Porto Tours and Holidays 2017/2018

“From Castro Laboreiro to Porto. 6 days of cycling with stop overs at some wonderful Portuguese villages and towns, sampling the local cuisine and wines along the way. The scenery varied from picturesque mountains to coastal plains with cycle paths and rustic roads (cobbled surfaces so take padded shorts or saddle gel for maximum comfort).
The hire bikes were excellent, Specialised Rockhopper 29s and all were fairly new.
The transfers and baggage taxiing from hotel to hotel were faultless.
One of the best cycling holidays we have had.”

“This trip was obviously intended to give a range of scenery and experience. In practice, the descent from mountains to sea was rapid and we spent most of our time on cobbled roads and tracks through villages and vineyards. The hotels were varied, comfortable and interesting. It would have been of considerable help to have known which did not provide evening meals. A simple added note in the destination hotels section of the booklet would have warned us to eat, or collect food on the way and saved us some late night cycling in search of an evening meal.
The kit provided was comprehensive and good quality except for the GPS of which more later.
However, although mentioned in the trip notes, there were no maps provided and no first aid kit.
We had considerable problems with navigation. This caused our days to be considerably longer than we expected and left little, if any time, for sight-seeing. We had bought maps before we went but found them little use because we did not know the route. It was a mystery tour.
The GPS was not of sufficiently good quality to give a clear display. We are older people and perhaps our vision is not as acute as that of a younger person, but we are used to GPS and use it frequently. At every junction, and there were many, we had to stop and select our route by trial and error. All too often, we were in error and had considerable distances to retrace. Only one GPS was provided! and this is a point I made before we set off; that we should both have had one. I enjoy the navigation as much as my husband and felt considerably frustrated with my role as 'follower' Two heads would definitely have been better than one. At the very least, the provision of a map would have eased our problems.
We had no directions on our GPS, to our last hotel in Porto. Fortunately I had taken co-ordinates for the hotels from Google Earth before setting off and this, together with a street map acquired in another hotel in the town, got us to our destination.”

“Overall this is an amazing trip with many fantastic attributes, only spoiled by a lot of unseasonal rain prior to the trip (a bit during the trip) and a number of small points that could be improved in the organisation. However, these did not really detract from the overall trip experience,Th and my partner and I would not hesitate in recommending this cycling trip to others.”

“This trip combines a great variety of terrains, villages, towns and cities with fantastic accommodation, equipment and food in one of the unexplored gems of southern Europe.”

“This trip was just incredible, beyond words! The scenery that we cycled through was so varied, from vineyards to mountainous regions to the wonderful sea, and even though some cycles were tougher than I thought, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The accommodations that we stayed in were lovely, especially the 17th century farmhouse - it was probably the most beautiful and characterful place I have ever stayed in before. You really get a sense of the 'real' Portugal on this trip, miles and miles (literally and figuratively) from the beach resorts of the Algarve.”

“Loads of stunning scenery in a region with fascinating history, and some really interesting hotel stops.
Although rated as easy, this is not a trip for people who aren't comfortable with cycling off-road. Many of the tracks are badly rutted and rocky, and you might find yourself having to do a fair bit of pushing. Even long sections of the tour that are classed as 'paved' are actually over large cobblestones - not a comfortable ride!
The local Portuguese partners Vinitur don't seem well-organised. Though they provide a mobile phone for emergencies (nice touch admittedly), that's not much use when they fail to respond on either their office number or their mobile number. Plus they somehow contrived to cancel one of our hotel reservations.”

“A truly fantastic trip passing through the Vinho Verde wine producing region. We started off in the mountains at 950m and ended in the colourful, historic and beautiful city of Porto at the end of our cycling holiday. The trip was a great way to see the rural life of Portugal and I would highly recommend this trip.”

“The Douro Valley is a spectacular region to discover with stunning views and lovely walks. On either side of the Douro River terraced vineyards cover the landscape - this is the only area in the world where Port wine is produced and on this holiday we learnt about the Portuguese history and culture surrounding the process. Several of our walks ended up at a local Quinta (wine farm) where we had the opportunity for wine tasting with a lunch on the terrace which everyone enjoyed. It was a very relaxing and interesting week of walking, with varied routes each day. We barely saw another walker on any of the routes so it felt as though we had the region to ourselves!”

“Original tour was cancelled as guide was sick. Neverthe less next day afternoon Tour was great. Virginia was really excellent and was dedicated and a very lovely person too. We enjoyed it very much.”