…. A busy week, we have taken a holiday from our normal routine to live it up in Seville with our first visitor this year – Richard (Gonzo) Lowe. We arrived in Seville on Sunday and parked up in a secure Aire by the Port (12 euros a night +3 for electricity). The Aire is part of the car park of an import / storage business of new cars before distribution and they also have a large mechanic workshop, so although it was pretty quiet overnight and the weekend, the nature of the business meant that they had to have 24/7 security which is always a bonus.

We really struck lucky with the weather as from Sunday through to Thursday afternoon we had beautiful clear blue skies with the temperature raising to 17/18 degrees during the day, going down to 4/5 degrees overnight – making it a bit more difficult to select the appropriate clothing when we were leaving the motorhome at 10am and not getting back until the early hours the following morning …. A minor price to pay.

Seville is a fantastic city and although we had been there before when we were living in Barcelona, we obviously had far too good a time as neither Keith nor I can remember much more than the size of the cathedral … it is pretty impressive

And even looks rather nice at night ….

We made Richard walk to every corner of the city both during the day and night…. Obviously to take in the sights, but with additional motivation of trying another little tapas bar 🙂  Every time we left Richards hotel we walked in a different direction and found more narrow streets with interesting shops and bars…. A maze of lovely places.

The city is full of history and beautiful buildings – our favourite (over and above the cathedral) has to be the Plaza de Espana, which I am sure was under scaffolding last time we were here as I don’t remember it being anywhere near as impressive.

Unfortunately, as I don’t have a wide angle lens (or fish eye) I couldn’t get the whole building in one photo as it is so large… but hopefully this gives you a taste….

Whilst soaking up the culture and eating a few more tapas and the odd Paella, we did manage to take in some Flamenco music, but unfortunately didn’t get to see any Flamenco dancing … we have to leave something for our next visit after all 🙂

We left Seville on Friday morning and headed to the coast to a small town called SanLuca Barramera where we spent a couple of tranquil, yet windy nights in an Aire (F.O.C) by the beach. The town was buzzing on Saturday morning with the bars and restaurants serving the locals the normal pre-lunch aperitif and tapas, all centered around the vibrant market. As always, we explored the town and then took advantage of the lovely promenade to help blow away some of the city cobwebs (and rich food and drink we have eaten over the last week!).

Our last night in Portugal was spent roughly 10 meters from the border, surrounded by rugged hills in a carpark by the side of a river in a little village called Pomarao. It was very peaceful and very beautiful, a lovely way to end a fantastic time in Portugal.

Although we didn’t really expect very much from it, Pomarao had some fantastic routes heading off into the hills, so we were able to get a lovely long walk in before we stopped in a café to toast to our last night in Portugal and watch the sun go down.

After seven and a half weeks we have finally moved on from Portugal back into Spain and I can’t think of a better way to have started ‘Spain part 2’ than El Rocio.

It deserves its own page on our blog as it is one of the most unusual places that we have ever been to. Whilst settling in at the campsite (Camping La Aldea – 16 euros a night inc. electricity with ACSI), an English lady stopped as she was riding her bike back from the town and all she could say was ‘It’s amazing – I had to tell someone and you have obviously just arrived, it’s absolutely amazing’ – which pretty much sums it up.

El Rocio is one of those places that you couldn’t ever believe exists, you would probably expect to come across a town like this in the mid-west, but it would be much smaller and less authentic. We struck it lucky as Sunday is apparently a sacred day, when four masses are held at the church by four different bishops as part of the pilgrimage, so we think that it was slightly busier than normal, but there were hundreds, if not thousands of horses here – all being ridden by what appear to be fairly well to do Spaniards in traditional attire – mostly holding a gin and tonic, rum and coke or a beer as they rode.

The main festival / pilgrimage is the weekend before Pentacost Monday, when thousands of people come on horseback to El Rocio blocking all the roads leading across Andalucia with horses and carts …. I imagine pretty spectacular. The celebration this weekend was religious, but I think that mainly the families use it as a good excuse to get together and have a party and a good old Flamencan sing song.

The streets are all sand and the bars are set up so that they have high tables for people to ride up and drink a glass of wine or beer whilst still on horseback … all quite impressive. As you walk through the town you are surrounded by people on horseback, or horses drawing carts full of people – every now and then one of them breaks into the traditional flamencan song, or there is a group with a guitar …. It is quite a scene which carries on into the night ….. all a bit dangerous considering the streets are poorly lit and oddly, horses don’t have any lights fitted 😦

If you are in the area near Seville we would highly recommend a trip here for the day. It is quite a sight and also quite a party town … just beware you don’t go over the limit if you are driving as when we left this morning they were stopping a large percentage of cars and breathalysing the drivers.

We have spent the last week meandering our way along the southern coast of Portugal and after a long dry patch, making good use of the bikes to visit some of the smaller coastal villages and more remote countryside.

The distances are small and there is very little green space in between the towns as where one set of empty apartment blocks finishes another is quick to start. Some of the towns are a bit concrete and ghost-like for the winter months, others are actually fairly normal and quite pretty, having a Portuguese community who live in them all year round, only supplemented by the northern European invasion during the summer months…. either way, you can’t take it away from the Algarve – it has some fantastic beaches and even at this time of the year, the weather isn’t too bad.

Our first stop after Alvor was Silves, a pretty little town slightly inland with a castle sitting up on the hill looking down on it. The town center itself is fairly small with part contained within a wall, and the rest mainly consisting of winding cobbled streets around a little market. We parked up in a car park which has been converted (by the majority vote rather than town planning) into a motorhome site for the winter, where 100+ motorhomes from a mixture of northern European countries were parked up uniformly, each with two chairs facing into the sun, some with a dog, some towing a car, but most here for a couple of months at least. Our two immediate neighbours were both English, one set (who actually live in Northern France) had been there since November and the others were newcomers, having arrived just before Christmas. Everyone knew each other and some had been coming to the same car park for several years … just a bit of an odd concept for us, but I guess somehow they have converted the car park into a community – it was clean, tidy, quiet, very welcoming and most of them put money back into the local economy by buying local produce, so can’t be much wrong with it really if you don’t mind living in a carpark 🙂

Moving on from Silves we put a pin in the map and decided to opt for Albufeira, mainly because it was half way between a few places that we fancied visiting and we thought we could cycle to them, but also because it sounded like it was a little more than just a beach. The Aire itself is located near the football stadium and bus terminal. It is quiet and clean, with everything that you would normally get on a campsite for 8 euros including very friendly people who run it…. not bad. Albufeira on the other hand is a concrete resort with nice beaches. The town itself, to put it politely, is not very attractive – I would describe it as having drunk and smoked a little too much for a few too many years and it is now looking slightly overweight and could do with a good long session in rehab. I am sure that during the summer months the streets lined with closed bars and discos are vibrant but despite the sunshine, it just looks a bit run down and tired in January …… ouch, I am showing my age :).

As we had decided to stay two nights, we took the bikes along the coast the following day stopping at the far end of Praia de Falesia to eat our lunch whilst admiring the long sandy beach, before working our way back along the coast dropping off down to each beach village to see what they were like, evidently we had just chosen the wrong town to stop in as the others seemed to be far nicer – possibly because they were also much smaller…. He ho, just because it doesn’t suit us doesn’t mean it won’t suit the next person.  We did make up for the poor choice of location by having a delicious bar b q in the evening, having bought far too much meat from the butchers for two people 🙂

Leaving Albufeira we decided to stop in Faro to have a look around the beautiful (but small) old walled town, stock up the fridge and do the washing. We parked up in a large car park near the old town and battened down the hatches as it started to rain and blow a gale. Thankfully, although the rain was torrential and the wind got up to 25mph, by the morning we were once again looking out at beautiful blue skies (although a little fresher).

Wanting to get one more beach in before we leave the Algarve we headed towards Tavira, looking to stay in a small beach village called Manta Rota for a couple of nights. Generally we have been avoiding the motorways, happy to travel on the smaller, quieter roads as they lead you through more interesting places – however we have now mistakenly introduced Mika into some off-roading. We turned off of the main road and saw signs highlighting that there were road works but as they didn’t say that the road was closed, or suggest an alternative route, we continued on past the digger, onto the red clay (which was quite wet due to the recent heavy rainfall), continuing on through a few puddles and some rather narrow spots for 1.5km, where we arrived at the Aire. As we were driving through the Aire to find a suitable place to park we were wondering why everyone was looking at us weirdly until we got out and had a proper look – Mika was caked in thick red clay mud … apparently the road was closed for roadworks and there was a pretty good tarmac version that led straight out through the center of the village ….. needless to say that we took the tarmac option on the way out 🙂

The Aire (4.50 a night or 7 euros inc Elec) was quiet, located just next to the beach and the village itself, despite being touristy, was ‘cosy’ with a really good butchers, a handful of restaurants/cafes and a nice little supermarket that was cheap and even sold marmite (no – we didn’t buy any…. mainly because we have a jar on route to Seville next week) :).  After a brief walk around on Friday afternoon, we decided to take the bikes into Tavira on Saturday for a look around. Tavira has a lovely old town with a castle and it sits on the mouth of a river – one of the more normal that we have come across on the southern coast.

After a good days cycling and walking Keith braved the cold and only just beat the rain to cook a nice chicken roti wrapped with bacon and stuffed with sausage and faranata on the Bar B Q….can you tell we are liking the fact we can cook outdoors a little 🙂  Later in the evening the skies opened and the rain continued to fall all night….

Having finally managed to get to sleep, we woke to be an island in the middle of a lake – our neighbouring motorhomes having abandoned their pitches. This photo was taken about 6 hours after the rain had stopped and the water had receded …. alot

Thankfully no harm done and despite losing our matt downstream (we spotted it right in the middle of the deepest bit of water), we found it the next day as one of the neighbours had retrieved it after the water had gone down and it was hanging on their line.

Dried out, we headed inland hugging the border a little, stopping overnight in Mertola and then on to a mining town called Minas de Sao Domingos.

Mina de Sao Domingo is situated between two reservoirs and our parking spot was idyllic (despite the grey clouds and rain) … the photo didn’t do it justice, so I am afraid I left it out.

The mines were one of the largest in Portugal, dating back to Roman times when they mined for gold and silver, but more recently owned by an English family who mined copper for 110 years, finally closing in 1967.  The town is dusty and the kind of place where you expect to see horses coming over the horizon any minute, instead, you can walk for miles through the red landscape (and we did …a nice circular walk of 18km) with the odd abandoned mine shaft or building popping up sporadically …..

very beautiful in an odd sort of a way….

So we have finally made it to the land of sunshine, beaches, bacon butties and carparks full of motorhomes – only joking, we still haven’t found a decent bacon buttie 😦

I am painting a bad picture and I don’t want to as we are having the most fantastic weather, the temperature in the last week has risen to between 16 and 18 degrees during the day, going down to about 8 degrees overnight with beautiful blue skies – you can see why it attracts so many northern Europeans.

First stop on the Algarve was Sagres which is about 6km east of Cape St Vincent, Portugal’s most westerly point. We had been told that we it was a place ‘not to miss’ for the sunset and whilst here we thought it would be rude not to have a Sagres beer or two 🙂

The sunset was stunning and the beer was pretty good too, however we were disappointed to learn that Sagres beer is not actually brewed in Sagres, but just outside Lisbon and, worse still, it is owned by Heineken…. Portugal has suddenly gone down in our estimations …. Thankfully we still have the pastries and some lovely wine to turn to in a time of despair.

We parked in the Fortress car park along with 20+ other motorhomes and walked out to the Cape.

The car park was enormous, so despite the growing community we didn’t really notice the other motorhomes and it was very quiet – it was also an excellent location to watch the sun slowly disappear behind the clouds and into the sea.

Having drunk the beer, seen the sunset and visited the cape, there wasn’t much left to do in Sagres so we moved on to Lagos for a couple of nights. Lagos has a nice old town with twisty cobbled streets but the northern European influence has definitely taken a hold with estate agent after estate agent, blocks of luxury apartments overlooking the marina and we spotted no less than three indian restaurants ….. definitely for the Brits. Not in the market for a new apartment yet as ours seems to still be working really well for us, we parked our ‘apartment’ up just by the sports stadium in an Aire which cost us 3 euros a night plus 2 euros for 100Litres of water. Despite there being between 30 and 40 motorhomes each night, it was peaceful and only a short walk from the center of town.

After spending the rest of the day exploring the town itself, we set off to the market in the morning to stock up. Although the market lacked in fruit and vegetables on the day we went, it made up for it in fresh fish and Keith took the opportunity to try out his culinary skills on a bit of squid …. Cooking up a very simple recipe with olive oil, salt, pepper and a bit of lime – worked a treat… not a rubber band in sight!

Moving slightly further along the coast we stopped at Alvor, a small fishing town on the river mouth. I am sure that the town itself used to be quite pretty, but unfortunately it is currently in that transient stage caught in between the ‘local’ fishing village and ‘Tourist’ town, lots of shops closed down and generally looking a bit unloved and deserted. However, the seafront and the walk out to the river mouth is beautiful and they have invested money in making it easily accessible, so I am sure that the rest will follow over the next few years.

The Aire is effectively a large sandy car park on the seafront and costs 4.50 euro a night plus 2.50 if you want electricity, but it is quiet and friendly (I think more than 50% of the motorhomes are here for the winter) and very well located if you want to walk/cycle anywhere. We walked out to the lighthouse at the river mouth and then back along the river on Saturday and then on Sunday got on the bikes and rode round the coast stopping briefly at Ferragudo, where they had a very large flea market, and then onto Carvoeiro, where we sat and ate our lunch on the beach before turning back and stopping for a slightly over indulgent ‘Bolo de Raina’ in Portimau. The Portuguese eat Bolo de Rei (Cake of the King – large polo shaped bready cake with cristalized dried fruits, sultanas and nuts mixed in) and Torta de Rainha (Cake of the Queen – a folded bready cake with sultanas and walnuts) between Christmas and New Year and we had been looking for a decent Torta de rainha, but hadn’t found one as they are less common and the ones we found looked dry and un-appetising …. This one however looked very inviting …. even more so having just cycled 30 miles. Sold by the kilo, this one was probably around 400g ….. probably more like a four person portion than two, but it was heavenly 🙂

As we have now been away for a reasonable length of time, we have had time to learn a little about living in a motorhome, what is and isn’t important, what we would change / add / not bring with and we have decided to upgrade …..

……ahem, perhaps not 🙂

Where does time go? We have spent the last few days not moving very far, but enjoying some beautiful scenery and making the most of the weather which on Friday and over the weekend was getting up to 16 / 17 degrees during the day and only going down to about 7 degrees overnight – perfect.

Whilst in Batalha we met an English couple who recommended that we visited a tranquil little reservoir called Barragem de Pego do Altar, so whilst in the area we thought we would stop by for a night, it was definitely beautiful and tranquil….

As it is still Christmas holidays we joined a selection of other motorhomes who were also seeking out tranquillity …. a handful of Brits, Germans, Dutch, a couple of French and a couple of handfuls of Portuguese. It is apparently one of those places that people keep going back to year after year and has built up a bit of a reputation within the motorhome community. Unfortunately, despite being a beautiful and tranquil place in the middle of nowhere, you couldn’t walk very far unless you wanted to walk on the roads, so that – and slightly too many motorhomes in a reasonably small area for our liking – led us to take the decision to only stay one night and move back towards the coast to a little town called Porto Covo.

Porto Covo is a small Portuguese holiday town with good surf which meant that it had lots of car parks along the cliffs. Although there is an Aire in the center, it was busy and not particularly attractive so we parked up in a car park just at the edge of the town where there were a handful of other motorhomes and stayed for three nights. The sun sets were beautiful and there were two long ‘trails’ that start in Porto Covo, one for walking only (fishermans trail – running 120+km) and the other for walking/cycling (Historic Trail – running 200+km). So we relaxed, walked and ate – enjoying a lovely traditional Portuguese dish called ‘Arroz de Tamboril’ (monkfish and rice stew, although this version had prawns and a couple of clams thrown in as well).

The restaurant we found was actually a patisserie and the guy serving us was the butcher – a bit of an odd combination, but we happened to have bought some Morcilla (Black pudding) and Farinata (Spiced pork fat and flour sausage) from him earlier the same morning, so we can only assume that his wife ran the Patisserie/Restaurant and he, the butchers. Despite not eating any meat from the menu, the food was delicious from the ‘Chocos’ (Squid), through to dessert 🙂

Needing to move the motorhome to empty and refill, we continued along the road towards the Algarve where we are still uncertain as to what we will find and whether we will like it. But for now we have stopped in in Aljezur for the night where we are preparing ourselves for the last 40km or so when we will hit the southern coast of Portugal. The town itself has a castle dating back to the early 11^th Century (although there is proof of artefacts dating back to the iron age) and it used to be the only ‘safe’ Port between Lisbon and Sagres, but as it is no longer on water (the river appears to have dried up) and judging by the traffic passing through it, it looks like the main attraction is a stop off point before you get to the Algarve coast…

Happy New Year – we hope that 2015 brings health and prosperity to everyone.

We have been looking back at 2014, thinking about where we have been and what we have learnt and started to think about 2015 and what ‘challenges’ we want to achieve … just to make our life interesting!

2014 gave us (amongst other things) ….

• Four months living in Bagnoles De L’Orne in Northern France getting to know some lovely people who will remain friends for a long time to come
• Keith learnt some French and I managed to get my French back up to a good level
• We learnt about some fantastic local French producers through ‘France Passion’ staying at some beautiful rural locations and learning how to cultivate vine, milk a goat as well as producing Foie Gras
• We both learnt more about exercise without any equipment and started a daily routine that we have stuck to throughout the trip so far ….. who needs to spend £40+ a month in a gym
• I started, and managed to change to forefoot running and Keith now does a mean head stand 🙂

But most of all 2014 has opened our minds even further and re-assured us that anything is possible if you want to do it – just give it a go, and persevere.

We aren’t into New Years’ resolutions, but we have decided to put a few ‘personal challenges’ in place to see if we can achieve them….

• Keith
  • Wants to get his handstand perfected this year, and progress it into a handstand push up
  • Would like to be able to do one handed press ups
  • Wants to learn to cook some tasty recipes with squid and mussels
  • Would like to get his French back to the level it was when we left France (it has taken a dip as we have been speaking in Spanish through Spain and Portugal)
  • Plans to start looking at charities that he would like support
• Gail
  • Wants to increase average running speed by 10%
  • Would like to increase fitness levels to be able to complete four quality burpee and pike jump sets without decreasing the quantity by more than 10% between sets
  • Plans to increase both French and Spanish vocabulary by 5 words a week
  • Would like to try and cook at least one new recipe a month
  • Plans to start writing her book ….

We will try and give you snippets of progress as we achieve them and I will endeavour to keep it short so we don’t bore you, but thought you may be interested in some of our ‘oddities’ !

Anyway, back to the interesting stuff…. Whilst trying to work out the best way to visit and take in the sights and smells of Lisbon we realised that Sintra had a train that left every 15 minutes, arriving in central Lisbon 40 minutes later. All the campsites close to Lisbon had poor reviews, were very expensive and you still had to travel between 30 minutes and an hour to get into the center – so, as we were comfortable and in a reasonably quiet location, we decided to stay and extra night and catch the train in on Monday.

The wind had blown away the fog and any signs of rain and we had a lovely crisp day with bright blue skies to explore the maze of cobbled streets twisting up the side of a hill to each of the different districts. There is no way that you could put Lisbon in the same sentence as ‘clean lines’ or ‘modern architecture’ as apart from four roads that go directly back from the river front in the center of the town from the main square, I don’t think there is another road that runs more than a couple of blocks without a twist or a turn. It is one of those places where some may look at it and say it is rough round the edges and in need of modernisation, which is fair as there are a large number of beautiful buildings (including gates to the old city) which are neglected and falling down, but that is what makes it so interesting. There aren’t many new buildings and a large number are in some kind of state of dis-repair…. but that is what adds the character. Each time you turn a corner you find something new – as Keith read somewhere, don’t use a map – just get lost as you will find more than if you try and walk round the city in a structured way.

We walked for miles…. 20 to be precise…. and took in most of the sites from the main square…to Belem Tower

And just as we were on our way back to the station we found a shop full of Sardines ..

Well worth a long weekend, we will be back to take in some of the sites in more detail next time.

From Sintra we passed through the outskirts of Lisbon and crossed the rather impressive ’Vasco de Gama’ bridge (which is just over 17km long) to get to Evora, which is where we stopped for two nights including New Years eve.

Evora is the capital of Alentejo, a region famous for its culinary delights, producing some rather tasty wine, olives, bread, cheese and pork produce (Chorizo, hams, etc). The plethora of delicatessens in the local market helped us make the decision of what kind of food would help us bring 2015 in… what a feast we had 🙂

Evora is a beautiful walled roman city with remains of thermal baths and a temple as well as lots of narrow windy cobbled roads – so, steeped in culture and history as well as apparently coming in as number two in the rankings of ‘best places to live in Portugal’ – worth a visit!

New Years day is one of the only days where most things close in Portugal (the other being Christmas day), so we took advantage of the quiet roads this morning and came towards Monsaraz where we are currently parked up watching the sun go down in what can only be described as one of the most beautiful locations we have stayed the night in.

Monsaraz is one of the oldest settlements in southern Portugal dating back to before history was documented apparently …. It is a magnificently restored/maintained walled town with a castle and it is idyllic…. yet another place that I would say is definitely worth a visit 🙂

Unexpectedly, not only did we manage to bar b q, we also managed to eat lunch outside on Christmas eve and Christmas day – to be fair it was a little breezy on Christmas day, but it was worth wrapping up to enjoy a little bit of sunshine with beautiful views out onto the bay.

Which turned into the following as the sun started to go down….

We had a lovely tranquil three days in Sao Martinho do Porto and although the campsite itself was ‘average’, it suited the task perfectly. The town itself was very quiet except a handful of people walking along the seafront until Christmas day in the afternoon when half of Lisbon descended upon it, filling the promenade and coffee shops both inside and out. We can only assume that they came from Lisbon as it is about 100km away and by the following morning they had all disappeared…. Very strange.

On Friday morning we woke to blue skies and sunshine (if not a little on the chilly side), but as there was the looming possibility of rain at the weekend we decided to head to Peniche to have a look at the Cabo Cavoeiro (point) and the lighthouse where the views looked out over the Berlengas Islands.

It was fairly windy, so instead of staying on the Cabo which is 4.5km outside town, we stayed in a Car Park just outside the walled city, opposite the fire station where by the evening 17+ other motorhomes had also decided to park…. you can tell it is the holiday period!

As we hadn’t had time to look around the town when we arrived, we headed in for a quick wander in the morning and came across a fantastic food market brimming with local produce as well as fish, breads and dried fruits and nuts.

Leaving Peniche, we moved on to Obidos which is a Medieval walled with Roman origins on top of a hill.

The town itself is beautiful, with cobbled roads twisting up and down to fit around houses and the castle itself – unfortunately at this time of year (not helped by the addition of the ‘Christmas fayre’) the ‘chocolate box’ town comes with hundreds of tourists and was rammed, which selfishly let it down. However, it does get extra bonus points as it is the home to ‘Ginja’, which is a cherry liquor and to ‘Pao con Chrorizo’, which is pizza dough stuffed with chorizo and cooked in a hot pizza oven….. I guess you can allow a couple of extra tourists 🙂  – all in all, I would definitely say worth a trip to see and they do have an aire for motorhomes – so parking was easy despite the huge number of cars.

As it was only just after lunch we decided to continue our journey meandering along the coast. After a couple of false starts – as we were thinking about stopping at one of the beaches on route – we ended up in an Aire just outside Sintra up a hill (5 euros a night no electricity). We settled in to a slightly windy evening doing some research on Lisbon, cooked up a lovely Paella and baked some bread…. Tough life that we have 🙂

After a morning run down the hill (and back up again) we set off with our sarnies and waterproofs in the backpack to have a look around Sintra. The town has more history than I could summarise whilst keeping the blog to a reasonable length, so, instead I suggest you have a look at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintra – it is an interesting read. The whole area is a National park and there are four palaces that sit within walking distance of Sintra old town…. Just to be clear, that is walking distance for Keith and me… worth checking before you make the journey on foot as we did 20km today 🙂

Unfortunately as we were walking from Palace to Palace the clouds came in and just as we started the climb up to the Mouros Castle and Palacio de Pena which were at the top of the biggest hill – it disappeared….so we couldn’t see anything 😦  – we will just have to come back another time. A beautiful place and well worth a visit – just try and steer clear of eating/drinking in the old town as the prices are extortionate …. We did find a lovely café / patisserie close to the Aire though – ‘Casa do Preto’ Estrada de chao de Meninos, Sao Pedro.

With a brief stop off in Alcobaca to have a look at the Monastery (which came with its own knight ….. not quite sure what he was doing hanging around outside, but think he may have lost his horse)

we moved back to the coast aiming to stay in a coastal town called Nazare. Unfortunately the Aire was 6km outside the town and although the location was stunning, if not a little windy, it was part of a restaurant which only allowed 24 hours stay. Wanting to find something for slightly longer we decided to bypass Nazare and pushed on to Salir do Porto which sits on one side of a cove opposite Sao Martinho do Porto. Evidently neither Keith or I can read, as the last comment associated with this Aire mentioned that it was now closed ….. heh ho, near where the Aire used to be was a quiet car park with beautiful views out into the Cove and a 50ft sand dune up the side, so we decided that we would spend the night there. A little naïve, we hadn’t really appreciated why the 50m sand dune was where it was until the wind got up ….. we were lucky to still have four tyres in the same place in the morning 🙂

Waking to a slightly calmer day, we set off for a walk along the beach path around the cove to Sao Martinho do Porto to check out its suitability for Christmas and go to the market to stock up on fruit, veg and fish. The market was good with lots of small local producers and whilst purchasing some clementine’s and apples from one, we were offered an odd looking red fruit called ‘Tamarillo’. The chap on the stall called it a ‘Japanese Tomato’ but I can’t find any association with a tomato on the internet – it tastes like a slightly sour passion fruit and is worth a try if you come across them. They are loaded with Vitamins and Iron and rather tasty mixed in with yoghurt and fruit and muesli for breakfast 🙂

Whilst in the market we were ‘persuaded’ to buy a rather large whole Sea Bream by a rather over zealous lady fishmonger with not very many teeth (not sure that is relevant, but I am not convinced you could call her a fishmonger either, although to be fair to her she did have a proper stall). She managed to filet most of the fish for us (a few bones add flavour apparently) and before we parted ways, proceeded to give us both two kisses on the cheeks whilst trying to throw some free sardines in the bag to wish us well over the festive period.

Having found a ‘potential’ campsite for Christmas 20 meters from the beach, we packed up the motorhome and headed south to Foz do Arelho which is set between the sea and a lake, where the sea feeds the lake at high tide.

The wind was blowing a hooley again and there were lots of kite surfers taking advantage of the weather – the first we have seen since we arrived in Portugal. The Aire was privately owned (3 euros a night), set about 500m down the side of the lake rather than on the sea front so we were a little more protected from the wind. It was a big gravelly car park with good facilities and stunning views.

We woke in the morning to a low mist …

And watched the sun go down late afternoon

Another idyllic location, but they said that we couldn’t have a bar b q – so that helped make the decision to go back to Sao Martinho do Porto for Christmas, but meanwhile we decided to spend three nights here.

On Sunday we headed to a restaurant ‘O Tavola’ to try some of the local cuisine. For starters we tried some Morcilla (Black Pudding) with pickled cauliflower and some local cheese – both of which were delicious. For main we shared a local speciality which was a pork and seafood stew cooked in a metal wok like contraption with a lid connected to the bottom part. The sauce was rich and full of flavour, one of the best that we have had in a long time.

To help burn off the calories we had eaten the day before we decided to venture out on the bikes all the way round to the other side of the lake to a village called ‘Bom Suceso’. Looking out the window from the motorhome, I would say the village was about ½ km across the lake….. 22.5km (and rather a lot of hills) later we arrived, had a coffee, ate our sandwiches and opted for the slightly less hilly route (although equally as far) on the way home. It was very pretty, but as we haven’t been out on the bikes for a while there are a few aches and pains today.

So, after a quick visit to the local butchers in town to stock up for Christmas we wondered back up the coast to Sao Martinho do Porto to settle in to the campsite (Parque de Campismo Baia Azul – 13,90 euro per night inc. electricity) and watch the waves roll in whilst we enjoyed our first bar b q of the next three days 🙂

For those of you who celebrate it, have a fantastic Christmas.

Having jumped through a 100+ miles of Portugal to find the LPG adapter we missed the Douro river and some of the beautiful coastal villages, but we have decided that instead of heading back to cover the ground this time, we will come back when the weather is a little warmer and we can visit some of the national parks in the mountains as well…. Portugal seems to have lots to offer!

So, from Coimbra we headed to the coast again stopping in Figuera do Foz which, like many coastal towns, had lots of sea front, but not much in the actual town. The walk along the front from one end to the other was about 7kms and despite being a Saturday afternoon it was actually fairly quiet.

After taking advantage of the long promenade for a morning run (although, massaging the aching calf muscles afterwards due to the uneven cobbled surface I am not sure I took any advantage at all), we enjoyed a local version of our cooked breakfast using the last can of heinz baked beans (we did bring quite a few with us), morcilla (rice based black pudding with spices), chorizo, eggs and homemade bread – more of a brunch than breakfast, but all the same, delicious.

Needing a bit of a walk to let the food go down we headed out along the seafront again before moving all of 14km down the coast to a village called Costa de Lavos where we parked in an Aire pretty much on the beach where we could watch the waves roll in.

Not needing lunch, but still a bit peckish come mid-afternoon, we set off to look for a café/patisserie. The village was too small and despite finding a couple of Cafes, the quality of the cakes was well below par. There was however a little old lady with a stall on the street corner selling some fruit and veg, nuts and what looked like biscuits and rock cakes. We bought a rock cake and a biscuit to share, both were delicious – I think the rock cake even had carrot in it, however nearing the end of it I was lucky enough to find a bit of ‘extra’ flavour … she had left a large chunk of walnut shell 😦 Thankfully no damage caused – I am sure it is a bit like cooking meat on the bones and added to the taste!

We had seen a pear like fruit/vegetable growing on trees whilst walking a few days ago and not knowing what it was looked for one at the market. We think it was a ‘Xuxo’ (Chayoti), which looks like a Pear with slightly more wrinkled skin. When we asked the lady in the market what we should do with it she (well, more her husband, although I am sure that he had never cooked one in his life) said ‘sopa’ … so we took the plunge and thought we would add it to the pasta and vegetables we were cooking in the evening. It was ok and bulked out the vegetables, but despite its ‘qualities’ it won’t be forming part of our 5 a day – unfortunately it has absolutely no flavour. Apparently you cook it in soup or similar to soak up the flavours of the other vegetables…. next time maybe.

Leaving the sea behind us we headed in land for a bit of a detour to visit a couple of places that had been recommended to us. We stopped at Pombal for a night to see the Castle, do some laundry and as a bi-product got to do a bit of train spotting as the Aire was so close to the main line train track, if the trains were going slower you would have been able to count the people on board. Thankfully the trains stopped overnight and the tracks were obviously better than the ones up north as the motorhome only rocked gently as they went passed rather than shaking vigorously 🙂

Leaving the trains behind us we drove on to Fatima.  Not wanting to offend anyone, the easiest way of describing Fatima is to liken it to Wembley Stadium (with better parking) with a very large church at each end and several chapels around the outsides. It is a sacred place due to apparitions – the most recent of which occurred in 1917 when 70,000 people witnessed an apparition of ‘the miracle of the sun’. There must be thousands of people who visit each year on Pilgrimage as the place is huge and the surrounding town is hotel after hotel after souvenir shop. Not being religious, both Keith and I found it a little odd, but impressive at the same time.

Sticking to the religious theme we moved on to Batalha which is the home of the Monastery of Santa Maria da Vitoria,  constructed to celebrate Portuguese independence following the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385.

It is an impressive building and the town is a bit more normal than Fatima hosting a good Aire, an excellent patisserie and surprisingly a ‘Adega’ which is the Portuguese equivalent of a ‘Bodega’ ….. local wine 🙂

Obviously, we like to support the local economy wherever we go and tried the patisserie, bought some of the local plonk, and spent the day today exploring the pine and eucalyptus forests on a lovely 23km walk …. It was supposed to be 19km but the signage was a bit poor and we got lost a couple of times …..very nice and tranquil though..

A quick update on distances to date …. 2013 km Walking / Cycling 4500m Driving

We left the campsite and headed to the motorhome place we had found on line which was roughly 15km away… although it felt much further as the roads were all original old style cobbles which meant everything rattled …. I am sure my ears continued to ring until the evening. The chap was very helpful, but didn’t have the required adapter. He phoned around and pointed us towards a LPG workshop just up the road who thought that they would be able to help….. when we arrived however, they looked at our gas adapter like it was alien – unable to help us. After a couple of calls back to the UK to find out how much it would cost / how long it would take to get the adapter sent out to us, we agreed to continue our quest to find a gas adapter despite wanting to head up the Douro to visit more Port houses.

We headed towards Burstners’ main dealership in Portugal to see if they could help us, stopping at another dealer on route. Unfortunately, neither place had the required adapter but both pointed us to another LPG workshop/garage about 15k from Coimbra who did have an adapter, but only the one they used at the filling station and they didn’t really want to part with it. However, whilst Keith was talking to the garage owner, a gentleman was filling up his Portuguese motorhome with LPG and upon overhearing the conversation said that he had an adapter (why, we will never know, as his motorhome had a different internal fitting), and that we could have it for 20 euros. Despite thinking that he was probably trying it on a little bit with the price, Keith decided that it was much less than we would have to pay to get an adapter sent out to us – not to mention the time bearing in mind it is nearing Christmas. So, one dodgy deal later and we now have a LPG gas adapter (and filled up with LPG!).

Whilst we were at the second Burstner dealership we asked if they could fix a broken hinge in one of our cupboards and the rear central brake light which has water in it. It was obviously our day, as they had both items in stock and told us that if we went to the workshop at 3pm they would fix the parts. Upon arrival, not only did they fix the parts, there was a chap washing the roof of another motorhome and I asked whether there was any chance of Mike getting a bit of a roof scrub ….. she is one happy camper(van) 🙂

I appreciate LPG adapters and washing the roof of a motorhome is a bit dull for the rest of you, but when you are away the lack of availability of small, but important things that are so easily available in the UK can have a big impact on day to day life and can quickly become all consuming.

As it was late in the day when we left the motorhome workshop we headed to a place called Condeixa do nova which is 20km outside Coimbra. The Aire was just near the market on the edge of town approximately 2kms from one of the largest Roman settlements in Portugal – Conimbriga. In the morning we walked out to the ruins and on a circuit which took us through some of the other nearby Roman villages, before heading back to the motorhome and moving on to Coimbra.

Coimbra is a lovely old university town built on a hill by the side of the river. We headed in to town to do a bit of a recky for lunch the following day and to stretch our legs …. A bi-product of the walk ending up in coffee and cake -the local delicacy is called Pastel do Tentugal – which oddly is the place we ended up getting the LPG converter from – and it is basically filo pastry filled with an eggy/sugary mix with a dusting of icing sugar on the top…… it was ok, but they can keep it as a delicacy … neither of us would add it to our top ten pastry lists 🙂

We were surprised to see lots of motorhomes parked in the Aire when we arrived, but despite the sign stating you could only stay for 24 hours, it appears that they were all fairly long term residents but everything was clean and tidy and quiet.

On Friday morning we headed back into Coimbra to do the shopping at the market, and what a market it was. Probably one of the largest we have seen for a while with lots of small local producers as well as the larger fruit and veg stalls, fish mongers, butchers, etc. We even managed to find a little old lady who was selling figs and jars of honey…. Happy days 🙂

Following our recky we returned to the back streets in the old town to a little restaurant / Café where the queue was out the door – their speciality being suckling pig.

After a little wait we got a table and ordered two portions of suckling pig – the waitress obviously thought that we wouldn’t be able to eat two portions and only brought one to share. The meat was incredibly succulent and the crackling, perfect. So good (and we were still hungry), we ordered a suckling pig sandwich to share as well 🙂

We bought some local Portuguese cheeses this week as the Spanish ones were running low and in the evening had bread, cheese and cold meat for dinner – upon cutting the unpasteurised sheeps’ cheese open it started to walk like a very ripe camembert – delicious…. Another item on the list for Christmas day food 🙂