Lovely road, didn't mean to

So it's over, finito and for that, Cascais heaves a sigh of relief and puts its earplugs away, I'm sure. We got up, loaded, fueled & outta there. That was the plan. Lisbon's Monday rush hour? Not for the faint-hearted. We got lost, spent ages panicking because we both thought we were looking for the IP2, a fast road with tolls I cannot pay (love it) without realizing it was 6 steps later. The IP2 is on a computer system that talks to a piece of kit in your vehicle, then charges you later. But you can't hire the piece of kit, nor can you fit one in a foreign vehicle. Love political logic. Eventually, I saw a sign for Espanha. This wasn't what the satnav had planned, so it sulked by taking us all the way up the N18. This is a lovely curvy road through hills and valleys and sleepy villages. But it's in Portugal, not Spain and it's slow. Especially when you're stuck behind a nervous artic who keeps braking sharply in the bends. The road bends. Get used to it and gear the hell down. Around 3:30, we were waved into Spain. We should have been ther for lunch. And we promptly lost an hour by going onto Madrid time. Still, too many people had told us Salamanca was pretty (gorgeous) so we pushed on. I'd got chatting to a couple on a road-king at a fuel stop near Fundao and they told us about a hotel they knew in Salamanca. Just as well, because we didn't get in till 6:30, which is late for hotel hunting and this one has some very secure parking for our poor, abused, filthy bikes. Backroads may be fun and pretty, but they're also full of mud and sand and insects. All with a magnetic attraction to bikes. Tomorrow we attempt to get to the Pyrenees. Assuming we can tail behind the Basque chapter I saw earlier on the E-80...