Northern Spain, Picos de Europa & Portugal Tour

Thirteen nights through northern Spain and Portugal, guided, eighteen hundred miles from Plymouth by overnight ferry, on the rider’s own motorcycle.

The ferry to Santander is what makes this work. Two nights at sea either end, with a cabin for single bookings, means the bike arrives in Spain without three days of French motorway behind it.

The Picos de Europa open the riding, a limestone massif rising to two and a half thousand metres within twenty miles of the sea, then Asturias, which calls itself Green Spain and earns it. Santiago de Compostela follows for two nights, the end of the pilgrim routes, with the Costa da Morte available as a ride-out. Guimaraes comes next in Portugal, then the Douro Valley and two nights in the Serra da Estrela, the highest ground on the Portuguese mainland at 1,993 metres, with a Cold War radar station on top. The return runs by the Douro and Montesinho into Spain and the Picos again, where the N621 between Potes and Panes is known as the Pots and Pans road.

The return ferry, eleven nights’ accommodation including the two at sea, daily breakfast, three evening meals, hotel leisure facilities, route maps and GPS files, all the hotel parking and a guide throughout are all included; fuel, tolls, attraction entry, other meals and the mandatory insurance and breakdown cover are not. The price shown is per person for a rider and pillion sharing a bike and a room. May to September is the window, and the Picos at the end are the best riding on the route rather than a wind-down.