“What were you thinking?” was the general consensus when we told friends and family we were cycling the coast of Portugal for our summer holiday.
As we set off from Porto, carrying panniers with all our clothes, in 28C, the question crossed my mind too.
While we like independent travel and enjoy bike rides, I’ve never really done an active holiday before, certainly not with the children. Our family summer holidays have all previously been of the sun lounger, playing cards by the pool variety.
But when our friends invited us to join them on their cycling holiday, we were drawn to the challenge. The children are now nine and six and we reckoned they could handle it with plenty of stops for ice cream.
They showed enthusiasm, no matter how many times we explained what the holiday would actually involve. And despite a few setbacks – including chafing, sunburn, bike repair stops, a minor crash in a forest – we all loved it.
Over one week we rode 93 miles (150km) south from Porto to Figueira da Foz, following the excellent Eurovelo network of cycle trails down the Atlantic coast. We rode past lagoons of flamingos and storks, through pine and eucalyptus forests buzzing with crickets, and on coastal roads, making stops to run into the sparkling waves and eat lunch on the silky sand.
The majority of the route was mercifully flat, apart from a gruelling hill at the end that put our thighs to the test (OK, we walked some of it). The weather was also perfect, around 25C to 28C most days, with a gentle breeze rolling in from the ocean.
Our daughter is a confident cyclist and was immediately hooked, enjoying the freedom and fitness challenge. Her younger brother loved riding too, but we would have never made our required distances without the towing attachment we rented with the bikes.
This allowed us to clip his bike to the back of my husband’s to give his legs a break. It was also a great spirit raiser to be with friends with whom they raced, chatted and played during breaks.
Cycling is a fantastic way to explore a country – you’re outside all day, taking in the whole panorama and watching everyday life go by. Sometimes, people even cheered us along when we rode through their town (granted, they were probably congratulating the children, but it didn’t stop me raising an arm triumphantly like I was doing the Tour de France).
We stayed in charming seaside towns, many of which were seemingly undiscovered by British holidaymakers. One of my favourites was Costa Nova, near Aveiro, where beach houses (palheiros) are painted in colourful stripes or tiled in traditional colourful patterns and the beach is a huge, sweeping sand dune that’s heaven for children to run down.
We also loved Figuiera da Foz, a sun-drenched, breezy bay with great waves for jumping along with free, unlimited minigolf and water slides on the beach.
The holiday wasn’t exactly a bargain. Along with return flights to Porto, which cost around £800 in total, we hired four bikes, panniers, helmets, repair kit and towing attachment from Vieguini Bikes in Porto for €919 (£790). The service was great – when we suffered a buckled tyre shortly after leaving Porto, one of the team came to meet us by moped with a replacement and fitted it.
We also saved money on activities and day trips – when we weren’t cycling, we were happy to just relax, enjoy a well-deserved , or lie on the beach.
We’ve found that on villa and hotel-based holidays, our children can get bored and start to squabble, especially when it’s very hot – but having a bike ride each day changed that. There were no disagreements about how we’d spend the day, and the exercise kept the children in a good mood. As my daughter put it, “one week felt like a month because we did so much”. I thought I’d struggle with living out of a small bag of clothes, but it was liberating.
Accommodation and food were also good value. In beautiful Praia de Mira, we stayed in the O Violas Guesthouse which offered bike storage and an exceptional breakfast that filled us up for the day – our family room with bathroom was £145 a night. Seven nights of accommodation for our family of four – staying in hotels and guesthouses, most of which had a pool – cost around £1,160.
We had picnic lunches and in the evenings ate delicious fresh fish and seafood in local restaurants – sea bass, cod, prawns and sardines, toasting our achievements with vinho verde. A generous meal for four rarely cost more than £80. At night we slept like logs.
At Figueira da Foz, we said goodbye to our friends and put our bikes on the train to Porto (two hours), which was straightforward aside from accidentally leaving one of our panniers on the platform. Thankfully, it was returned to us the following day.
For our final two days we splurged on a stay at The Yeatman, a wine-themed spa hotel with a view to die for over the Douro river and colourful old town of Porto.
Located in Vila Nova de Gaia, among the city’s illustrious port houses, it is a homage to wine – the outdoor pool is shaped like a decanter, and its collection is vast. But our little ones were well-catered for too, with an excellent children’s menu at the restaurant, a games room, a spacious indoor pool we often had to ourselves, and delightful staff.
The hotel is enormous and light-filled, with art and historical pieces lining every brightly coloured wall, and also has a pretty spectacular spa. We had plans to explore the city, but couldn’t in the end tear ourselves away – instead sitting in our dressing gowns, watching the sunset and the twinkling stars come out over Porto and congratulating ourselves on trying a different kind of family holiday.
O Violas Guesthouse offers double rooms from £76 a night. The Yeatman offers double rooms from £275 including breakfast in low season; £400 in high season. Vieguini Bikes provides bike, e-bike and scooter rental for short or long journeys in Portugal. visitportugal.com