Don't pass on Portugal

We arrived in Santander in time for a breakfast of coffee and omelette, at a café overlooking the city. It was still early when we set off.

We travelled sharp bends and beautiful scenery, heading south through Spain towards the Portuguese border. We saw trees baked autumn-brown from wildfire, and a deer that ran across the road and made us both brake

Filtering to the top of a long queue, we found ourselves following a procession of cows being led through a small town. Progress was cautious among the perils of slippery poo, randy bulls, skittish calves and protective mamas, not to mention children with sticks encouraging the herd along.

On our second day we stopped for lunch next to another group of British bikers who turned out to have been on the ferry with us.

Just before 3pm, we crossed the border.  Time went back an hour. Road signs and spellings shifted subtly. Today was my birthday, and what better present than a brand-new country?

We spent the night in a converted grain silo with an outdoor pool and a view of olive trees.

"Congratulations," said the manager as he examined my passport.  I must have looked puzzled because he explained "You have birthday today?"

Later he brought us a small bottle of sparkling wine and a dish of raspberries in honour of the occasion.

We’d picked the grain silo partly because it was an environmentally friendly stay, but also because it was nicely positioned to get us on the N222 the next morning. This is Portugal's famous biking road, which runs from Porto on the west coast to its finish point, a marker liberally decorated with stickers, near Almendra. Just to be contrary, we started at the end.

For miles the route hugs the river Douro. This is wine country, fertile and warm, and September is harvesting season. We rode past sloping vineyards, overtaking little flatbed lorries laden with glistening black grapes, the water blue below us.

The news in Portugal was all about the wildfires in the north and centre of the country. After lunch we started to see dirty white clouds on the horizon, which grew closer as we climbed until we could see flames among the smoke.

Eventually a policeman directed us to turn round, and we were diverted off our route onto single track roads up in the hills, with hairpin bends and glorious views. The trees to either side were blackened. Once we had to ride round a chunk of burning debris, and twice duck under downed power lines. Then we joined the main road to Porto and there was just a smoky haze in the air, with the sun shining red for danger through it.

It was a shock being thrust into a busy city after a day of quiet roads. Temporarily parked to get our bearings, we heard a cry of “We’re not stalking you, honest!” It was the other bikers from the ferry again.

We took two rest days in Porto—under a sky yellow from the wildfire haze, and a bright orange moon at night—before hopping on the toll motorway down to Estoril, north of Lisbon. Howard’s ticket failed to work at the exit and we got shouted at through the tannoy: NO, NO! PUT IT IN SLOT C! (Later that day there was another tiny bit of toll road, we rode up to a booth with a human in, and she was lovely.)

Estoril is the kind of southern European town where maxi scooters rule and you can park them wherever you like. My X-ADV must have thought I was bringing it home to its people. We'd come because I'm a James Bond fan, and we were treating ourselves to a 5-star night at the Palacio Hotel, where George Lazenby stays at the start of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

You can tell a hotel is classy when you rock up on motorbikes, sweaty and smelly with dusty luggage, and are treated like royalty. Howard had several baths, I had a lovely swim, and we departed the next morning fortified by a good night's sleep and cake for breakfast.

The next night was spent in an AirBnB cabin overlooking a vineyard, after a day in which we visited an aviation museum and a wolf sanctuary. Planes, wolves and 007: three of my favourite things in 24 hours!

As it turned out, there was a biker café a mile away down the N8 road. We dropped in the next morning for coffee, and I got a sticker to put on my top box. We soon discovered why the N8 had a biker cafe: it was a road of smooth tarmac and smooth curves. We slowed down for villages with cobbled streets and white-painted churches, and saw cork trees bare at the base where the bark had been harvested, marked with the year so the farmers would know when to harvest again.

I like to invest in a Michelin map for holidays, because they helpfully put a green border along the scenic routes. We used the Portugal Centro map that evening to plan a scenic and wiggly ride for the next day, averaging around 30 gorgeous miles per hour.

We took the N238 then the N236, roads that curved and doubled back on themselves as we climbed then descended, working north and east through the Serra da Lousã mountain range. Sometimes there was forest on both sides, sometimes we turned a corner to see a panorama of distant mountains and a blue lake below. Butterflies and birds flew across our path. We climbed until we were riding past the windmills we’d seen from far below, and a short time later we were seeing them so high above us it seemed impossible we’d been all the way up there.

Our destination was Sabugueiro, in the Serra da Estrela national park, which is famous for being Portugal’s highest village and breeding big, fluffy sheepdogs (I got to scritch one or two).

The next morning it was raining: such an unusual event it made the national news. Not ideal conditions for climbing up into the mountains, but we did it anyway. Up and up, past markers indicating 1,700, 1,900 and finally 2,000 metres: the highest point in mainland Portugal. By this time, we’d almost made it up above the clouds. Then we started the descent.

The roads were wonderful, with views of the glacial valley and, at one point, a herd of goats, but I was soaked and hungry by the time we stopped in Guarda for soup and salt cod served by a kind waitress who patted me on my freezing arm.

After lunch we returned to the main roads and the Douro wine valley, crossing and re-crossing the river and passing the BP station where we’d filled up a week before. The rain stopped, the roads dried and a lorry driver gave me what I’m choosing to assume was a victory sign as I sped by.

We spent a last night in Portugal, entering Spain the following morning at Miranda do Douro. The hills grew low and gentle, the post boxes changed colour and the Douro river became the Duero as we continued to follow it east.

Near our destination we were held up by a nasty-looking road accident, and did some surprise off-roading as the Guardia Civil directed us in a long line of lorries down a dirt track at the side of a field to get around it. Poor Howard, who was leading, got a telling-off because apparently you're not supposed to filter past stationary traffic in Spain.

But we put all that behind us, because we were spending the night in a real castle! Reached by a winding uphill track, it was such a magical place that at one point during the evening I glanced at the window to see a kestrel hovering there, looking back at me.

It was blowing a gale, but there was a rooftop pool and by golly I wasn't going to miss my chance to swim on top of a castle.

The rain set in as we set off the next day. To add to the fun, I dropped my bike turning it round on a patch of gravel after we took a wrong turn. We stopped for coffee and a cheese sandwich at a roadside bar full of locals in their work clothes, and emerged to blue sky.

We spent two nights in Bilbao before riding back to Santander for the return ferry, which docked in Portsmouth the following evening. We waited on the lower car deck among the other bikers returning from France, Spain and Portugal with new miles on their odometers and new stickers on their panniers, until the gate opened and we were welcomed home by chilly wind and rain.

It's a long trip—we clocked up nearly 2,000 miles altogether—but the ferry lets you cut out France. The roads and scenery, not to mention the food, were well worth it. I'd happily go again and spend a week just in the Douro (hopefully not on fire next time), or exploring the mountain ranges with their magical names: Serra da Estrela, Serra de Montesinho, Serra do Gerês.

If you feel like you’ve ‘done’ France and Spain, or you just fancy something a little different, go those extra kilometres. You won’t regret it.

Alice Dryden