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Published: February 26th 2017
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So the long awaited trip had a less than promising start!! A trip to get Harvey weighed, started badly, we weighed some 40kg over, we are limited to 3.5t, and we weighed in less clothing but full of Fuel and water, a re-pack urgently needed, we made our way home to collect a rather large Chip from a passing lorry, a quick plead to Emma at Autoglass got us fixed within a couple of hours, the repacking took a little longer and what gave was the water, but more of that later!!!. A smooth sailing to Santander was our reward, as well a beautiful meal, and all very reasonable, aboard the Pont Aven. The following morning saw us sailing into a Sunny and surprisingly, more beautiful city of Santander than had been imagined. We had made an easy decision to have a short drive on our first day on the wrong, sorry right side of the road. Our first night was at Villadolid and our very first Aire, these really are a revelation to us Brits, they are allocated Parking spaces within the towns or villages car parks, many with grey waste water disposal washing up and shower) black (toilet) and
fresh water, all for nothing, or a small charge, so the story of the lack of water was that having deciding to fill up on our first night, we found that in Spain the water was turned off over winter, so a dash to a shop to haul us much as we could handle back for the next few days!! Our next stop was at Salamanca a beautiful, The lonely Planet says it’s a must see, and how right they were, the architecture is beautiful, and at night takes on a completely different atmosphere, a University City it also has plenty of life, as we found in our less than quieter Aire (okay so what do you expect for free!!) . So the first few days in Portugal have taken us through the Alentjo region we have driven some 560 miles through Wine, Olive and now Bark plantations and seen us visiting some beautiful villages perched high in the rolling hills on our way South.
Estremoz sits in great splendour high above the surrounding area, Marble is quarried here so even the simple houses all have some of it somewhere. Large Squares are full of life with
markets and all the locals, men in flat caps, women in aprons. Monsaraz floats above the landscape its cobbled lanes twist you through far reaching views and the Aire sits beautifully viewing the largest Lake in Europe as its setting. Today we have wended our way into the Parque Natural de Vale do Guardiana, and the Lakeside Aire location, tomorrow gives us the opportunity for a 14km walk to explore some of this beautiful region. And then on Tuesday we make the short dash to the Algarve Coast and wend our way through some of the many beach locations it has to offer.
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