Thursday September 18, 2014

The shortest cycling day on our trip so far.

We started out with no rain but the proprietor of our Residencial told me it was going to rain (chuva) and a lot.  The clouds were moving fast and we knew we were going to get wet and cold again.

The route was quite nice, we are amazed at the small villages that seem to be hanging on to the side of the hills.  This is still the Doura wine growing region and we are in the District of Porto.

It began to rain as we arrived in Amarante.  Amarante is a Town that is split in two by the River Tamega.  The old part is where we were going to spend the night.

We headed for the Albergue I had found on line – it was no longer in business.

We then headed back across the river to the new area of Town to find the Tourist Information Centre and as usual it was well hidden.  We found it, and we discovered some cheap hotels in the area.  It was 11:00 and we discussed whether we should push on towards Porto or stay here and plan the route etc.  Once again we are booked into a hotel, it is still raining and our clothes are hanging around the hotel room.

I dried the bikes and cleaned and oiled the chains, the gears could do with a clean, but that will have to wait.

We have slow internet, in the room.  We managed to book into the International Youth Hostel (HI) in Porto – E18.00 per night in a 4 bed dorm room.  We have been pretty fortunate in other HI, the people on the reception have put us in the same dorm and we haven’t had to share with other people, we have paid for a dorm room.  Maybe we will be lucky again, if not we will be in separate dorms for 3 nights. At least we will have a kitchen and be able to cook some good food, free wi-fi and somewhere safe to leave the bikes.

We came down into the cafe this afternoon and found the internet a little quicker, blog is up to date.

Tomorrow\’s ride will be 70 kms, a long hilly ride.  The hostel is booked and we need to get to  Porto regardless of what the weather throws at us. The forecast is for rain early and then clearing, thunderstorms in the afternoon.  We will have to get started early and try and beat the weather.