Serra de Montemuro

[Pedro]

Left the house past 11:30 in the morning, after waking up not too early and doing some work. It looked like a quiet work day ahead so headed out to take advantage of the warm weather before the hot season arrives and before the weekend. This weekend the final match decides the winner of the Portuguese league on saturday, and on sunday we have national elections. I can't tell if the roads will be empty, or full with people that think they'll be empty... 

As a destination I headed to Serra de Montemuro, a delightful area near the Douro river, it feels like a hidden paradise away from the most well known roads that get full of traffic after so much publicity on magazines and youtube.

After an hour or so riding along the Douro I get onto the hills and an hour and a half after leaving home I take a detour to explore some service roads for wind farms. Suddenly it's way higher and temperatures drop by almost 10º compared to the Douro valley.

 

The N321, it's one of those roads you can tell are nice just by looking on the map.

 

I usually don't have proper lunch on rides, much prefer a sandwich or something like that, but today I wanted to check out a small rustic countryside restaurant where a big group is going to stop in a few days, on one of @Sofia's club rideouts. It's run by two very characterful ladies, and they serve old school dishes, this region is terribly cold in the winter and very driven to subsistence farming and cattle, so their food reflects that. 

 

It's a very local typical dish, I can't explain what the meat is except it's a smoked salted pork. It's more of a winter thing, though.

 

After lunch, started heading back via the long way but quickly stopped for a few pictures by a very old chapel with a great view. At 1140 meters altitude, it has great views over the Serra de Montemuro with a wink of the Douro river in the distance.

 

Felgueiras, a small village. I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of life and activity around these villages today.

 

Pretty skies when heading back.

 

This next one I just took to save the location on the map and know which road it is, it's a nice way to cross this area.

Old abandoned water mill being reclaimed by nature.

 

 

That lovely road from before turned into a bumpy mess with a few kms of cobblestones, I better remember if I ever take Sofia through here because it's not very Speed Triple friendly. Pretty villages, though.

 

less than two hours later and I was home, it was a nice 5 or 6 hours out.

[Six30]

nice pics 

[boboneleg]

Cracking views @Pedro  , Looks like hardly any traffic , I guess you were right about that. 

[boboneleg]

3 hours ago, Pedro said:

 

Did you really eat all that for lunch ?

[Pedro]

17 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

 

Did you really eat all that for lunch ?

No, I would have for a winter dinner though. It was enough for two two people over lunch, Northern  Portugal servings 

 

21 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

Cracking views @Pedro  , Looks like hardly any traffic , I guess you were right about that. 

Indeed, hardly any traffic on the small roads

[YamaHead]

Nice report @Pedro....some beautiful sky in those pics.