the cafe at the museum while I enjoyed a ham and cheese toastie and coffee 🙂

While Adele went back to bed, I wandered around town trying to find someplace to have a beer and some dinner. Town rolled up the carpet at 7 pm!

The town is really trying to leverage the prehistoric rock art, including in in various components of the town.

Each streetlight has a clear panel above it with various different styles of rock art engraved in the glass/plexiglass.

Not too sure what the pink flower theme was on this street, but it sure made it stand out!

We wanted to go and see some prehistoric rock art that are accessible from Foz Goa and couldn’t get tickets until Monday. That meant a long day cycling with a lot of veritical (1200 meters?), so we opted for the train based on our hostel hosts’s recommendation. “One of the most scenic train rides ever!”. Coming from the Canadian Rockies and the Selkirk Mountains, we found that hard to believe, but it was an easy way to go. The road went up and over the mountains and the train stayed along the River Duoro. We opted for the train, which would leave us with a short but steep ride to town at the end.

Our bike ride up the hill to Foz Goa started nicely, but then we were hit with a torrential downpour for 20 minutes, with absolutely no place to hide!

We got to town, found our accomodations, started the drying out process.

Adele did a food run to the grocery store and we ate in for one of the few times on this trip.

Unfortunately, Adele came down with a rather severe case of food poisioning before bed. Confirmation with one of the traveller we had dinner with in Pinhao confirmed they were sick as well. I had the steak, Adele and her shared some Tuna. Beware of the Tuna!

Our tour on Monday looked a bit questionable, as did the cycling planned for the afternoon. But we will see what the day brings!

After our strenous 20 km day cycling yesterday, we decided to explore the area around Pinhao on foot. It’s crazy steep and a bicycle exploration just didn’t seem to make sense.

We stopped at the recommended butcher in town to pick up some lunch meat. He had cheese and even had buns, so we were set for the day. Lots of samples, and chose on some delicious smoked meat and a milder cheese (for me). Don’t ask me what the dried animal was all about. I just found it interesting that it was socially acceptable to have that hanging on the wall with all the slabs of ham!

Since we are in Portugal, it wouldn’t be a proper day without some blue tiles. These were from the train station in town and showed real life, not religious scenes. The whole station was covered in these panels, here are 2 for a sample.

It makes sense to use local material wherever possible to reduce costs. In this area, there is a lot of natural slate. Exploring an abandoned building, I found a stack of long slate that I wasn’t sure what it was for, but it must have had a purpose!

It turns out they have multiple uses. As we continued our journey through the day, we found them in different uses.

As we wandered up the roads and through the vineyards, we could see all the rock work as well as some of the more modern terracing techniques that don’t involve rock. The rock terraces date back 100’s of years and aren’t built anymore as it’s too expensive. We learned all about this at the Taylor Fladgate audio tour in Porto.

It seemed that a lot of the older stone terraces (not all) were planted with olive trees. We speculate that it’s because they weren’t always designed with machinery in mind and it would be too labour intensive to produce grapes commercially there.

Of course, one can’t walk through vineyards without stopping for a wine tasting 🙂

It was interesting to see all the new excavations as terraces are built and planted.

We came across the most wee grape vines! It’s interested that all the grape varieties here are planted on American (native) grape vine root stock (grafted) or are a hybrid of American varieties. An insect pest (Grape phylloxera) was introduced from America in the late 19th century which wiped out much of the European grapes. For more information, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera.

We ended back in town and went for a nice dinner.

We had decided to take the train out of Porto. It seemed a very busy area around Porto to cycle through, and not very inspiring. We were interested in the Duoro River valley, and the train doesn’t get close to the river for about 1 hour upstream.

We choose to take the train part way to Pinhau getting off in Regua, then cycle the rest of the way. There is only one road so we were a bit worried about traffic, but it was only 20 km and we felt it wouldn’t be that bad.

It was a fairly easy bike ride to the train station in Porto. We got on the train at the start of the line and there was lots of room for our bicycles. Little did we know it was “Labour Day” holiday and the train was going to be absolutely packed. People packed close together standing in the aisles!

Along the way, there was a hydro electric dam. It turns out there are 5 dams on the Duoro River, all with locks to allow the large (and small) Tourist cruising boats through. As we rode up to the dam, we could see a boat approaching the locks and hung out while it transited. It’s a crazy tight fit! It really looks like the boat won’t fit, but it does with about 1 foot on either side of the boat to the lock walls!

The cycling was very enjoyable and we were surrounded by the famous terraces of the Duoro Valley, home of Port Wine.

It was quite warm, and sampling port in the middle of the day was quite “heavy”, so we started with a Porto Tonico. A white port with tonic water 🙂

We fought our way through the traffic and crowds in Pinhao to the hostel and were welcomed by the owners Pedro & Sarah.

Sadly, our first breakfast in Porto was restricted to indoors. Mother nature decided that some rain was appropriate, and wow, can it rain here!

We enjoyed a slow breakfast, multiple (adequate) coffee then grabbed our rain gear and headed out as the rain died down. We had a port tour booked for 3:00 pm, but decided to just wander town with no plan.

There are old buildings… lots of them! Stacked up it seems 🙂

And churches? Perhaps a few. We don’t like to pay for churches unless they are spectacular, but here’s a few free ones, and even some of those are amazing. Baroque. I always thought that meant “broke”… but not with all the gold spread through those facilities!

We stumbled into a shop that had exhibits and an artist doing Portugese Filligree. Wow, the detail is absolutely stunning! Some of the nicer pieces were for sale @ 20-30,000 Euros!

Need a new rug? This shop was amazing. They are a Portugese style, which isn’t a normal knotted rug, these are embroidered! And of course, the prices reflect the amount of work that go into an embrodery of that scale!

Our port tour was to 3 smaller port houses. Trying to break into a long established industry. Some are making wine as well. Lots of education and a wee bit of drinking. Lots of socializing with the other people on our tour. It was a fun couple of hours! Two of the 3 port houses are below. I’m not sure what the third one was. Quevedo had some very nice product!

A full day, followed by a very delicious dinner at a small local resturant buying a bottle of port, and back to the hotel and a great nights sleep!

April 30, 2026

Having enjoyed Taylor Fladgate port in Canada, I wanted to tour their facilities. I had read they have a self guided tour through their facilities followed by a port tasting! That was our plan for the afternoon.

What did we find on our tour?

Blue Tiles 🙂 Various churches and the train station was completely adorned in the blue tiles depciting “real life”. Adele has more photos of the train station as I was busy buying tickets for the next day (which turned out was a holiday and insanely busy on the trains!)

Lots of old buildings for some strange reason!

And of course, Taylor Fladgate!

The audio tour was excellent, though started to drag on towards the end, in anticipation of actually tasting some! 🙂

It was very interesting to learn climate change is impacting the port/wine industry here, and the various approaches to reducing the impact on the environment, from reducing water usage to new and innovative terracing techniques to reduce erosion and control water better.

Short but somewhat epic bike ride with a longer train ride!

As we left our apartment in Nazare, we cruised the beach. When we cycled in yesterday, there were stands that looked like a local market, except it was all covered with nets above, looking like it was to keep birds away.

In the morning, it was populated by women dressed in traditional clothing and drying products of the sea in a traditional manner. It seems like it’s part of the same museum that has the display of boats along the beach.

It’s a bit heartbreaking to see the dried Octopus after seeing the movie “My Octopus Teacher”, which really demonstrated the intelligence of the creature.

We decided to emulate our Bolivia experience and depart Nazare via the Funicular (in Bolivia, it was the Teleferico). Free for the bikes, and it saved us 140 meters of climbing 🙂

At the top, we were greeted with a foggy, but beautiful of the Nazare beach below (not the surfing wave area, that’s around the corner). Even the gulls were overjoyed to see us!

Foolishly trusting ourselves to the Google Maps “bicycle” option to get to the train station, we found ourselves pushing our bikes through 4-8 inches of sand for a kilometer or two. We had 4 hours to go 12 k or so, so it wasn’t stressful, just another lesson in life! It did turn into “the moment” so far in the trip that everything will be compared against 🙁 It was beautiful though!!!

We arrived in Porto with no problems, rode a short distance to our hotel in Gia, across the river from Porto and checked in. We love this mode of transport. What other way can you roll your transportation (bikes) into the lobby and have them direct us to their video conferencing room where we just park our bikes during our visit!

An early night in a good bed! Anticiating an included breakfast 🙂

This blog post courtesy of Adele 🙂

We left the walled medieval town of Obidos on a lovely small rural road through orchards, vineyards and potato fields, with a few goats and chickens too. Lovely start to the day. As we neared the coast, the fog intensified.

Unfortunately our scenic, sea view ride on a quiet road lacked a view. Oh well, it’s not raining, the dune boardwalk was nice, and it cleared a bit in the afternoon to reveal steep cliffs and long sandy beaches. 

What about those Portuguese windmills? There were 10,000 by 1960s, 7000 water mills and 3000 wind mills to grind what and corn for bread and feed. We’ve seen a bunch, some falling apart other restored for accommodations and such.

Nice evening in Nazare. No big waves or surfers this time of year but great patio over the beach. (A big wave here holds the world record for surfing… 25m-ish)