Cycling through Porto,

Before we got to Porto we had big discussions wether to go through it or go around it in a big, wide semi circle. Apparently the traffic in Porto is horrible and there is massive hills and a ginourmous gorge to cross.... how are we ever going to get through this place?
First the plan was to go round it, until we had a closer look and discovered that there was lots of hills, possibly even mountains and hundreds of motorways to cross.


So we braved it and went through - it was easy!
It was really nice, we just followed the seafront and then the river, crossed the river and its gorge on ground level across the Luis 1st Bridge and then turned right to follow the river and find the seafront again....

The only adventurous bit was when the bridge that takes you across the port in Matosinhos was closed and we had to take the motorway bridge, a little bit further on, to get across. But that was literally a couple of hundred meters.
Then there was quite a bit of nice red carpet style, portuguese seafront cyclepath until we got into Porto where the cyclepath turned into a kind of pavement with obstacles and we decided to go on the road, which was fine. There wasn't that much traffic and the drivers were quite good.

No major hills, no traffic chaos, lovely scenery and some very tasty Polvo - we will take that route again!

We did not get the chance to stop, stay and visit in Oporto, but if we had we would definitely have checked out

CASAVIVA 

and
as from November 2013, quintas-feiras | 18h00 | entrada livre