Peso de Regua to Viseu

Hey look, smiley happy faces from the lads at the cafe in Castro Daire. But what’s the reason for this merriment?… Find out later…

Fortunately Gibbo was able to sort his saddle issue at the bike shop last night so he’s good to go this morning.

We had a good evening last night with a nice meal washed down with a few beers. I won’t mention the football as I know we have a few Scottish readers ;). Better luck for the next game…

We get the van loaded and are on the road by 10 am. 51 miles today with three decent climbs. We leave the hotel, cross the river and it’s straight into the first one which is a long steady climb of 18 miles.

The scenery is stunning in this area with green rolling hills peppered with vineyards and the N2 road, once you are out of town, is deserted. The temperature is a warm 20 degrees but with a cool breeze that has the added advantage of providing a tail wind for the lads.

I head up to the half way point and wait for the lads to come up. Coxy is first up closely followed by Spenna. Then Marty, Ade and Gibbo who are riding together today. John brings up the rear.

Once they have all passed me I chase after them up towards the top of the climb. The idea is to find a cafe for something to eat near the top. However when Coxy and I get there, we find there is nothing around so we push on down the other side.

I wait near the top for the rest of the lads while Coxy pushes on to Castro Daire. He finds a cafe on the route and reports back it’s location via Whatsapp.

Once the other lads have reached me we also head down the fast descent to Castro Daire.

But there’s a slight problem with the cafe… when Coxy arrived the guy came out of the cafe and said there’s no food but you can have coffee and something else… He then showed Coxy his phone and on it was a link to Hotties and he pointed upstairs and winked!!

It’s only a brass house! Hence the merriment in the photo at the top.

Needless to say we all pushed on to find a real cafe down the road.

After lunch we tackle the next two climbs and then descend into Viseu. The hotel looks great and we’ll explore the town later.

All along the N2 are distance markers and people who are doing the route add their own sticker to mark their passing. Naturally we didn’t want to miss out and have our own Boro Parmo Army stickers which we are adding whenever we get the chance. You can see one in the pic below of Coxy standing next to a marker.