Our GPS is having a meltdown. The disembodied voice – first authoritative, then confused, now desperate – is begging me and my Portuguese friend Diogo to take a different route, any route, that’s more direct, and simply can’t adapt to our circuitous journey. But a trip along Portugal’s N2 is the antithesis of a fast drive. This meandering road is Portugal’s spine, running north to south through the middle of the country from Chaves, near the Spanish border, to Faro, at the edge of the Atlantic, bypassing the expressway in favour of a wander through the lush and varied landscapes of the Portuguese interior. It’s not a long journey – just 738.5 kilometres (459 miles) from start to finish – but it warps time. Driving the N2 is a meditation on the pleasures of the indirect, the unpredictable and the beauty of slowing down.
Day One: Chaves to Peso da Régua
The road is delineated by a whitewashed 0km stone marker on a roundabout in the mountain town of Chaves. The clouds are low and heavy, the air cool, and the granite buildings are solid and thick-walled, built for weather and the ages. We are not the first to make this journey. The marker is plastered with stickers from motorcycle clubs and cycling groups. American cyclists Albert and Randi Friedman have completed a Tour de France route, crossed the Atlas Mountains and circum-navigated Sri Lanka, so the N2 is no big deal. “Not much more than 100 kilometres per day and only one tough day of climbing,” says Randi, breezily. We wave them off and collect our N2 passport from the tourist office. There is no app that directs travellers along the road, no digital messiah. Instead, we receive a small yellow booklet with a page for each of the main destinations on the route, awaiting stamps. I’m initially dismissive of this gimmick, but what begins as a game turns into something more important: a way to connect. When we show our passports, we’re greeted with a smile. Travellers share their stories; locals welcome us, answer questions and give advice.
The road is narrow throughout, just one lane in each direction, sometimes barely that. It carves intimately close to cottages, cafés and little shops in the villages it crosses, near enough that we could reach out and touch the washing that billows in the breeze on lines strung outside front doors. Soon we’re not doing much more than 50 kilometres per hour, but it doesn’t feel as if we’re dawdling. Instead, we’re fully present within the landscape we pass through, noticing a woman hoeing a vegetable patch, old men gossiping outside a bar, a field of boulders or yellow wild flowers painting the hillsides. We wave at Randi and Albert, wearing Portugal jerseys and pedalling hard. It’s not long after this that the GPS gives up. We rely instead on old-school maps and the chunky, knee-high markers reliably set at every kilometre.