Portugal- Monasteries and Porto

From Obidos we drove to Alcabaca.  We hadn't planned to stop, but changed our minds when we saw the impressive monastery there.  The church part is free to enter so I went inside for some photos and to see the tombs of King Pedro I and his love.  She was unfortunately ordered to be killed by Pedro I's father, as she was Pedro I's wife's lady in waiting- quite scandalous and sad for her really.  The monastery was beautiful and amazing, it is absolutely huge and has such a lovely ambience inside.

We then went on to Batalha, where there is another monastery, also UNESCO, which is very similar to Alcabaca's.  This time we paid to go into the monastery.  Two highlights for me were the chapel where many Royal tombs are located, and also the grave of the unknown soldier.  Two soldiers were standing either side, and it was very moving.  We feel like we are following Queen Elizabeth's 1957 tour of the country, as we saw the carriage she rode in at the Coach museum, the boat she sailed in at the Maritime museum and we saw photos of her visiting the monastery in Batalha.

The stain glass windows reflecting on the floor

It was then onto Coimbra where we parked at an aire with about 15 other motorhomes.  We have found Portugal to be extremely motorhome friendly, which many serviced aires and free parking places, as well as many other motorhomers about.  Coimbra is the University town of Portugal.  From the 12th century this title floated back between Coimbra and Lisbon, until in the 16th century when the University settled in Coimbra for good.  Again there was beautiful views of the town from across the river and some steep roads to climb to the University which is at the top of the hill.  It was a pleasant couple of hours exploring the town before we drove to Porto.

The University

Dale outside the University library

At Porto we stayed at Campismo de Salgueiros, one of a number of campsites located near the beach and it was a 20 minute bus journey from Porto.  The campsite was an astonishingly cheap  4.75 euros a night for 2 people without electric and including showers.  That afternoon we walked along the waterfront to the estuary where the river Douro meets the sea. There were a lot of seagulls and shags at the estuary.  Because it was a sunny Sunday there were hordes of locals strolling the foreshore promenade and having drinks at cafes. In the morning we tried to catch the bus and it seemed the timetable may have been reduced as the one we went out for never arrived so we had a little wait for the next one spot on time.

Dropped right on the edge of the historic Porto district, it was only a short walk to the Cathedral and Information Centre. Porto is hilly which means you get views from all over the place and the Cathedral is one such location (as cathedrals go it was just okay).  There was some sort of service on when we visited with about half a dozen attendees. The historic centre of Porto is wonderful in the sense that it looks so old, you almost feel the history dripping off it.  This retention of the historic feeling appears to be linked to the residents of the inner city living in what looks like near poverty.  We walked through the narrow Ribiera streets with a mixture of trepidation and intrigue.

We could see all the Port cellars across the river on the Gaia side so went for a stroll along the front.  We then returned onto the Porto side and made a circuit around the historic district viewing various sites (mainly churches) before getting the bus back.

The next day was devoted to getting to Pontevedra in Galicia, Spain via Viana do Castello in Portugal.  We were staying off toll roads and this meant initially a slow journey up the built up  coast north of Porto, before a hilly, windy journey inland north of Viana do Castello.  The major highlight of the day was getting McDonalds for lunch in a mall and finding that the mall offered excellent free WIFI and powerpoints (which was necessary as our computer battery is dying and last about 30 minutes currently).

Portugal- Lisbon, Sintra and Obidos

For Lisbon we headed to a campsite in Costa de Caparica.  We arrived early afternoon, so after a quick lunch we got the bus into Lisbon.  The route took us over the April 25 bridge.  They call it a sister bridge to the Golden Gate in San Francisco and it is very similar.  We spent the next 3 hours wandering around, up to the castle for views, to the Se Cathedral and to the square called Terreiro do Paco.  We didn't see any signs for the tourist information office, and not having looked up it's location in advance, we were unable to find it and pick up a map.  I think we found most major sights, and headed back to the camp via Belem using the train, ferry and bus (1 hour journey).

The following day we got on the bus at 9am to the Trafaria ferry terminal and then caught the ferry to Belem.  We spent the whole day here.  It is a lovely area of Lisbon with monuments overlooking the water and the UNESCO site of Jeronimos Monastery. As well as checking out these we went to two museums.  The first was the Coach museum, a collection of Royal carriages from the 16th-19th centuries.  It is housed in the 18th century Royal Palace riding school, which itself is a wonderful building.

Our second museum was the Maritime museum which was huge!  It had endless ship models, instruments, paintings, uniforms and boats on display.  We spent 2 hours there and could have spent longer, but our brains couldn't compute anything more to do with boats.  We both agreed that we enjoyed learning about the 15th and 16th century exploration that the Portuguese did and was the main reason we had gone to the museum.

The monastery

The tower of Belem

A Henry the navigator statue at the Maritime museum

After Lisbon we headed across the April 25 bridge and half an hour north to Sintra.  Sintra is a beautiful town and the location of several castles.  We parked in town for a walk to see the National Palace of Sintra.  Dale must have been feeling adventurous as we then drove to the Pena Palace and Monserrate Park, which were on steep narrow roads.  We thought that surely these must be one way roads as there was provision for parking on them too.  At one point another car came the other way, so I'm still not sure.  There is also a bus that does this route to ferry passengers from the various Palaces back to Sintra.

The April 25 Bridge

The National Palace of Sintra

Next on the express tour of Portugal was Obidos, a beautiful town on top of a hill.  Portugal is very hilly so to date we have seen many beautiful town views.  A highlight of this town for me was the Santa Maria church which had stunning tiles on the walls.  The town walls afforded great views of the town and there was also a chocolate festival going on.  Unfortunately most of the action was in a special area for 7 euro entry each, but we managed to see special stalls that shop owners had set up and a cake decoration contest for free.

The Santa Maria Church

Some of the entrants in the cake decorating competition

The view from the town walls

Portugal, Algarve part 2 and South Western Coast

After the football in Parchal we went to Alvor for the night to a paid Aire (4 euro).  An aire is an official motorhome stop often with a waste point, sometimes for free, sometimes not.  We had seen a youtube video made by a disgruntled man who owned a villa overlooking this area where many motorhomes would park up for free in the past.  Which is one of the reasons it is now a pay, official stop, but still pretty popular.  There must be a good 60 or 70 motorhomes here.  The main attraction here is a Alvor boardwalk, which connects Portimao and Alvor.

We next went to Lagos.  The aire there is located at the stadium, and for 3 euros includes waste disposal and wifi.  It is also walking distance from the town and with so many motorhomes around felt pretty secure.  The town is lovely.  We had in mind a couple of attractions we might visit but ended up spending our time walking around and admiring the place.

We walked to Chinicata just outside Lagos where there was a flea market being held on the Sunday.  It held our attention for about 45 minutes but we didn't buy anything.  We also went out to Sagres and walked to the fort, and to Cape St Vincent.  Cape St Vincent was thought to be the end of the world in the 16th century and is the most SW point of Europe.  Our guidebook claims there was a navigation school set up in Sagres by Henry the navigator, but the assistant in the tourist office assured us that there is no proof that this was the case and only a couple of buildings remaining in the fort are from Henry's time.

Sagres

We went to an Algarve cup match, Iceland vs China, which was on at the stadium (very convenient).  It was a reasonably tight match with Iceland scoring the only goal in injury time.  In the morning we headed north toward Lisbon, finding a beautiful spot for lunch and also stopping for views at Villa Nova de Milfonte and Porto Covo.  We were wishing that we had more time as we made quick stops in these fantastic places.  

We wanted to get closer to Lisbon for the night so we headed to a point on the sat nav (Dale has downloaded campsites, wild camping spots and aires from many different internet sources onto the sat nav).  This wasn't a spot we had researched but hoped it would be suitable.  As we rounded the corner we saw a lovely reservoir and some motorhomes, success, and then we saw more motorhomes.  There must be about 40 of them here.  We are two hours from Lisbon which we will drive tomorrow morning and I will let the pictures do the talking- what a beautiful spot.

Beach where we had Lunch

 Reservoir where we stayed the night

 View of Milfrontes from a stopping place we would have used