Portugal (and Spain part 2)

We enjoyed the Picos de Europa but didn’t feel there was much else to keep us in Northern Spain so decided to head straight across to Portugal; it was over 700km which is a long drive in the Lunar but we made an early start and got there in about 7 hours.


Porto

Our first stop was Porto; a lovely town, though the good area is very much isolated to that around the waterfront; once you venture from there it is pretty run down and not a very attractive place to be.

We partly went to Porto as we wanted to be in a decent city for the England vs South Africa rugby world cup final that was on the evening we arrived. We expected Porto to be bigger than it was actually, but they did have one Irish bar with a good crowd and we had a great night (despite the result!). In the photo is David (Australian) and Petra (South African)




Week 21 – 22nd to 28th October

Lisbon

From Porto, we moved about half way down the country to Lisbon; it being the capital we figured a visit was in order but it didn’t really do a lot for us, perhaps partly because we have done a lot of cities and were keen to get to the beaches of the Algarve, but we didn’t feel inspired as we wandered around.

It wasn’t enhanced as we had to spend several hours on a wild goose chase around the city looking for somewhere to pay our road toll; a word of warning…have plenty of cash on you whilst driving as the tolls in Portugal are pricey and do not take credit cards - in all other countries we have been able to pay on card!

On this occasion we were 70 cents short of the 33 Euro toll (rather embarrassing) and after some time and horn tooting from the drivers behind us later, we established we could pay later at a multibank. We figured this would be ok, especially since we were in the capital, but we later discovered that multibanks are ATM machines which have many uses for the Portugese such as paying bills, but no such facilities are available for foreign cash cards, only cash withdrawal.

We couldn’t pay at the bank itself and after being sent to several other places across the city looking for this one shop where we could apparently pay, we found it only to be told they couldn’t take payment and we had to go some place out of town! Perhaps Andrew wouldn’t have minded so much if they had taken my passport details rather than his!


Sagres

Petra and David had told us how lovely Sagres was and that’s where we headed next; it is right at the Western tip of the Algarve with small beach coves. The weather was lovely and we had several easy days on the beach.

Once we braved the initial cold of the sea – it took a while – we could still swim; the water was beautifully clear and invigorating. You could be forgiven for thinking I found Daniel Craig (aka James Bond) coming out of the water but it is non other than Andrew himself…

Week 22 – 29th October to 4th November

Quartiera

Reluctantly, after 4 days we left Sagres and made our way further along the Algarve. We stayed a couple of days at Quartiera; this was a long stretch of beach and a typical England abroad place…fry ups and Sunday roasts abound…however, after a night in a camp site we noticed a free park which was right on the beach and plenty of motor homes were present so we spent a night right here…

Spain – Part 2

Sierra Nevada

Crossing the border from Portugal back into Spain we made towards Murcia on the East coast. We were planning a stop in Seville but unfortunately the only camp site anywhere near had closed down so we just kept on driving all the way to Granada and stayed a couple of nights up in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

Week 23 – 5th to 11th November & week 24 – 12th to 18th November

Murcia

Andrews’s cousin, Ian, has a villa in Murcia and this is where we are staying for a couple of weeks. There is little to write since we are treating this as our holiday and doing very little other than playing a few rounds of golf and making the most of the sun; the weather is still lovely, its been sunny every day and probably around 22 degrees and so still warm enough to catch some rays. It has been great to relax and stay put for a while.