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Published: December 1st 2009
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10th November 2009
We are at a campsite by Praia de Luz in the Algarve. The weather is cooler now, but warm enough to manage a couple of hours on the beach in the middle of the day. There are lots of Brits around and an English pub (The Bull) where we had lunch on the terrace (see photos). Fish and chips with mushy peas for me and a club sandwich for herself, first non-ethnic food for months and it was great.
Close to Praia de Luz is the pretty town of Lagos which we visited and found a second hand English bookshop (the nights are dark, no TV etc. so we get through a book or two a week). Portugal is much cheaper to eat out than Spain; we had a feast of fish/rice and wine for under 20 euros in Lagos.
We went out to view the Cabo de Sao Vincente which is Europe’s most South Westerly point, it was a bit flat and non-descript but Liz did manage some pictures of surfer boys doing their stuff. I have observed that now she is 50+ watching fit young men with tanned torsos is conducted in a rather brazen
manner by Liz, for her it’s been a highlight of the tour as we have often rubbed shoulders with the beach surfing fraternity. Later that day we found a Motorhome Aire in the hills north of Lagos called Monichique, it was a really lovely spot, but rather odd in that we were the only people there and the owner who had a dog which was part great Dane/Lion spoke only French. It was very dark and so quiet it was hard to sleep as we now expect to hear barking dogs, road traffic, church bells etc. When in the shower later that day the lights went out and in pitch darkness I thought “first me then the wife, bodies into the septic pit” (In the style of ‘The Hills have Eyes’). As it happens to save money the lights in the shower room were on an unobserved movement detector and when after 10 minutes I crept out to see if Liz was still alive “hey presto” the lights came on.
Next day we stayed at Barragem Pego Do Alta which was a free camperstop with about 50 motorhomes of all nationalities. Barragems are similar to reservoirs and are common
in Portugal where most rivers are dammed to conserve water. Moving on our plan was to stay in an Aire close to Lisbon but on arrival we found it to be the bleak and windy parking lot for the ferry terminal with us as the only campers and the Ambulance service as neighbours. Hastily consulting our Sat-Nav for alternatives we found a campsite in Costa de Caparica where after a days delay as the weather was wet and very windy, we took a ferry over to Lisbon.
Lisbon was good as it was a sunny day and taking the tram into the centre is straightforward and cheap. The Castello de Sao Jorge sits on a hill with spectacular 360 degree views (see photos).
After a couple of days in Costa de Caparica we moved out to Peniche on the coast where we wild camped with a couple of German motorhomes for company. It was a spectacular spot with lots of activity as we watched a succession of small fishing boats head in to unload at the busy port. From Peniche we moved on and visited the walled town of Obidos (see photos). You can walk the entire circumference of the
wall in about 30 minutes which we did and it comes with the helpful warning that if you fall off then it’s your fault as there is no safety barrier at all along the route. Later that day we visited the basilica at Fatima which is impressive in terms of its size and detail of its stained glass widows etc. Eventually we ended up at Figueira da Fox in a large car park with about a dozen or so other motorhomes, it was a bit bleak and noisy ( they were building a sea wall behind us, I was sure they would stop after dark. (I’ll add it to the list of things that kept us awake).
By the 17th our plan was to start making serious tracks for home and so we planned to stay at a remote campsite which our book said was open just inside the Spain/Portugal border. Arriving after a long drive just before dark to find it shut, we consulted the Sat-Nav for possible alternatives and to shorten a long story we ended up just north of Madrid in campsite having nearly run out of fuel because the road we travelled on was brand
Obidos walls
Health&safety message was "at your own risk" new, not in our Sat-Nav and there were no fuel stops at all directly on route. Anyway we were tired but fine. It was a busy site with a bustling café/bar where they had free Wi-Fi which we used to keep track of the Scotland win over Australia at Murrayfield whilst enjoying the local Rioja. Mentioning Rioja we stayed the next night in the town of Haro which is the centre for Rioja so of course we have stashed a few bottles into the van for bringing back home. Also in Haro we had lunch yet again for 20 Euros including a full bottle of half decent local brew, our bravery in ordering from the Menu del Dia where it was pot luck came a bit unstuck as I was given a large plate of baby squid, complete with tentacles and smothered in black ink. I gave it a good go but couldn’t polish it all off but the vino suffered no such fate.
It really was cold today (15 degrees) and after months of sun and heat we are firmly focussed on getting a ferry this weekend then up home. Biarritz is our stop tomorrow where we will
take time to look around if the weather is good.
20th Nov. - Biarritz
We spent a day looking cycling round this up-market town which is as smart a place as we have been in. It was a windy day and the surf was up so the Atlantic had some big breakers which some brave surfers (and swimmers) were enjoying. A good lunch and some window shopping was all we had time for before we cycled back to the Aire we were staying in and then off North to put in some miles over the next two days and arrive at an Aire in St. Valery en Caux, on the Normandy coast which was supposedly one of the best Aires in France, however we were glad to move off as early as possible as the wind and rain in the night felt as though we were about to be swept off the quayside at any moment. That morning we moved round the roads closed due to fallen trees and floods to an Aire about an hour from Calais called “Paris Plage” in the village of Le Tourquet which looks and feels like the smarter parts of Surrey plus its
coastal setting. It was here the night before we crossed that we saw a weather forecast which predicted winds of 100Kmph in the channel which cheered us up no end. Getting up before dawn we made the ferry terminal quickly and got an earlier departure, this turned out to be a good decision as the weather wasn’t too bad in Calais, but by the time we were in sight of Dover the swell was so big the Captain informed us that we would need another 30 minutes to get positioned and into the narrow Dover passage. 10/10 for the captain and we were glad to get back into the UK and make our way to stay with Liz’s mum and dad for a nights stopover complete with an excellent roast dinner cooked expertly by Peter himself. Our final stop before home was in Boroughbridge where the campsite was completely flooded and the owners cheerfully gave us a safe place in their carpark snuggled up by the floodwall. It is great to be going home and seeing our family/friends and get the dog back, but its bloody freezing and the Algarve where we were on the beach just over two weeks
ago seems like a distant memory.
Watch this space as we plan to take the van to the Alps at the end of January.
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