Here we are in the Algarve, on Portugal’s southern coast. I haven’t seen the sea yet – we’re walking into town in a bit, to have dinner overlooking the Atlantic apparently.

The last two days have been great, though they’ve been long days. We’ve really covered some ground – but we haven’t been on a motorway at all. We’ve probably done less than 30 miles on dual carriageways.

Instead, it’s been great road after great road. This is an amazing country for riding a motorcycle in. There are just so many amazing roads.

We left Vila Real and rode through the Duoro Valley port-producing region, all steep hills carved into terraces covered with vines. Then we rode the most incredible, twisty roads through scrubby hills to a town called Serta, where we stayed in a fabulous hotel that used to be a monastery or a convent.

Today we pressed on south: more crazy twisty roads to start with, then a long stretch on the N2, which seems to be Portugal’s answer to our Great North Road, stringing together interesting towns from the top to the bottom of the country. Not that we had too much time to stop and admire them.

The N2 was all half-mile straights and gently sweeping turns, but towards the end of the day we headed up into the hills to Monchique – and the road to get there, the N267, was one of the best I’ve ever ridden. From the top of the mountain we looked down (tiny in the distance, we’d never have spotted it if a local hadn’t pointed it out to us) on the Portimao race track before taking more crazy twisties back down to the coast.

It was an amazing couple of days riding. And Dale Caesar promises that it’s only going to get better from here.

Now I’ve got to go, or I might miss dinner.