Régua to Pinhão and back

Our small room looks like a bomb has hit; despite the lack of size, the apartment has spacious common areas including a huge kitchen, lounge and balcony. The balcony was good for sunrise colours over the distant vineyards. The hills here are so steep and nearly every bit of land has either a vineyard on it, or olive trees.

We had breakfast at a nearby cafe (voucher provided by the accommodation); quite good coffee, fruit juice and croissant (it is a pastelaria - cake shop and cafe).

From here we continued back over the bridge across the river that had been closed for the bike race yesterday and onto Pinhão 29 kms upstream from where we are staying at Régua.

A lovely (almost) flat road alongside the river - the famous N222 (voted the world’s best road). This is also part of the network of roads that make up the Port Wine Trail (Rota do Pinho do Porto).

We stopped several times for photos although there is very little verge and we passed an enormous lock through which a very big cruise boat was negotiating as we arrived.

There was a reasonable amount of traffic but we were treated respectfully. At one stage on a tight bend, we ended up cramped in by 3 big buses and everything came to a stop; the last bus started backing up and then we saw why: there was a bus coming through the other way.

By now it was quite hot after a coolish start and we had run out of water (again) so off to find a supermarket when we reached Pinhão!

We also did a reconnaisance for the cais de embarque for our 3 pm cruise plus we located the train station. We had planned to buy the tickets but the man at the ticket office said if we have bikes he can’t sell us tickets - we have to buy them on the train because there is a maximum of 10 bikes, so if more than 10 turn up at 18:14, tough!

Then off to Quinta de la Rosa for lunch. We were slightly early but this gave us access  to a table on the terrace right overlooking the river. It was gorgeous. And the food delicious especially my dessert: strawberry pannacotta.

And I finally got to have a white port and tonica which is their ‘go to’ aperitivo here. Very nice. MF had a craft beer made by the quinta (= rural property like a winery). Plus we shared a glass of the red made by the winery - very nice, very big!

We arrived a little early for our cruise to check the lock-up of the bikes - across from the boat but not secure as we had been advised. An email during lunch to the booking agent and she contacted the cruise company to say the staff would keep an eye on the bikes. Not totally reassuring … in any event, we returned to them safe and sound.

The 2-hour cruise to Tua was very relaxing - took lots of photos.

We had contemplated a Plan B to ride back but the wind was strong - a head wind - so we stayed with Plan A to wait an hour and take the train.

Plan A worked and the conductor was very sweet. He said not to rush loading the bikes. He also charged us over 65-year old rates without asking for our passports - 2.90€ for the 2 of us! This is the lovely tilework at Pinhào station.

It was a lovely trip back to Régua - a nice breeze blowing through the cabin. We could see some of the spots on the other side of the river where we had stopped to take photos on our morning ride.

At Régua we raced through the town to the supermarket to buy some groceries for dinner and then home to ready the bikes for collection.

All in all, a lovely day.