Portugal on Two Wheels: Inside the Blue Strada Motorcycle Tour

Nine nights, 1,800 kilometers, and the roads that made Portugal famous among riders — from Porto through Luso, Lousã, the Serra da Estrela, the Douro Valley, and Peneda-Gerês, guided by one of Portugal’s most experienced motorcycle tour guides.

Portugal has a reputation among motorcyclists that has been building quietly for years. The N222 between Peso da Régua and Pinhão was named the best driving road in the world by Avis — assessed by a quantum physicist, an F1 track designer, and a scoring system built around the ratio of straights to bends. The Serra da Estrela, the country’s highest mountain range, has passes that belong in any serious rider’s logbook. Lousã’s mountain roads see almost no tourist traffic. And Peneda-Gerês National Park — Portugal’s only national park — closes the loop with roads that most international visitors never find.

The Blue Strada Portugal Motorcycle Tour connects all of it. Nine nights, eight touring days, 1,800 kilometers entirely within Portugal — starting and ending in Porto, with a route that moves south through the center of the country before looping back north through the Douro Valley and Peneda-Gerês. It is not the coastal highlights tour. It is the interior of Portugal, on two wheels, guided by someone who knows these roads in every season.

The Guide — Tiago Sousa Lopes

Every Blue Strada tour is guided by someone with deep local knowledge. On the Portugal Motorcycle Tour, that person is Tiago Sousa Lopes — a Porto-based motorcycle expert and co-owner of one of Portugal’s leading motorcycle touring and rental operations. Tiago has spent his career connecting riders with the best roads in the country, and his knowledge of Portugal’s routes, regions, and rhythms is the kind that comes from years of actually riding them rather than reading about them.

Guests who have ridden with Tiago describe him as warm, knowledgeable, and genuinely passionate about the country he shows them. He brings the same quality of local expertise to this tour that Claudio brings to Blue Strada’s Italian routes — someone who knows not just which road to take, but which direction to ride it, which time of day avoids the traffic, and which village is worth the detour.

Porto — The Right Place to Start

The tour begins in Porto, Portugal’s second city and one of the most compelling urban starting points on any Blue Strada itinerary. The old town — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — climbs from the banks of the Douro in a cascade of azulejo-tiled facades, medieval churches, and wine lodges that have been aging Port since the seventeenth century. Day zero is for arrival, a meet-and-greet, and a welcome dinner at a proper Portuguese restaurant. By the time the bikes are collected on the morning of day one, everyone is oriented, fed, and ready to ride.

Days One and Two — South Through Luso and Lousã

The first two riding days head south from Porto through terrain that surprises most riders arriving with coastal expectations. The route passes through Luso — a small spa town in the foothills of the Serra do Buçaco, surrounded by a national forest of centuries-old trees that the Napoleonic troops were forbidden to cut — before continuing south to Lousã.

The mountains around Lousã are among the best-kept riding secrets in central Portugal. The roads through the schist villages above the town — abandoned stone settlements that have been carefully restored — are narrow, winding, and almost entirely free of traffic. This is the part of the itinerary that catches riders off guard: two days of riding through the interior of Portugal that feel nothing like the country most visitors see.

Days Three and Four — The Serra da Estrela

The Serra da Estrela is the highest mountain range in mainland Portugal, and the roads that climb it are among the country’s best-kept riding secrets. The approaches from Covilhã and Manteigas to Torre — the highest point in mainland Portugal at 1,993 meters — involve proper switchbacks, altitude, and views that extend for extraordinary distances on clear days. The landscape is more alpine in character than anything else in Portugal: granite plateaus, glacial valleys, and a road surface that rewards confidence.

The tour spends two days in this region — arriving from Lousã and overnighting in Colmeal, a quiet village in the foothills on the eastern side. Most international motorcycle tours of Portugal treat the Serra da Estrela as a pass-through. This itinerary treats it as a destination, which is the correct approach.

Days Five and Six — The Douro Valley

From Colmeal the route drops north into the Douro Valley, approaching from the south through the vineyards of the upper Douro — a perspective that even experienced Portugal riders rarely take. The valley below, the terraced vineyards rising on both sides, the river bending through the schist landscape: this is the view that earned the Douro its UNESCO World Heritage designation, and arriving by motorcycle from the Serra puts it in context that a direct approach from Porto cannot.

Day six is a full loop of the Douro Valley — the day that puts the N222 in the riders’ hands. The 27-kilometer stretch between Peso da Régua and Pinhão, with its 93 bends and its river views, was named the best driving road in the world by Avis. The methodology involved a quantum physicist, an F1 track designer, and a scoring system built around the ratio of straights to bends. The verdict holds up. On a motorcycle, with the valley open around you, it earns every word of its reputation.

For a full account of what makes the N222 and the Douro Valley exceptional — and how the motorcycle tour’s approach differs from the Miata tour’s — see The Best Driving Roads in Portugal.

Day Seven — Peneda-Gerês National Park

The penultimate riding day moves north into Peneda-Gerês National Park — Portugal’s only national park, and one of the great riding destinations on the Iberian Peninsula. The park’s roads pass through granite villages that feel untouched by the twentieth century, river valleys, and mountain terrain with almost no tourist traffic. It is the kind of place that reminds riders why they came to Portugal rather than the Alps: the roads are narrower, the pace is slower, and the landscape has a wildness that the more heavily traveled mountain ranges in central Europe no longer offer.

Day Eight — Back to Porto

The final riding day descends from Peneda-Gerês back to Porto — closing a loop that has taken the group through the full depth of northern and central Portugal. The farewell dinner in Porto closes the tour the same way it opened: at a proper Portuguese table, with wine from vineyards the group has now ridden through, and a great deal to talk about.

The tour’s structure — south through Luso and Lousã, into the Serra da Estrela, north through the Douro Valley, up to Peneda-Gerês and back to Porto — is a complete circuit of the best motorcycle roads in Northern and Central Portugal. Nothing is a detour. Every day builds on the one before.

See the Tour in Action

A guest filmed this video on the 2024 Blue Strada Portugal Motorcycle Tour — a version of the route that also took in Fátima and Nazaré alongside the Douro Valley and Peneda-Gerês. The route evolves from year to year, but the experience on the road is exactly what you see here. The current 2026 tour takes a different path through the Serra da Estrela and Lousã — but the same guide, the same philosophy, and the same quality of roads.

What’s Included

The tour includes the motorcycle with three cases, fuel, tolls, nine nights in comfortable accommodations, a support vehicle for luggage, all breakfasts and dinners, English-speaking guides, airport-to-hotel transfer, and primary vehicle insurance. Riders bring their own gear, flights, lunches, and travel insurance. Motorcycle choice is subject to availability.

The tour also connects naturally with Blue Strada’s Classic BMW Motorcycle Tour of Tuscany, which begins shortly after this tour ends — a unique opportunity to ride Portugal and Tuscany back to back on two very different machines.