Trip report - Faro to Porto

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bohrsatom
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Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by bohrsatom »

My girlfriend and I just got back from a 350-mile ride in Portugal, from Faro to Porto. We wrote a crazyguy blog that you might find interesting: https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o= ... 16745&v=6v

Riding in Portugal was great and I recommend it wholeheartedly. With only a couple of exceptions the roads were quiet and of a good quality. The scenery was fantastic, especially the rolling plains of the Alentejo where cork trees lined the roads. Food was good and every town has somewhere to stop for a coffee/beer/ice cream if the heat gets too much. Below are some of my favourite photos

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bikes4two
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by bikes4two »

> Ah, Portugal - two of us cycled Santiago de Compostela to Lisbon in Sep'14 - a lovely country to tour through
> I'm enjoying reading your blog, but in the name of fairness I wonder if there's a correction you might think of making?
> It's this - you mention entrusting your bikes to Easyjet baggage handlers - that's not the case: you entrust your bikes to the baggage handlers employed by the airport, not the airlines that use them. If you were to leave this blog entry uncorrected you are casting dispersion on Easyjet where they are not deserved
> And my links to Easyjet? None other than I've flown with them and with my bikes in poly bags maybe 5 times and all without incident which is in any case down to the care of the airport baggage handlers, not Easyjet.
Without my stoker, every trip would only be half a journey
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al_yrpal
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by al_yrpal »

Loved Porto, went to the Primavera Sound music festival there last year and stayed for a few days taking the train up the Douro. The city is full of character, magic. Great place for a budget weekend away.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
Rich_Clements
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by Rich_Clements »

Nice blog, well written thanks for sharing 8)
Rich
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mjr
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by mjr »

A fascinating read. Thanks for posting. Did you find anything on the road rules of Portugal as it applies to cycling? I had a couple of tries, didn't really find much detail in English and hoped the hire shop or someone would tell me if there was anything important :lol: Most people seemed very relaxed on the roads anyway.

Sadly, I have to agree with your assessment of EuroVelo 1 / Ecovia Littoral. I rode most of it between Quinta do Lago and Albufeira last month. I think you could have followed it safely west through the golfing resorts to level with Loulé and then turned north, but you can't quite trust it. It's rather like a Sustrans route: most of it is quiet tarmac roads, but sometimes without warning it'll turn into gravel or sand that really needs a MTB for a while and often it's hard to spot the signs or route markings at junctions, or it'll do daft stuff like vanish and dump you onto a cobbled footway on the wrong side of a roundabout access.

Once it was much worse: the route just went straight down what looked like someone's driveway, through a ruined house (pictured - cycle route sign in foreground, EV1 continues forwards from just to the right of me) turning between unfenced six foot drops, down a heap of gravel piled up against a retaining wall and across some open land, then using more gravel to cross a kerb and rejoin some tarmac. Maybe we need EU cycle route standards, not merely national ones for the UK!
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EuroVelo 1 aka Ecovia Littoral, between Fonte Santa and Quarteira
EuroVelo 1 aka Ecovia Littoral, between Fonte Santa and Quarteira
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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borisface
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by borisface »

Great blog. Glad you enjoyed it. Its a great country to tour in, so good in fact that I now live here - about 1.5 hours south east of Coimbra in Beira Baixa. You're right about the hills but rest assured the Alentejo is flat compared to most of the country. Had you strayed a bit further east from Tomar upwards you'd have hit some really serious climbs.
iviehoff
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by iviehoff »

mjr wrote:A fascinating read. Thanks for posting. Did you find anything on the road rules of Portugal as it applies to cycling? I had a couple of tries, didn't really find much detail in English and hoped the hire shop or someone would tell me if there was anything important :lol: Most people seemed very relaxed on the roads anyway.

The roads you can't cycle on have clear "no cycling" signs at their ramps. Basically reckon that roads with ramps and grade segregated junctions are closed to you, although they can be a bit A1-ish in their inconsistency, and you can find yourself on some country backroad which leads you ineluctably onto a banned road without warning. But alternative routes for banned traffic are often not signposted and it can be very difficult to find your way past these roads. I've gone short distances on them and I've even carried bikes over crash barriers to make unorthodox entries and exits from such roads, when I couldn't see how you were supposed to do it.
iviehoff
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by iviehoff »

bohrsatom wrote:Riding in Portugal was great and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

You say that, yet to my mind you stayed well away from most of the best bits. You have treats awaiting you when you return and ride again. Though it will be hillier, in some cases, a lot hillier.
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mjr
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by mjr »

iviehoff wrote:The roads you can't cycle on have clear "no cycling" signs at their ramps.

Are they like our "no cycling" signs, or are they the white bike on a blue circle with a red line through it? I met one of the latter on EV1 with no obvious alternative route, so we rode past it anyway. That road was no different to some we had ridden on earlier.

EDIT: I tried searching again and found it in http://www.adcidl.com/pdf/Portugal-Road ... -Signs.pdf which says both that "no cycling" is like ours and the confusing one was "End of cycles only - Fim da pista obrigatória para" (which I think actually means it was a cycle track we must use)... which doesn't really make sense, as the blue one was half way along a small road with no cycle track anywhere in sight. Our old ally Portugal truly has a lot in common with England :roll:

EDIT2: found it at https://goo.gl/maps/ZVsC3GWGBNy - does it make sense to anyone?
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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bohrsatom
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by bohrsatom »

The road sign banning cyclists from major highways looks like this - the pictogram is actually of a moped rather than a bicycle but I assume it means both!

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@mjr - regarding rules of the road, I thought the same as you. If we were doing something obviously forbidden I'm sure someone would have told us! The only thing I was uncertain of was whether you had to use a bike lane by law if one was provided, but as we only saw about 10kms of them in total it wasn't much of an issue :). Otherwise Portuguese drivers were in the most part very courteous and left plenty of room when overtaking.

@iviehoff - any recommendations of where to ride would be much appreciated! We did actually think of heading north east out of Evora - I know it's much hillier there - but we wanted to be closer to the coast in case we ran out of time and had to jump on a train.
Last edited by bohrsatom on 10 Oct 2015, 6:33pm, edited 1 time in total.
borisface
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by borisface »

Assuming you want to head towards Porto, from Evora I would head east through the marble towns of Vila Vicosa and Borba towards Elvas, then north through the Sao Marmede mountains to Marvao, Castelo de Vide. These are wonderful towns. Continue heading north on the lanes that follow the main road through Nisa to Vila Velha de Rodao (don't stay there as its a stinky industrial town). Maybe stay in Castelo Branco. Then continue north towards Fundao and over the Serra de Estrela (2000m) or maybe by-pass it by going through Loriga. Then Seia, Viseu and back to the coast and up to Porto. It will be quite mountainous after you leave CB. The other option from VVR would be to edge towards Oleiros, Pamphilosa da Serra, Gois, Penacova and Luso/Bucaco. Either way you will encounter timeless villages, fab views, friendly locals cheap accom and food. Unless you like and can cope with the heat I'd avoid July and August. April/May is a good time to visit the Alentejo as there are lots of wild flowers, that lay in carpets under the cork oaks. The scenery changes quite dramatically as you cross the Tejo from granite to shist and gets a whole lot more mountainous so plan your daily routes accordingly. The climbs tend to be not alpine in the sense that they are not long and gently sloped but rather short and steep - when I say short I mean up to 10 miles or so in length. The exception is the climb to Torre on Serra de Estrela which is a brute. If you want anymore advice let me know.
iviehoff
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by iviehoff »

Boris gives good recommendations, though he fails to mention a particular highlight of Monsanto which is on his route. It is difficult avoiding having to go through and stay in CB, which is not a wonderful place, because of the shape of the road network and lack of alternatives within a reasonable distance. I've been over the top of S Estrela twice, it's sufficiently good, and Belmonte is a lovely place one the way. But it is also nice keeping east further north, through Sabugal, Almeida, Torre de Moncorvo (a friend once used this is a base for a multi-night stay), and then many places to explore in the NE and N more generally, it's hard to go wrong there. (Sadly Sortelha which used to be a really primitive little mediaval village has been bought up and converted to an upmarket resort or something.) Up in the NE, you can collect places with really odd names, like Figueira do Castelo Rodrigo (Roderick Castle's Figtree), Freixa da Espada a Cinta (Freixa of the Belted Sword), Alfandega da Fe (the Customs House of Faith), etc.

No cycling is an obvious red sign, not a blue one. That blue one, which I've never seen, sounds similar to one they have in in Czech Rep which, I finally worked out by a process of elimination, means "this cycle route is no longer traffic free".
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mjr
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by mjr »

iviehoff wrote:No cycling is an obvious red sign, not a blue one. That blue one, which I've never seen, sounds similar to one they have in in Czech Rep which, I finally worked out by a process of elimination, means "this cycle route is no longer traffic free".

Thanks. That meaning also wouldn't make sense in that location, part way along an all-traffic road. Oh well, a holiday puzzle :)
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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borisface
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by borisface »

Thanks Ivie I forgot Monsanto which considering I was there last week is a bit of an oversight! Also nearby is Idanha a Velha which although it has no accommodation is worth a quick explore especially if you are going to Monsanto. Idanha a Nova also has a couple of places to stay.
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bigjim
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Re: Trip report - Faro to Porto

Post by bigjim »

I did it the other way round in October last year. Porto to Faro. Recommended. The worst HGV and Bus drivers I've ever come across though.
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