Before I post my race report for the Douro Valley Half Marathon, I want to post more information about the Madeira Island 25K Trail Race that we ran the weekend before the half. I have now been able to analyze the run on my Garmin, which explains a lot about why that race was so painful.
Now that I think about it, if you start your race at 3300 feet and run down to sea level but you have a net elevation gain of 3500 feet, then that means you have a net elevation loss of 6800 feet. I see. That’s why everything still hurts.
John and I were really looking forward to walking the gardens at the hotel. So after breakfast we headed up to see the large collection of trees, including this one whose roots looked like an octopus.
From Coimbra, our job was to drive to Porto for a tour of Portugal’s second largest city. Once we checked into the hotel we took a cab to the city center. What a beautiful day, and what a beautiful waterfront.
We stopped for a really delicious lunch of clams, clams, and more clams.
After lunch we headed down the river a way and walked into one of the Port Lodges, where we planned to do a tour. We were told that the English tour would be leaving in about 2 hours, but the French tour was leaving right away. John was game! So we took the French tour and I translated the highlights for him.
From there we did the walking tour of Porto, seeing many of the sites on this hilly town.
Tomorrow we’re off to the Douro Valley, for a day of rest before our Half Marathon on Sunday.
We woke up the next morning and walked just across the way to have a croissant and a coffee. The rental car was due at the the hotel at 10:30, and it was still raining, so we were happy to wait just a moment for the arrival, since the cobbles seemed like they would be slippery. Portugal is the size of Indiana, so I kept reminding myself of that when thinking about driving. The staff at the hotel, when I asked them how to get to the beach town of Cascais, said, “Oh! Just head that way!” and pointed. So off we went. John did a great job driving. It was raining, as usual, and we stopped at a few points on the coast, but were kind of tired of the wind and rain, so we kept driving. Wait. This is Portugal? Right? Not Ireland?
And we were so looking forward to going to Sintra, but man did it pour rain the whole time. I managed to snap a few shots of the Palace without soaking the camera.
So we gave in to the elements and hit the road for our final destination for the day, the walled city of Obidos. Here we had booked a room in a country manor. And despite the rain, we had a warm welcome and enjoyed the beautiful grounds.
After check-in (and cleaning up a bit) we went up to the walled city for a stroll and some dinner before bedtime.
We were ready for a quiet (dry) evening. Portugal, you are hilly, rainy and windy!
