Today we head for Portugal. The weather in Spain has not been that great but it was not completely unexpected in the North for this time of year. The weather outlook for Portugal looks much brighter so we head for Viana do Castelo.
This is quite a long drive, not on motorways, and we pass through the last of the Spanish Wine country where they grow their grape vines along the top of tressles much the same as we grow kiwifruit, through Cobedelo, Pontevedra, Paredes and Cesantes. We are amazed to find we are still on the Santiago Pilgrim trail whilst being so close to the Portugese border. We have no wind and no rain. To be honest there is nothing pretty to see up here just scruffy towns and equally scruffy vineyards and we wonder whether the recession has hit Spain harder than we were aware and then suddenly we see a "Lidls" - really exciting because it is something we have not seen in what seems like ages - and we decide to stock up on their cheap fresh food and wine before crossing the border into Portugal. Much easier said than done as explained below:
1. Negotiate entrance - directly off very busy roundabout. 2. Take ticket at barrier arm (slightly difficult because the ticket dispenser is designed for cars not Mollys and Gary is almost throwing himself out the window to grab the elusive piece of paper) 3. Drive and find a park in a tiny, already full carpark. (only ones left are for Nursing mothers so Gary parks, stays in the van and tells me to go in and be quick. ( "Shop like Rachael" he says)(Damn you Rach I will never live your shopping skills down) 4. Shop (no problem, really quick) 5. Queue and stack (all good, except the man behind me wants my basket??? Blow, I wanted that because now i will have to pay for bags!!!) 6. Act dumb because the cashier is asking me for something and I don't have a clue (getting hotter in here?) Man behind me waves his car park ticket in my face and suddenly the penny drops - but my ticket is still in Molly with Gary and there is now a queue of at least 20 impatient Spanish shoppers behind me. (definitely getting hotter in here?) Then the knightess in shining armour comes from the back of the queue, speaks to the cashier in Spanish, tells me "all is OK now" in English and calmly resumes her place in the queue. 7. Pack, pay and run - in that order but not before you are given another ticket which will operate the barrier arm to allow you to exit (hopefully - because as we came through the "in barrier" a very irate driver was swearing, cursing and thumping the life out of the "out barrier" machine because his little ticket would not lift the arm. 8. Profusely thank everyone, in Spanish of course, for their help. 9. Return to Molly where I am welcomed with "you have been three quarters of an hour????!!!!" from you know who. Mouth open, sweat pouring down my face (because it really was hot in there) I drag my expensive plastic bags full of cheap groceries into Molly, sit down and explain. Maybe the 4 Euro bottle of gin redeems me? (yeah it did! And the paper ticket got wet and almost didn't work the barrier which was on an uphill slope. So riding the clutch while leaning out the Window to scan the wet barcode was precarious to say the least. Didn't fancy rolling back onto the car behind.)
Moving on again we skirt St Antonio and Tui, where the rain rejoins us, and cross the border into Portugal.
Almost immediately we see the Romanian girls on the side of the road prostituting themselves - we had not expected this in Portugal - and pass a huge gypsy/Romanian encampment made of blue tarpaulins and boxes and boasting mountains of rubbish. Not a very good "hello" for our first visit to this country.
A few viaducts and tunnels later accompanied by more wind, sun and rain (noticed here that the viaduct wind socks are ripped to shreds) we arrive at our campsite in Viana do Castelo in brilliant sunshine. Long may it last.
2 hours later who should roll in but Alex and Dave - totally unbeknown to each other that we were heading for the same campsite. It was such a surprise and so lovely to see them again. As you can no doubt understand this had to be celebrated way into the night with copious amounts of red wine and great conversation.
Next day - maybe with a little red wine headache - we walked the "10 mins to the bridge" which is the entranceway to the lovely old town of Viana. Yeh right - more like 45mins and then the bridge is a km long on top of that!!!!!!! It was, eventually, well worth it though as it was a definitely cute place with a Funicular to the Basilica de Santa Lucia (nice name) on top of the hill overlooking the town which keeps everyone under close supervision down below. Whilst in the Basilica we witnessed groups of people walking around the alter in circles, going round and round over and over again - quite bizarre really.
Next day we wave goodbye again to Alex and Dave - no farewells as we are pretty sure our paths will cross somewhere - and spend a relaxing day in the sun, going to the beach in the evening to watch the sun go down. Unfortunately it was quite hazy so not much of a sunset but the idea was good as was the walk. The weather has definitely improved.
Next stop Porto - well a little outside of Porto actually in Perafita. Once again we passed through many villages and the jury is out on Portugal at this point. Everywhere looks quite dishevelled and dilapidated. We are passing through an obvious agricultural area, perhaps market gardeners, with plastic greenhouses in abundance. There are wheelbarrows on the side of the road full of onions, fresh fruit and vegetable road stalls and we pass the cutest elderly couple dressed in portugese peasant clothes. They are very short, he has a stick and she is carrying great swathes of green foliage on her head and they are helping each other along the road. They must have been in their 90's and had probably been doing the same routine for years but with far less traffic around them.
In Amarin, a big city, we saw pigs on spits being cooked and in Amero birds in cages were lined along the roadside. I could have put out my hand and touched them and boy were they squawking!!! It was by now getting very, very hot.
Following Kate (the GPS) we turned right - directly onto cobble stones and we would be with these all the way to our final destination about 10kms away - shaking Molly to pieces. Winding through narrow, narrow villages, turning right turning left, up hill down hill finally arriving at the campsite which was very nice but smelled of cow shit and needed the grass cut. Walking to the sanitary block through long wet grass was not pleasant and the overpowering smell of silage made me feel nauseous in the end.
Apart from that we enjoyed Perafita - a small Portugese fishing village with a beautiful sandy beach once again on the Atlantic Ocean. We strolled along the beach, explored the market - fish of course and fruit and vegetables - and even managed to buy some fresh coriander here!!!! The boats, literally just pulled up onto the sand, were made of wood and all painted vibrant colours. In little shacks behind the boats net making and mending was in progress and small fish restaurants were dotted in amongst all this. If you looked at the bigger picture it could possibly be deemed quite basic and tatty but to be honest, for us it was like we were immersed in a colourful picture book.
We stopped to have a lovely fish meal in one of the local restaurants - expensive given the fish was caught locally and it literally was a very small cobblestoned village - but the experience of ordering something from a menu in a language you don't understand from a person you don't understand and getting something you actually enjoy is priceless. The very normal looking fish was halved, squashed in a rack and BBQ'd over hot coals and served with salad and potatoes - the potatoes transporting me back decades to school dinners. Yummy.
Replete we staggered to the beach, lay down and, for hours, watched the waves crashing into the shore whilst we updated our sun tan.
Next day we took the bus from right outside the campsite to Porto. 1.60 euro each for a 1hour 10 min journey from hell!!!!! The driver was young, had a fixation for his nose and just loved jamming his foot on those brakes. We had no expectations for Porto, it seemed like just another big city when we passed it on our way to the campsite but the bus eventually took us straight to the heart of the Old Town and.............We loved Porto.
It was higgeldy piggeldy, irrational, full of contrasting colours, textures and building materials. In one pic we see a rock face with colourful, three story, plaster covered houses teetering on its edge half way up its face.(seriously if you took the end house away I am sure they would all fall over). Sprouting up a little further to the right is the meccano type root of the main iron road and rail bridge which spans the river taking tourists to sample their famous Port in the Caves below ground on the other side. From the bottom, concrete steps, enhanced by colourful graffiti, track slightly off vertical to the top and behind all this?........the most brilliant blue sky. Around us a cacophany of noise - traffic, laughter, languages, police whistles, sirens, seagulls, happiness and sunshine.
As we wandered around we stopped to eat and drink small amounts of food, tapas style, at different cafes/retaurants - each place had a different atmosphere, menu, view, busker and we spent a whole day enthralled by and immersed in this part of the huge city of Porto. It is the second largest city in Portugal - Lisbon is the largest. Normally we would use a hopon hopoff bus in such a large city but we both were so glad we opted to stroll, soak up the atmosphere, immerse ourselves in the culture and thoroughly enjoy our day. A quick, Australian-theme-park bus ride back to Perfita, the smell of cow shit and the wet long grass and we decided to head for Aveiro the following morning which was just as well because a very loud gaggle of Portugese men came and parked right beside us????? Yep...here we go again......is it Molly or is it us? So many other empty places.....why oh why park your caravan right there!!!!?????
So here we are in Costa Nova at another Orbitur campsite (Parque de Campismo da Vagueira) and just outside of Aveiro. We can cycle to the local beach - 4km - cycle to the village of Costa Nova proper - 7km - drive to Aveiro - 15kms.
Yesterday we took the local beach - quite nice with lots of sand dunes and soft golden sand and a fish market and today has been a catch up day for those things domestic and personal. Tomorrow we will cycle to Costa Nova proper - 7kms away - and then pick up some fresh fish, from the beach fish market on the way home (I have become quite a fish addict on this trip). We will drink cheap, but good, white wine and stuff ourselves full of moist, tasty white fish cooked whole, wrapped in foil, with slices of fresh lime and a few sprigs of coriander. Yummy.
In the ideal world this is what we will do - tomorrow is another day though so we will see.
So tomorrow has come and gone and yes we did cycle to Costa Nova and it was very pleasant and not too strenuous. Very picturesque along the inlet - in fact quite serene - watching paddleboarders being taught how to survive a few duckings and stand on their boards, colourful boats lazily gliding through the glass like water and the coldest of ciders in a beachfront cafe. Yes it was very hot and also very busy - it was Sunday.
The architecture here is very different - white buildings with coloured vertical stripes in bold colours - mainly bright red and cape cod blue - give this place an authentic seaside atmosphere along with the beautiful sandy, clean beaches decked out with sun umbrellas. We enjoyed our time here and decided we would find a local restaurant for our fish meal rather than buying to take home and cook. The fish markets are great but one thing we have learned - there is a price for us and a price for locals in this area of Portugal.
Eventually finding a small, genuine, Portugese restaurant absolutely heaving with locals we squeezed ourselves onto a vacant table between gabbling Portugese speaking people, smiling right and left as we did so. We sat and we waited - didn't matter we waited soooo long for the table to be cleared and reset - we were totally immersed in our surroundings. What they were all eating - very different from what we have seen up to here and mainly fish stews, soups, grilled baby octupus and baby squid. How they interacted - very Italian and homely. One guy beside us started bashing his huge crab claw with his knife handle on the edge of the table - smiling at us while he did this - as if to say "this is really Portugese style"!!!! So I stayed on course for grilled sea bass and Gary opted for a good old steak. We got to talking with another couple on the other side of us wanting to clarify a few things and they spoke a little English. What happens in Portugal when you sit down at a restaurant - bread, pate, olives and butter are put on the table. They are not free, as they are in Spain, but quite expensive and we wished to clarify this was so before we hoed into them. To be honest ours looked as though they had already been on other tables before we were honoured with them but hey.........the meal was awesome and the company great. Turns out our chatting buddies were weekend campervanners parked 100 metres down the road and we all had a good laugh whilst the single waitress in sweatpants and t-shirt ran around the tables like a chook with her head cut off, ranting and raving in Portugese!!!!!
Cycling back to Molly Gary got hiccups and I fell off my bike - could it have been the cheap wine we consumed with our lunch???
Next stop the beach close to the campsite where, at a camperstop, a kind Portugese guy was going to take Gary into Aveiro to get an adaptor for our gas bottles and we had decided it wasn't necessary. We had been to this beach on Friday and it was deserted - today it was anything but. It was like Brighton seafront including the stalls, sooooo many people and cars and even a traffic jam!!!!! Finding Manuel - he was holding court at someone elses caravan - a quick explanation and we were on our way back to Molly.
Unbeknown to us daylight saving had clicked in on Saturday night so it was a very, very long hot day.
Today we are still in the campsite at Costa Nova having a relaxing day, trying to find an apartment to rent in Portugal for a month and resting my knee which has an effusion now after my fall from my bike. My knee has been a constant aggravation since surgery and i really did not need for this to happen.
Tomorrow we travel to Salamanca back in Spain.
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