Road Spotlight: The N222 in the Douro Valley After the Harvest

With the high Alps closing for the year, the search for a good autumn road moves south and west. Northern Portugal is one of the easiest answers, and the N222 along the Douro is the best known road in the region.

The road

The stretch most people mean runs 27 km along the south bank of the Douro, from Peso da Régua to Pinhão. It has 93 bends and almost no gradient, and it stays close to the river nearly all the way, with the water on one side and the terraced port vineyards rising on the other. The corners are medium speed and well sighted, and the surface is good.

In 2015 a study commissioned by a car hire company called it the best driving road in the world. That was marketing, but the road is genuinely lovely.

Why now

September and early October are harvest time in the Douro. The road fills with tractors, trailers and grape lorries moving between the quintas and the wineries, and it can be slow going for weeks. By the second half of October that traffic is thinning out as the picking finishes.

What follows is the season’s other draw. Once the grapes are in, the vines on the terraces begin to change colour, through yellow to red and bronze, and the valley looks very different from its summer green. The heat of July and August, when the valley can be punishing in a car without air conditioning, is long gone.

The trade-off is shorter days. Plan to be on the road in the middle of the day rather than at dawn, when mist can sit low over the river, and allow for the first autumn rain on the terraces.

What suits a Lotus here

This is a roof-off, third-gear road rather than a test of commitment. An Elise S2 or an Emira on a mild October afternoon is about as good as it gets. The pleasure is in the rhythm of the bends and the view, not in pace, and the river road is narrow enough that a steady speed is the right one.

For something tighter and emptier, carry on east beyond Pinhão, where the N222 climbs away from the river towards São João da Pesqueira, or head into the hills to the north on the N323 and N212.

What to watch for

• Late harvest traffic, especially early in the month and at smaller quintas.
• River cruise coaches around Pinhão in the middle of the day.
• Damp, leaf-covered patches under the trees after rain.

Planning the trip

Porto is the obvious base, a little over an hour away by motorway. If you are driving down from the UK, our road trip preparation guide covers the checks worth doing before a long autumn run. The full route, map and notes are in the N222 Douro Valley trail guide.