Saturday 3rd December 2022
We have a big day planned today. We are on our way just before 8am. Firstly we are hiking nearby and then hoping to drive 6-700km. The walk is along a boardwalk through a gorge along a river. It took 1hr 23mins to get to the trailhead at Passadiços do Paiva near Arouca in Portugal. We then caught a taxi from there to the trailhead at Espiunca which was a 19min drive along a winding road. We were on the trail by 9.50am after purchasing our ticket to walk online (1 euro each). We enjoyed a lovely walk along the boardwalk which was 8km one way. In some sections it was icy and very slippery. My shoes had me only do a couple of whoopsy-daisies but David was like he was ice skating. He was slipping all over the place and had to go slow with baby steps to avoid being on his bottom. It was our Piz Boe hike in the snow in reverse. At about the 7km mark we came to the longest suspension bridge in the world. It was called 516 Arouca because it was 516m long. It spanned the gorge at 175m high and was an impressive sight. We unfortunately couldn’t cross it as you had to have a ticket for a particular time and there were none available for today unless we went to the other side at Alvarenga and this was problematic time wise for us as we still had a long way to drive (12 euro each). After a quick lunch at the trailhead when we finished our walk we were on our way by 12.30pm. A great morning followed by a long afternoon of driving. The initial drive was through the most winding, narrow road with some amazing scenery, boulders, farms and little towns. We continued on and passed some more lovely scenery, went through at least 8 toll booths and drove 680km to Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain (14 euro). We arrived at our hotel along the motorway just in time to watch Australia play in their round of 16 World Cup match against in the cafeteria/pub where we were staying. English was problematic but with some help from another patron we managed to order some dinner and drinks, watch the game and pay the bill. There wasn’t much interest in the game by the pother patrons and we unfortunately lost. The temperature was on 2°C when we arrived and by the time we left the pub to go to our room it was 0°C. It was expected to be -2° overnight and still 0° at 9am tomorrow. A bit concerning that the roads might be icy but we will watch what the locals do before we leave.