Portugal: The Wrong Way, The Right Direction

Legs aching, we marched upward, climbing into the intense Portuguese sun. Something seemed strange, the busy streets of Porto were behind us, but what was left was extremely quiet, almost too quiet. Inching around the next mountainous corner, we discovered the reason why. FECHADO -- CLOSED. Oh no. To no fault of our planning, and no indication on any mapping software we used, the only route through the Serra do Morão was closed, and we couldn't figure out why. "Thats why we have had this all to ourselves!"

After some deliberation, we decided that we would push past the barriers anyways, hoping that whatever caused the road to close, we could just hike our bikes through. After what seemed like forever, we happened upon the source of problem, a small landslide that had taken out a section of pavement.

Seems open to me!

Plenty of room for a bike to go across.

What laid on the other side was nothing short of perfection - pristine, beautiful roads lacing their way through the well-taken-care-of northern country, bleeding into what we then found was a protected pine forest. For the next several hours, we quite literally had that part of Portugal to ourselves as we crept towards the crest of the little-known mountain range. We relished an amazing descent into the picturesque royal village of Vila Real, much ahead of schedule.

Climbing the amazing EN-15 through the Marão

This became a theme of the trip so far through this amazing country - take a chance on the "wrong way" and often it ended up being exactly what we needed.

But honestly, the trip had been telling us this from the moment it began.

Thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic, somewhere between Philadelphia and Lisbon, I was already off to a rocky start -- courtesy of a cheesesteak I had absolutely no business eating before a transatlantic flight. The woman in the seat next to me was less than pleased. Our bikes, mercifully, arrived in one piece, which we coincidentally built next to an Austrian family that happened to be also going on a bike tour (somewhere else). This was more than could be said for my rear rack, which surrendered to the cobblestones of Lisbon within about four hours of landing, directly in front of our hostel. Totally not because I forgot to tighten one of my bolts. Oh boy. Thankfully, fixing this led me to see why my panniers had been squeaking for the hundreds of miles on previous trips was a fault of how I had the rack positioned.

Learning how to build a bike in a baggage terminal.

By Day 2, we had settled into a rhythm of confident wrongness. The walk to the train station, which we assumed would be straightforward, turned into a sweaty tour of southern Lisbon's least touristed streets, weaving in and out of crowded streetcars. We arrived in a feral state on the platform with just two minutes to spare - we seemed to be pushing our luck. But in the rush, we found the help from many a person on the platform, helping us translate our admittedly shaky knowledge of Portuguese transit lingo, and Francesca even had a sweet older man help her get her bags and bike secured on the train in her frenzied state (we were placed on different cars).

Regrouping after our train fiasco.

It kept going like that. Roads that looked right on the map turned out to be anything but. Restaurants we'd earmarked had closed kitchens. Detours appeared from nowhere. And yet, each time we stopped fighting the friction and just rode through it, something good (or at least interesting!) was waiting on the other side. A beautiful farmhouse on a river. A Brazilian restaurant we never would have found otherwise. Empty mountain roads that felt like they belonged to us alone.

Portugal taught us that sometimes the wrong way is, in our case, the right way -- our own way.

\ The single cafe open at a reasonable hour (not midnight)

The cathedral in Vila Real

Now onto Spain!

Strava links to our activities:

https://www.strava.com/activities/18216353304
https://www.strava.com/activities/18228928573

https://www.strava.com/activities/18241476096