Saturday 27th August 

I’m writing after my plan changed rather drastically. I need to remember where to start. From Braganca I intrepidly started the ACT route south. Immediately I took one of the many possible wrong turns and ended up in a farm drive with the inevitable barking dogs and then the farmer. But the dogs were friendly and the farmer helpfully pointed to where I had gone wrong and that I had something dangling from my luggage. So I turned round and headed back the way he indicated. The route was mostly gravel with some stone parts. The easy bits were ok but every now and then would be something steep up or down or a sharp turn.

Looking back I wonder what was so intimidating about it but at the first point that it crossed a small road I decided to stick to the road which was more fun as I could keep to wiggly roads by putting a town name up ahead into my gps. The weather was ideal high twenties and sunny though getting hotter. I think I managed about 45 minutes of the ACT but I was in 1st and 2nd gear all the time and had to turn the bike around 3 or 4 times when I realised I had taken the wrong track. The first day would have been 120 miles of that. Somehow it didn’t work.  Also, somewhere along the route it got hot. So my plan was to head for the next hotel I had booked and restart from there. Some days, from the GPX track look as though they stick more to roads and the small roads are pretty entertaining.

My stops during the day may have been low key but they worked well, first at Mogadouro where I ate something sitting on a bench in the shade of a dead end street and planned from my maps and the GPS a twisty scenic route indirectly to Torre de Moncorvo where hotel number two is.

So far so good. It was a good plan. The route I took was amazing. Toward the end of the ride it was so hot that on spotting an unusual coincidence of a tree giving shade by the road and somewhere to stop just off the road I swerved over to come to an abrupt halt to drink and pour water over my head. But the riding and the roads were amazing. Until it got hot and the cooling breeze turned into a hot blast. 

Entering the town, Torre de Moncorvo, required a steep and ever steeper ascent of a cobbled street up to a pleasant cobbled square where old men sat around watching the world go by including oddities like me. I get the feeling that Portuguese, at least in this not very visited part of the country, are really uncertain about travellers and always look quizzically. It took quite some walking to find where the hotel was hiding. But it was now hot – mid thirties. The hotel was and still is a historic building very dark with amazing but rather wasted on me antique furniture and lights. The receptionist spoke great English with humorous tone. Nice. 

I toured the hot streets on foot looking for a supermarket for ideally a beer from a fridge but in the end settled for orange juice not chilled and crisps both to have with my vodka which I did unwisely before heading out to O Lager restaurant. It was efficient like a large canteen but nicely cooked produce and lovely local white wine that I drank too much of.

It was soft and drinkable but 13 percent. I really enjoyed myself though walked unsteadily back to my hotel. But lying down to sleep sent the room into a spin that just would not go away and a couple of hours later the fish I ate were released into the sewerage system. Not a good night (at some points I thought ‘if now is when I die I don’t care’) and when morning came I decided I should stay another night because I did not feel well enough to ride but alas receptionist on duty rather less fluent than her colleague told me there were no vacancies though her colleague yesterday had said there would be. But I am glad I did not stay there, very glad. I found the town and the hotel claustrophobic. That’s when I changed my plan after a clear bit of advice from H. back at home. On the phone I abandoned the continued ride into the hotter south and decided to go west to the coast that according to my app was 10 degrees cooler – ah luxury.

I picked a hotel in a hurry on booking.com. A choice between £43 with crummy reviews and £82 with glowing. I chose the latter, about 10k from the coast and pretty much due west from where I was. I’m so glad I did because here I am in a place that’s such the opposite to the old fashioned places from earlier. It is white modern and airy run by a welcoming French family. (actually I don’t think they were French but I felt like I had died and gone to heaven). Everything is so much better like the Wi-Fi router actually in your room and working an amazing shower room. And cooler, so much. I missed the entrance on a steep bit of road of course but managed to manoeuvre my bike around to make it up a rather hidden drive. I’ve ordered dinner and meat not fish, which is what people ask you, for a change. 

Internally I battle with anxiety and catastrophic thoughts as I ride. If I am just enjoying the ride I am lucky. It can be anything: often just the practicalities of what I need to do feel overwhelming but they unfailingly work out fine. Earlier in the ride it was whether the clutch cable would go slack again. A blast of heat sends a wave of panic. Today I got in the wrong lane at a motorway toll and didn’t take a ticket but at the exit, many miles later, I decided also to go through the free lane, so as I have told myself a million times, things are nearly always completely fine. These trips always bring this out. At home routine keeps it mostly at bay.