Posted by Last year we ventured on the ferry across to Spain, toured Northern Spain for a week or so before heading up the coast of France to the tunnel. There were many one night, two night and one 3 night stays so we were on the move a lot. It was an amazing experience and we had a great time.
We were chatting about our holiday when we got back and decided that as great as that trip was, we really wanted to see more of Spain and possibly some of Portugal but also have longer in places where we could explore more.
We also decided that to give us longer time in Spain, we would catch the ferry both ways, we booked our crossings and then the planning started.
I love the planning stage, lots of research into places to both stay and visit and routes to take. My mind and imagination go into overdrive with the endless possibilities.
After many hours of planning, this was the basis of our adventure, we had seven legs and our itinerary was as follows:
Leg 1: Home to ferry terminal in Portsmouth, 90 miles
Leg 2: Santander to Monfarracinos, Zamora, Spain, 212 miles
Leg 3: Monfarracinos, Zamora, Spain to Peso de Regua, Portugal, 148 miles
Leg 4: Peso de Regua, Portugal to Culleredo, Spain, 218 miles
Leg 5: Culleredo, Spain to Tama, Spain, 262 miles
Leg 6: Tama, Spain to Ferry terminal Santander, Spain, 64 miles,
Leg 7: Portsmouth to Home, 90 miles
The mileage between legs is always approximate, depending on the weather, the roads and how we are feeling, we may take more direct routes or adventurous routes. Then of course there is the mileage we do when we are staying at places so the basic mileage will go up.
Leg 1 Day 1
One of the guys on our trip, David, lives 230 miles from Portsmouth where we were catching the ferry and 150 miles from us. We are kind of on the way on his journey so we decided to meet at a pub late morning so he could have a fuel and drink break before setting off again.
After a leisurely coffee or two, we set off for Loomies, which is a well known biker cafe which, although slightly out of our way, we thought would make a great stop.
No surprise I know, but the M25 was busy and we filtered some of the way before coming off on the A3. The traffic was heavy here, but at least it was moving.
We arrived at Loomies and parked up. I haven’t been here for a while so it was nice to go back. They are super friendly here and the food is always good.
We spent a fair while here drinking, eating, looking at bikes and chatting to bikers before setting off very late in the afternoon to Portsmouth.
Now, as we had a late crossing, there was no way I could get on the ferry and eat dinner that late in the evening, so we headed for the Ship & Castle pub which is literally around the corner from the ferry terminal.
We spent a couple of hours here having a leisurely dinner and chatting with other bikers who clearly had the same idea as us.
Once we had checked into the ferry, lined up, and boarded with no issues (I always worry that I will be the one to mess it up and drop my bike riding onto the ferry), we watched our bikes being strapped down before going up on deck to find our cabins.
Having dropped our bags in our cabins, we headed for the bar! We had a couple of drinks before heading off to bed. That was night one done.
Day 2
Saturday on the ferry was very relaxing and went by way quicker than I thought it would. As it was a late night the night before (for me anyway) it was nice to have a lay in before heading to the restaurant for a leisurely breakfast.
There is no phone signal on the ferry but you can purchase wi-fi if you wish to go online, but for me, it was really nice to have a day completely chilling, drinking coffee, eating and wandering around on deck in the sunshine trying to get a glimpse of a dolphin or two.
There is a shop on board, cinema, spa and entertainment in the bar during the day if you wish. To be honest we spent much of the time just chatting excitedly about our adventure ahead of us.
After dinner, we headed to the bar before bed! That was night two done.
Leg 2 Day 3
The familiar music through the tannoy system woke us up early Sunday morning, we had to be out of our cabins by 7.30 as we were disembarking at 8.
We headed to the bar with our luggage and grabbed a quick coffee before we were called to head down to the car deck. We unstrapped our bikes, loaded our luggage and then we were off! The ferry is a great way to get to Northern Spain and the time goes by so quickly.
It was raining as we got off the ferry but looking at the forecast, we knew we should be riding out of it fairly soon so we didn’t worry about putting on waterproofs.
We headed out of Santander towards Zamora, which was where our overnight stop was, some 212 miles away. We decided to ride a chunk of the miles on the motorway and then come off onto ‘normal’ roads about fifty or so miles from our destination. We rode for a couple of hours before stopping for breakfast and then did another couple of hours riding before stopping for lunch.
The ride was surprisingly relaxing, the roads were fairly empty and it had long since stopped raining and we were riding in sunshine which is always nice.
I say relaxing, it was until there were roadworks on one of the motorways and we were directed off. We followed the diversion but this petered out fairly quickly and we could not work out how to get back on the motorway and pulled over.
An extremely nice chap in his car pulled alongside us and asked if we were ok. I said, in my very pigeon Spanish, that we were trying to get back on the motorway as we were heading to Zamora. The chap said follow me and so we did.
We did a U-turn which was clearly not the way he was going and he took us all the way to the motorway, about a fifteen minute ride in total. We were so grateful to this chap and blown away by how lovely he was to go out of his way to help us.
We arrived at our overnight accommodation in Monfarracinos, Zamora where we met our host. The property had a garage so we did not have to worry too much about taking everything off the bikes, just what we needed as we were setting off again in the morning.
After a well deserved cuppa we went for a walk in the village and came across a bar. There were no other shops, just this bar and a friendly one at that.
We sat outside enjoying a beer or two before heading to the nearest petrol station which was a mile or so away, picked up a few bits for dinner – bread, cheese, ham etc and walked back for supper. Perfect end to a good day’s riding.
Leg 3 Day 4
We had 150 miles of riding today to get to our accommodation in Peso de Regua which is along the Duoro River in Northern Portugal. After a fairly relaxed breakfast, we set off about ten ish the following morning.
The sun was hot already, we set sat nav for no tolls and some motorways before coming off again on ‘normal roads’. The roads were really quiet and there was great scenery to keep us entertained along the way. We stopped for petrol and food/drink at a roadside cafe and chilled for a while in the shade.
We headed off and stopped in the nearby town where we were staying to fuel up and get a bite to eat. We arranged a time to meet our host at our accommodation, and met him at the bottom of the hill in the village.
The drive up to the property was, shall we say, interesting. It was cobblestones on a very steep, narrow, tight and twisty lane. I put on my big girl pants and did it! I was so glad I did as the property was absolutely beautiful! The house was over three floors nestled into the hillside with stunning scenery and a swimming pool.
Somehow I managed to get the guys to go to the supermarket, whilst I headed to the swimming pool. The dip in the pool was absolutely perfect after a long hot day riding. After dinner we went for a walk to explore the area.
Day 5
Giles found a route on Best Biking Roads taking in the N222, following the Douro River in the valleys along the south side towards Porto. After an hour or so, we stopped at a little roadside cafe we came upon for a coffee.
One thing that struck me straightaway is how friendly and welcoming people are. I know my Portuguese is absolutely no way near fluent, not even by the farthest stretch of the imagination, but I had a go.
More often than not I would get a smile back as it would appear that what I was saying was probably not that coherent, but I think they like the fact that I was trying. Very trying 😂😂
After coffee, we carried along for a while before crossing back over the river on the Mosteiro Bridge where we stopped at a cafe for lunch.
We were heading back by this stage and stopped in Outeiro for a drink, which is on the north side of the river.
We got back to our accommodation late afternoon and headed straight to the pool which was a welcome relief after a day’s riding as it was so hot and humid!
After dinner, we took a walk further up into the hills where the views were amazing.
Day 6
David had a route planned for us today to find a lake. We crossed the river at Peso de Regua and went up into the mountains looking back across where we were staying. The roads were cracking, lovely flowing winding roads going up into the hills. We got to Angores where we looped back round to Lamego and then back down into Pesa de Regua for coffee.
We then went out up into the mountains on the other side, stopping for lunch in Cumieira, which turned out to be a very nice restaurant at the side of the road.
There are so many little cafes and restaurants at the side of the roads and in tiny little villages that we ride through, we always try to stop in these if we can, the people are friendly and welcoming.
Having got as far as Vila Real looking for this lake and not finding it, and as it was mid afternoon by this point, we decided to head back to the house as it was soooo hot and humid. We needed the pool for a cool down. The roads on the way back were absolutely wicked, we were grinning by the time we got back.
Day 7
Having not found the lake yesterday, David found another route we could take taking us very high up into the mountains via Quintila.
We stumbled across a little village called Candemil and found a cafe with a lovely dog. We chilled here for a while taking in the delights of the cafe and also the views it had to offer.
We continued riding further up the mountains between Porto and Vila Real near Ansiael on some really twisty and absolutely fantastic roads. There were so many twists on this road that I was pretty much in third gear just rolling on, rolling off the throttle.
During some of the twisty roads, there was a fork in the road and David had gone one way but we didn’t see which way and took a punt. It turned out it was a different way to David. By this time, we were running low on fuel and there was a distinct lack of fuel stations up in the mountains. We messaged David, put in the nearest fuel station in the sat nav and headed there.
Instead of finding fuel for the bikes, we found fuel for us at the same cafe we had stopped at yesterday so we messaged David again and some while later he met us there. David had found the lake and stopped at the cafe for fuel for himself.
We headed back via a fuel station and a supermarket and, you guessed it, headed straight to the pool 😜
After dinner we walked into the village where we stumbled across a little bar that kind of looked like someone’s front room to be honest. The elderly couple here were lovely and friendly and we stopped for a beer.
We carried on walking and found another bar, this one did look like a bar. The people in here were very welcoming and we had a couple of beers here too.
The village, Caldas do Moledo, is surrounded by terraced vineyards with nearby farms and manor houses, many of which have chapels. The once prominent and disused thermal baths can be accessed through a beautiful park.
In the 18th century, the therapeutic properties of the waters became known, and a century later, the second husband of the “Woman of the Douro”, D. Antónia Adelaide Ferreira purchased the Quinta das Caldas.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the demand for thermal baths reduced, and the hotels and the casino were finally closed.
Although the village is in a very run down state with what seemed to be a lot of derelict buildings, it looked like money was being invested to bring the village back to life as there was a lot of building work going on. I hope they do manage to bring life back to this village, which was once thriving with a place with a very well renowned wine business.
Day 8
Our host very kindly messaged us to say that heavy thunderstorms were forecast for the afternoon and we should be careful. As we were heading off on our next leg of our adventure tomorrow with a long day of riding, we decided it was the perfect opportunity to have a chill day.
We headed into the nearest town, Peso de Regua for a coffee and a wander around. The town is very vibrant and busy and I left the guys in a cafe whilst I checked out the boutiques. Uh oh, I could see I may have expand the bags on my luggage …..
We got back to the accommodation just before the rain started and sat on the balcony to watch the thunderstorm.
Leg 4 Day 9
I can’t believe we were leaving Portugal already, our five nights here had flown by.
We had a 220 mile ride today to A Coruna, which is north of Santiago de Compestela in Spain. We met our host at the accommodation in Cuderado and unloaded the bikes. The house was set up into the hills a little up a quiet road with amazing views.
We had had a long hot day of riding, so after unpacking and a quick shower, we went for a walk and found a bar that had food, absolutely perfect.
Day 10
Today we rode down the coast to Caion and headed to the Tower of Hercules which is the oldest known extant Roman lighthouse. Built in the 1st century, the tower is located on a peninsula about 2.4 km from the center of A Coruña, Galicia, in northwestern Spain.
We parked the bikes and took a twenty or so minute walk up to the lighthouse. Having reached the lighthouse and taken in the views from there, we decided to go into the lighthouse and climb the stairs to the top.
We went to the entrance thinking we could just pay our three euros only to be told that you have to buy tickets in the car park and book a slot.
It was soon decided that finding coffee and something to eat was more preferable than walking to the car park and back again.
We found a great little cafe where the waiter very kindly let me practice my Spanish, before smiling and heading off with my order. Uh oh ….. I was worried what I would end up with 😂
Day 11
Today we took a ride to Muxia, which is a coastal town in the province of A Coruna. It belongs to the comarca of Fisterra and is one of the final destinations for pilgrims on the Way of St James after visiting the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in Santiago de Compostela.
Muxia is part of the Costa de Morte (Coast of Death) which earned its name due to the large number of shipwrecks along its rocky shore.
After a coffee (you can probably tell by now that this is a very important part of each day 😂) we carried on around to the nearby church on the peninsula. It is absolutely beautiful here, you can’t help but just sit and take in the scenery.
The church is dedicated to “Nosa Senora da Barca”, and was originally a pre-Christian Celtic shrine and sacred spot and was converted in the 12th century. The Christians built a hermitage on this location at first, and later the present church in the 17th century.
We then carried on following the coastline to Fisterra and onto the Cape Finisterre Lighthouse, which is absolutely stunning, this was considered by the Romans to be earth’s westernmost point and so the end of the world. The lighthouse is reached through a small road from Fisterra following the coastline and the Corcubion Estuary.
We had a very leisurely late lunch and took in our surroundings..
Day 12
This was our last day before heading off on our next leg so we did not want to do a lot of miles today as we had a heavy day of riding tomorrow.
We headed to a small town called Betanzos, which was only about 15 miles away. Betanzos is a very beautiful and historic town. After coffee (yep 😂) the guys went off exploring whilst I explored the boutiques. My luggage was definitely expanding 😜
Before leaving we found a bar with some outside shade and sat watching the world go before making our way back.
We fuelled the bikes ready for the morning and stopped at a supermarket to buy some provisions for a bbq.
We absolutely made the most of our last evening here sitting in the garden, eating and enjoying the views.
Leg 5 Day 13
We had a long day of riding today, 270 miles, to our final accommodation of this adventure in Tama, which is just outside Potes in the Picos.
Cuderillo is a beautiful fishing port about halfway into our journey. We have been here before and thought it would make an ideal stopping point. We were not disappointed.
We stopped here for a very leisurely coffee, sandwich and took a walk to stretch our legs before getting back on the bikes.
On arriving in the Picos we encountered some rather lengthy roadworks that took an absolute age to get through. Each time we reached a set of lights we turned off the engines as it took a while for the lights to go green and the bikes were getting hot!
Eventually we came into Tama. I was leading, and my sat nav told me to turn right which I did. The road very quickly became a lane that just got narrower and narrower and then basically turned into a very stony dirt track.
I was thinking omg, this is horrendous, once we get to our accommodation I’m not leaving until we have to go home! I thought the guys were going to be so mad at me for booking somewhere so inaccessible.
We turned a corner and were confronted by a small stream complete with a bridge and waterfall. There was no way I was turning back so out came my big girl pants again and I rode through it. Phew! Made it!! I was very quickly followed by the guys.
We carried on and the dirt track became a tarmacked lane and into view appeared our accommodation. OMG, that trek was sooooo worth it!
As it turned out, if I had looked at the bigger picture on the sat nav, I would have seen that I could have carried on along the main road and taken the next right which would have taken us to our accommodation on perfectly normal roads.
Ooops 😬 At least our little off road adventure gave us plenty to talk about and later laugh at!
We met our host at the property, unpacked and had ourselves a well deserved cuppa!
About a twenty minute walk along some lanes was a hotel with a bar and a restaurant. Here we spent the evening before walking back and chilling at the accommodation soaking in the beautiful views.
Day 14
Time to explore some of the picos 😎
We headed into Potes and then took a left which takes you out over the Puerto de San Glorio pass to Riano which was amazing!
The road is just winding up through the mountain offering amazing views. We stopped for the obligatory picture with the stag along the way before carrying on to Riano.
Wow 🤩 How stunning is Riano! It is located along the Esla River in the mountains in the province of Leon. The village is across the reservoir from Peak Gilbo, 3650 feet above the sea level in the Cantabrian mountains.
In the 1980’s, for planned construction of a dam and reservoir for flood control and generation of hydroelectric power, the village and its low-lying farmland were submerged along with six other villages. The residents were relocated to New Riano built high above the reservoir waters.
We found a great cafe for lunch before carrying on the bikes to Cangas de Onis whereupon we found a cafe literally nestled in the hills which was a perfect stop for an ice cream and chat with some like minded bikers.
We carried along to Panes on the N621 taking in the AS114 passing Poo and Cabrales de Arenas on the way. There are some fantastic roads and scenery this way and we got back to Potes with grins on our faces.
It had been a long, hot day of riding, some 134 miles, so we stopped in Potes and found a restaurant, sat outside in the shade and chilled for a couple of hours with food and drink. It was most welcome and the perfect end to a great day’s riding.
Day 15
Nooooo! How can it be our last day in the Picos already!
After a very leisurely start to the day with a late breakfast sitting outside our accommodation and soaking up the views, we headed into Potes to find a coffee or, as it turned out, three. I was sure going to miss my mid morning coffee with the guys.
After a wander around and a picture by the sign (sorry, we couldn’t resist 😂) we carried on out of Potes to Fuente De where the cable cars are.
Oh wow, what an absolutely fantastic, winding road this is. This is one of those roads where you could literally just ride up and down all day, or at least I could.
Half way back we stopped at a cafe in the hillside for lunch which was just beautiful and perfect.
We headed back, stopping at the supermarket for bbq provisions, fuelled up ready for the morning and headed back to our accommodation to pack.
Sitting outside drinking and eating into the evening was the perfect way to end our time in the Picos.
Leg 6 Day 16
This was it. Our last day of our Portugal/Spanish adventure, our final leg was upon us. How had that happened so quickly!
The bikes were loaded, our host arrived so we could handover the keys and we set off for our 64 mile ride back to Santander to catch the ferry.
We allowed extra time as we had to encounter those roadworks going back but we made good time and checked in.
We parked the bikes in the bike parking which, thankfully, was a covered area as not long after we arrived the rain came and it came in buckets! We were so glad we were not riding in this.
We were on the 1 o’clock sailing, boarded the ferry (thankfully with no hiccups as it was rather wet), watched our bikes being strapped down and then headed off to find our cabins.
We grabbed a well needed coffee in the bar as we had not had anything to drink since breakfast that morning, and then headed to the restaurant for lunch.
This is the first time we have done this trip going by ferry both ways and I have to say, it was rather nice to get on the ferry and chill after two heavy weeks of exploring and adventures.
It was a great opportunity to talk about our holiday and the time on board just flew by.
Leg 7 Day 17
Our ferry was due to arrive in Portsmouth at 17:30 so we had a whole day of relaxing on board before over the tannoy we heard we should head to the car deck.
We loaded our luggage on our bikes, set the sat nav for home and off we went. It was a very wet ride home indeed with lots of filtering on the M25 (that surprised you) but we all got home safe and sound.
What an incredible 17 days and 1,827 miles of adventures we had. We saw some beautiful scenery, rode on some fantastic roads and met some really lovely people along the way.
I count myself very lucky to be able to have some truly great mates to go away with and share my riding experiences and I absolutely cannot wait for our next adventure.
Planning our next adventure has already started …..
BK
Excelente. Your apres trip write ups are novel, well written with pics and looked forward to Kaz. Imformative & encouraging. Good stuff. Salud ☕
Ahh thank you Daryl, I really appreciate you saying that and for taking the time to read my article 😊