After 3 days steady cycling but difficult in places I finally got my Toiur legs on Day 4 - the legs were strong and the cycling was effortless ... almost !
We had an awesome Guest house called Casa da Praca right in the centre of Pinhel Old Town and the hosts were excellent, after a very good breakfast we were off heading out of town first on more annoying cobbles before dropping down through the new town and back uphill to Valbom - the start of the day was mainly downhill but all the uphill stretches were a sharpe 9% gradient. At 10 miles we bottomed out and the next 10 miles were all uphill finishing in Trancoso which has a Castle sitting high on the hill above the valley. We stopped in a cafe for a coffee but they had no milk !!!! so we settled for a couple of Orange juices and headed off towards Viseu on quiet roads, after a 400ft descent we eneterd a rocky valley and the road lurched upwards at up to 13% gradient whilts we passed huge rock formations and boulders and lots of windmills at the top, it did remind me a bit of Yorkshire and Ilkley Moor ! With only little villages on route, so we had identified a Cafe that does food at 30 miles. As we approached the sky was going black again and the afternoon thunderstorm looked like it would arrive early today. We were put in a back toom where we ate lunch at a big table alongside about 6 Portuguese workers who were very helpful. We had a vegetbale soup with minestrone pasta followed by a lettuce, tomato and onion salad and grilled pork escalopes, two cans of coke and two coffees to follow - all of which came to a grand total og €20
During our meal the weather had broken and it had been heavily raining - we waited whilst we had our coffees and the rain had eased but it did look black in very direction except to the south. Fortunately we were heading slightly south and mainly east and we managed to stay dry for the rest of the day whilst the thunder circled to the north of us. The day continued along really quiet forested roads with littel traffic until we reached the outskirts of Viseu and two awkward climbs into town culminating in a nasty cobbled uphill stretch to our hotel. Day 4 DONE !