Marialva Park Hotel Porto

Arrived after a short uneventful journey. Campsite similar. Weather changeable.

Tourist sites do not always live up to the flowery language used in the brochures eg. "Musicological Nucleus of the Salt" turned out to be a Musee de Sel. We did not go.

The local beauty spots, like every where else, that we did go to were covered with ingrained litter.
We are moving on tomorrow.

... plastic bottles around the edges. They were obviously expecting stormy weather. They left great heaps of rubbish all over the site.

We visited Aveiro the nearest town which lived up to its publicity we took the one photograph of their famous boats which was all the brochure had to offer.

We have become a novelty attraction as there are no other British around. After the activities of the weekend we moved on.

... looked like there was no order to the waves and they were crashing all over the place. The sea looked angry that day my friends. The next day, we spotted some surfers and set out to rent some boards but all the surf shops were closed (because all the owners were out surfing). The super cheap ghetto tourist shops that sell **** were open, so we opted for 2 hardcore boogie boards ...

... cum-queue of would-be diners standing patiently outside in the metre-wide alleyway waiting for a table.

Porto, until now a place evoking memories of last season's promising start to the European Cup campaign, grabs you as soon as you alight from the train at the stunning Sao Bento train station with its impressive tile panels. We couldn't wait to get exploring and even the need to carry the rucksacks up a steep road liberally sprinkled with ...

Day 4 – 25/12/08

LISBON-EVORA-ALCOBACA-B ATALHA-FATIMA-COIMBRA

We left early after breakfast. The GPS proved to be blessing for 'wrong' drivers like me. As it was Christmas there was less traffic on the roads & we had a smooth drive to Evora. There we saw the Roman Temple, the church & the Chapel of St.Francis. The sleepy town had narrow lanes ...

... steel greeted me inside and I was just anxious to see what secrets this building held. I knew that the number 202 bus to the beach left at 12:33 so that only gave me 50 minutes to the explore this building. Three floors later I was trying to figure out when the good stuff would appear. All the while this strange bell sounding music was playing loudly in the background and it was curiously like the chime the Chicago ...

... bound people. The next day I tried to get an extra night in my Hostel but it was booked out. I did not fancy traipsing around this hilly city with my backpack on looking for another hostel. So I found another map which had the correct location of the redex bus office on it and went down and bought a ticket to Lisbon. The bus did not leave for a couple of hours so I kept exploring until the hostel check out time and the got on the bus to Lisbon.

... a still amused Ed and ran down the stairs away from the evil bells.     Back down on the ground where it was quieter, we entered the church to wich the Clérigos Tower belonged to.  This was a remarkable example of Baroque secular architecture: an oval floor plan and exquisite gilt wood carvings of the ...

... one, and you realise its just their version of getting a BBQ chook from the local milk bar. Its interesting arriving in a city knowing basically nothing about it. Somehow Porto has avoided turning into one of those 'most photographed cities' a la Paris or Sydney, but its not for a lack of being photogenic. Its Porto's geography that makes it such an interesting set of little communities. Built on either side of a river bounded by sheer 50m ...

Hello...

I'm in Portugal now. Last I wrote was in Toledo, I think...I took a night train to Lisbon, where I stayed for one night. It's nice, as far as big cities go, but it's a big city. It's very diverse and the people are real laid back.

After that I went to Sintra, just west of Lisbon. It's a little town in the mountains. Lots of shade, green, and fresh air. I spent many more days there than I planned to. The first night I arrived ...