Paxariñas, Pilgrims, Birds and some Very Bad News.

As we trundled into Camping Paxariñas, sometime after 8pm, we were surprised to find Reception still open, but of course, this is Spain, land of late nights and leisurely morning starts.  After a quick look around we tucked ourselves in on a pitch one row back from the sea view and after a quick supper went to bed.  As a sleepy morning dawned, two grumpy campers rubbed their eyes and decided to look for an alternative spot! During the night road noise and locals using the adjacent beach car park had disturbed our sleep, but given the blue skies and lovely location we weren’t minded to move campsites.  And so we moved here . . .

Right on the front line and in amongst the potentially noisy weekend visitors.  Spain is well known for its lively weekenders, where permanent caravans or cabins (or both) are sited and used from Friday through to Sunday as a meeting place with friends and family.  This site was crammed with weekenders, an eclectic raggle taggle of quirky ‘vans and cabins, some almost touching from one pitch to the next. Whilst setting up our pitch we watched in amazement as a couple built a small wooden cabin on their pitch to house an enormous ‘fridge freezer – all in a morning!  Our pitch looked to be on the site of a recently dismantled caravan/cabin set up and was the only one with a front line view out towards the Isla de Ons, and our neighbours a lively, friendly group of thirty somethings, so it was with slight trepidation that we set up camp. The views though, were stunning.  We had a beach this way . . .

And that way . . .

And a path to get there . . .

And in the evenings we could look out across the sea to the most amazing midsummer sunsets . . .

And apart from a noisy rendition of happy birthday on the Friday night at about 1am, we weren’t disturbed at all. 

During our six night stay here we spent a lot of time just relaxing on the beach and up by the camper.  This little peninsula is just beautiful . . .

We went into nearby Porto Novo on the bikes and bought locally caught fish from the market for the barbeque, and the best steaks ever from the butcher.

We didn’t want to leave, but the clock was ticking and we were due in France at the weekend, so we set off for a campsite near Burgos on Thursday morning – and what an eventful 24 hours were in store.  Note the date, 23^rd June.

The drive was an easy and interesting one and we arrived at Camping Santiago around 6-7pm.  We’d more or less followed the Pigrims’ Route all the way, passing Santiago de Compostela within an hour of leaving the Pontevedra Peninsula.  It was fascinating to see the pilgrims of all ages, trundling along the footpaths alongside the road, or sprawled out in the shade at roadside stops and in restaurants and cafés all along the route.  We’d not even realised that we’d be following this route other than noting that Santiago will be on our list next time we visit – soon we hope, as we loved this part of Spain.

The small and picturesque campsite where we stayed, which is on the pilgrim route near Castrogeriz, is lovely, overlooked by an old Templar castle and shaded by trees.

The owner is a keen birder and the site is well known for its wildlife.  At the point we arrived, a group of Dutch campers were showing a film in the site restaurant that one of them had made, about Golden Eagles and Vultures, some of it filmed in the area, and as we headed to the pitch we saw a hoopoe on the pitch next door.

After an outdoor supper, we settled for a peaceful night under the stars with dedos cruciados for a stay vote in the referendum back home.

The first thing we did was check the news next day in the café (no phone signal here).  The mood was one of disbelief from the Spanish newsreaders and one of bewilderment from our fellow European campers, from Holland, Germany and France.  Mine was disbelief.  I felt sick, tearful and ashamed to be British.  Here we were in Europe, enjoying the hospitality and culture of our neighbours and a bunch of little englanders had decided that we would no longer be part of Europe.  Words fail me.  The rest of the day was spent in a daze.  We’d arranged proxy votes before we left and so had been part of the stay vote, and a small ray of light was that our home town, Brighton, had voted to stay – almost 70% of those who voted in fact, along with London, Scotland and Northern Ireland.  Elsewhere in the UK though, it was a dismal story.  As we chatted with fellow campers, our Dutch neighbours talked about the far right in Holland, and a minority group who would like to leave, and we’d seen an extensive poster campaign in Portugal, from a leftist group, also urging exit.  However, there seemed to be little support for either of these outsider groups who are seen in the main as extremist and poorly informed.

As we left Burgos, having benefited, for the umpteenth time, from our ACSI camping card discount (Dutch), secure in the knowledge that our road recovery with ADAC (German) was the best we could find - and no equivalent cover available via a UK company, we reflected on the isolationist mindset of some of our fellow Britons with despair, and could only watch at a distance as the UK descended into political chaos.

J.

A slice of northern Portugal en route to Spain

And so, with the weather set for more rain, we set off along the Douro valley from Vila Chã, half hoping that the weather would improve and we’d fetch up on a lovely ‘quinta’ (wine producer) with a restaurant where we could eat and then sleep over in the camper until the next morning…

It didn’t quite work out like that though, and although the scenery was amazing (steep valley sides covered by hundreds of quintas, fabulous river views and interesting little villages) the rain only lifted briefly, and just long enough, to squeeze in a pic of this Douro cliché through the van’s side window…

And the decision to track the river bank from Porto all the way was a mistake – pretty yes, but tortuously slow and all the best bits are closer to the Spanish end of the river. So, by the time we had reached Peso de Régua, we decided to take up one of Maria from Camping Vila Chá’s suggestions and visit the Palácio de Mateus and quinta at Vila Real, once the home of the (in)famous Mateus Rosé and now a producer of some repute – and housed in an amazing 18C building, apparently worthy of a visit in its own right.

We arrived in Vila Real in sunshine (at last!) and after a very pleasant night at the municipal campsite (€15) itself adjacent to a large and pretty impressive outdoor pool, we set off for the Palácio Mateus – just a few kilometres away.

The sun of the previous evening had given way to a return of dull weather, a real shame, as the magnificent Palácio with its impressive Gothic exterior would have looked much more photogenic than these pics show.

 

 

The entry price of €11 each started to look a bit steep by the time we learned that no photographs at all could be taken of the sumptuous interior (even without flash) and that the wine tasting would cost another €1.50 each – so we shared a tasting (brilliant rosé – Alvarelhão– not at all like those round Mateus Rosé bottles/candle holders some of us can remember from the 70s!) but we weren’t taken by the red or white, and so left with just one bottle of Alvarelhão rosé and some bonus pictures of the large and well manicured French influenced ‘fantasy’ gardens. Of course the quirky collection of Vatican endorsed ‘authentic’ relics went some way to compensate, but if only we’d found those saintly eyeballs the Palácio was once famous for, perhaps we’d have felt we’d had better value for money…

It’s an odd venue this – not well signposted, no carpark big enough to get a campervan in (we parked nearby with the coaches and walked), an informative presentation in English (and other languages) by staff that could have been students waiting to be told to get into their corporate uniform but someone had forgotten to tell them (OK, we were spoiled by the slick tour at Ramos Pinto in Porto), and nowhere to have lunch that we were by now so hungry for. So we thought we were pleased to see a café/restaurant opposite – especially when they said they could do a ‘Bifana’ which we had enjoyed in Saõ Martinho not so long ago. However, the lacklustre vibe of the Palácio was replaced by a ‘sting the tourist’ one here, and our memory of a great value, freshly cooked bit of pork in a fresh roll, and an enthusiastic explanation of the need to add mayo and piri-piri sauce to have an authentic Portuguese experience, was sadly replaced by bit of re-heated pork in a chewy roll and having to ask for the sauces – and at twice the price.

And so, with the dull weather adding to our darkening mood, we cut our losses and hit the road for Spain. We’ve mentioned already the pain that non-motorway driving in Portugal can be, and the final leg was no different, with ambiguous (or totally absent) signage adding frustratingly to the journey time once we had run out of the detail on the Google map tile.

By the time we crossed the border at the charmingly named Feces de Abaixo and were within minutes on a fast, well maintained and free double carriageway to Vigo, the sense of relief was palpable. Although we’ve really enjoyed bits of our time in Portugal, we’d made a rod for our own backs by not signing up for the motorway network and we’d probably not do ‘just the back roads’ approach again! And to add to our sense of relief, as we sped through the beautiful Galician countryside towards the coast, the sun came out as if to give us a special welcome home!

With smiles all round and a hankering for a new adventure in a part of Spain that we’ve never visited together, we set our sights on a coastal campsite on one of Galicia’s famous west coast Rías (think Norwegian fjords meet Cornwall) with nothing more specific planned than, ‘let’s see what it’s like and how the weather goes…’

And so we arrived, late on a Friday night at Camping Paxeriñas on the western tip of the Ría Pontevedra…

S.

Vila Chã and Porto

Using our trusty google maps tile method, we successfully navigated our way from Coimbra to Vila Chã, a small hamlet on the coast north of Porto, to a campsite of the same name which was to be our home for a couple of days whilst we visited Porto.  The afternoon was sunny and we arrived to an equally beaming welcome from the lovely Maria, who runs the front office there.  Following Mr B’s valiant attempts at Portuguese with a hint of Spanish – much appreciated by Maria (and I can understand why having just watched her deal patiently with a rude and impatient non-Portuguese speaker, with what turned out to be her characteristic patience and good humour), we were shown to a super shaded pitch in amongst the weekenders and away from the camper park at the far end of the site, meaning we had our own little oasis away from the crowds – special treatment I reckon J

The coastline is lovely here, a mix of sand and rocky coves with beautiful clear seas, backed by a wooden boardwalk to both protect the dunes and for walking and cycling along.  We were told we could buy fresh fish from the beach here too, as well as enjoy the daily catch at the restaurants dotted along between here and Mindelo, from where the metro runs in to Porto.

The next day dawned a little damp and we decided to have a ‘van day’ as we’d been on the move quite a bit, the laundry had piled up and we needed a general sort out.

Day two was no better but the forecast gave us some hope of sunny spells so we hopped in a taxi to the station (‘optimistically dressed’ according to our German neighbours, since we wore sandals with our waterproof jackets!) 

The trip to Porto was easy, apart from wrestling with the automatic ticket machine – even the station security guard looked resigned to the inefficiency of a machine that would take neither notes nor debit cards and sent us off to the station café to get €10.40 worth of small change for our tickets!

Titlulos purchased (1 titulo = 1 journey) we made the easy transit by metro into Porto, helped by Maria’s map and route suggestions once we arrived, making our way through the city towards the Ponte de Dom Luis I or ‘Eiffel bridge’ as it’s known, designed by a student of Gustave Eiffel, stopping off en route at the São Bento train station with its amazing tiling. 

The bridge itself is pretty impressive, although as we arrived gusts of wind and a sudden downpour made the crossing a little less picturesque than we’d imagined! 

Once on the far side, Vila Nova de Gaia, we watched as the cable cars travelled down to the various port lodges but since there looked to be a hint of sunshine, decided to walk down and around to the riverfront for a spot of lunch, admiring the old boats moored up outside, once used for the transport of barrels of port.   

Note the classy graffiti en route . . .

Replete from a delicious lunch (a great value prato do dia) and with slightly fuzzy edges from some nice wine, we headed off to one of the port lodges, Ramos Pinto, for a port tour, and tasting.  This was another Maria recommendation, and an excellent one too. Ramos Pinto is one of the oldest port houses along here and was Portuguese run until relatively recently, when it was bought by the Cristal champagne company, who opened up the inside of the building and old offices (which were used up until the 1970s) to the public.  It is absolutely beautiful inside (sadly, no photos of the interior or old offices, which were fascinating and contained some very racy tiles and artwork – think wine, women and bacchanalian pursuits!).  Our guide, Monica, was brilliant and very informative about both the history and making of port and we were allowed a photograph in the port stores.

Tour over we were treated to tastings of white and tawny ports, both delicious with the white a clear winner for us.

The remainder of the day (even fuzzier now from the generous tasting!) was spent meandering around this amazing city with its beautiful buildings . . .

. .  and finishing in the rather fabulous Majestic Café, where we took our afternoon tea with pasteles con nata – we have eaten far too may of these this holiday!

Tomorrow we’ll be heading along the Douro valley in search of a Quinta and maybe some lunch.

J.

Note on new posts!

We've just uploaded four entries in a go as we've struggled to get good wifi recently - the one from Julie about Buddha Eden is the starting point if you want to maintain continuity!

We're both pretty gutted and embarrassed about being British today - most of the other Europeans we've spoken to are bemused at best - what have those who voted to leave done?!

S&J :(

Coimbra

The trip to the famous university city of Coimbra was a short hop and we soon found ourselves in the municipal camping on the outskirts. Although not in our ACSI guide it did offer a 10% ACSI discount, which we gratefully accepted. Still opting to manage without mains hook-up, Parque Campsimo Coimbra cost us €15 a night – bargain, considering it had a bar/restaurant, free wifi, small shop, pool and gym – plus, a bus stop right outside the front gate to enable us to get into the old historic part of the city.

Campervans were just left to sort themselves out here – no demarcated pitches and as we arrived late on a Saturday evening, we were fortunate to find a place to squeeze in!

We caught the bus the next morning and entered the old historic centre via the Almedina gate – the proper start of the tourist route!

This lets on to a steep climb up to the centre of the old city, and as we puffed our way uphill we were serenaded by the sounds of Fado (apparently Coimbra is the birthplace of a particular style of Fado) from a nearby music store – and university students selling postcards to raise money for their end of year celebrations. We bought some off these two – as much in admiration that the student body is still content to wear the formal black gown (in the stifling heat in the city) as well as help fund the end of year bash!

Coimbra is stuffed with historical things to see (unsurprising given it was once Portugal’s mediaeval capital and built on Roman and Moorish settlements!) so we started at the Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro, which not only offers a well thought out and staged route across the millennia, starting with some amazing Roman ruins, but has fabulous views across the city and a good restaurant. The Roman cryptoporticos are in amazing condition and although partly restored, are very evocative of the scale of the original forum that would have been above them – helped no doubt by the clever lighting.

The rest of the museum is dedicated to a combination of sculptures, religious paintings and relics and a small oriental collection of artefacts. Suffice to say, that by the time we had looked around the roman cryptoporticos and later sculptures (including these amazing clay figures of the 12 disciples, restored from thousands of fragments) we were ready for a break and some lunch – with an amazing view of the city!

After lunch (which included some slabs of leitaõ – suckling pig – that I’d been after for a while – yum!) we finished off the rest of the museum, (not all of it as digestible as lunch!) before heading off to admire the ‘big’ items in the historic centre – the ‘old’ university and the two cathedrals. I can’t help but see these immense places of worship in the same way as I look at Greek or Roman temples – struck by the power of those that commissioned them and are often formally remembered, and the huge scale of labour required to build them – by the largely un-remembered.

The ‘old’ university was the much more impressive building for me – spread out as it is over a number of faculty buildings. The outside of the fabulously named ‘faculty of letters’ was fronted by a row of men (of course) of letters…

The winner though in scale and wow factor was the Patio des Escolas, set around three sides of an enormous square, itself overlooking the city. We were intending on visiting the amazing library here, but were put off by the large number of group tours lining up behind various flags and brollies…

After a walk back down the hill the old city is set on, we chanced across a craft market adjacent to the river Mondego. Packed with stalls from a range of small towns and villages in the Coimbra municipality, this particular one made me think of the UK advert for a Yorkshire based internet provider…

Had we left and caught the bus back then, we would have been spared the disappointment of the botanical gardens. They may have been impressive once, but after a very hot, indirect (and so a little testy!) route to find them, their charm had faded and much of what we saw was weed covered, closed, or given over to an aerial adventure high wire park, and we left wondering whether the steep climb back up the hill had been worth it. Still, we did get to see this example of a ‘república’ (student house) – the first one we’d seen not covered in graffiti – something Coimbra is apparently famed for but, having seen the quality of street art in Sesimbra, what we saw here looked a bit like the uninspiring urban scrawl gracing many a British street.

Being a Sunday, the bus service was limited, and we were very lucky to get the last bus back to the campsite the other side of the city. This gave us an unexpected insight to the rest of the city as the inbound 20 minute ride into the old centre was replaced by a 50 minute trip round a variety of housing estates and shopping malls. Still, it did give the visit a more authentic feel – a bit like visiting Oxford from a short distance outside, only to return via Blackbird Leys!

Next stop – more culture in Porto!

S

Conímbriga

Having decided to skip the famous Roman ruins at Mérida in Spain, (so we could spend more time in Portugal), I was really looking forward to a visit to what is described (at least in our guidebook) as Portugal’s most extensive and impressive remains from this period. The journey through the forest areas along the coast (and past one of our favourite surf spots with the kids all those years ago, Saõ Pedro de Moel) was really beautiful, with very little traffic and the wonderful smell of pine and eucalyptus. It may be taking us longer to get to places by taking these back roads, but the sights along the way are usually well worth it!

And so, after an interesting drive with the now expected cunning absence of signposts that led us at one point down a dead end and into a woodyard, we arrived at the small town of Condeixa a Velha, where the ruins were located.

Perhaps having seen so many impressive Roman/Greek ruins in Italy and Sicily last year, I should have thought about re-calibrating my expectations. OK, it’s a bit unfair and not comparing like with like, but the Portuguese clearly share a lot in common with the British, including mediaeval re-use of building materials taken from Roman towns and cities! So instead of massive colonnaded temples and enormous amphitheatres, Conímbriga delivered mainly low level outlines of buildings, some impressive mosaic floors, some enthusiastic ‘reconstructed’ fountains and, in scale at least, the impressive and intriguing ‘imperial wall’ that was thrown up in the 3^rd century AD to ward off invading Suevi, and in so doing dividing the town into two.

It’s worth visiting the on-site museum first, as it’s then a lot easier to appreciate what it is you are actually looking at when wandering around the ruins. The displays are in Portuguese and English, and quite cleverly use illustrations of real-life activities with the display items highlighted in use – so, for example, a blacksmith’s hammer is shown in an illustration of a smith using one on an anvil.

It’s a poignant visit, as the scale of the fear that led the inhabitants to throw up such a dramatic defence as a wall dividing the city in two is self evident – and which ultimately proved fruitless, as Coníbriga eventually fell to the Suevi with its inhabitants fleeing to what is now Coimbra.

The mosaics apparently show how settled and successful the town was, with many large and once sumptuous villas all around. This one was one of the more extensive…

…and this, one where more elaborate mosaics had been used…

The low level nature of most of the ruins is captured in this pic, which shows the ruins of a large villa and its once underground connecting archways…

There’s not much left of the amphitheatre either, but the wooden benches help recreate some of what it must have looked like…

The reconstructed fountains of a large villa (where some of the best mosaics are also housed) have the added bonus of a machine that sets the water spouting for 50c – which of course I just had to see in action…

The best part of the site for me though, was the large imperial wall – seen here with the remains of the town’s aqueduct. This impressed me as much for its scale, as the poignancy of the reasons for its construction and ultimate failure…

So, after a very informative couple of hours and a refreshing cuppa back at the van, we headed off to find our campsite on the outskirts of Coimbra. This was another venture into a non-ACSI municipal site and our first in a city, so we were filled with anticipation and curiosity as we set off…

S.

Saõ Martinho do Porto – and a different take on camping!

After the success of our discovery of a ‘proper’ Portuguese campsite at Camping Galé north of Sines i.e. not dominated by northern Europeans like us relying on what we have come to recognise as ‘ACSI comfort’!) we decided to do a bit of old-school exploration by reading the topography of the coast and looking for a beach-side campsite. And so we decided to give what looked like a perfect horseshoe-shaped cove at Saõ Martinho do Porto a go (north of the famous surf beaches of Peniche).

As we drove through the small town that stretched out along one end of the cove, it was clear that we had hit fiesta time, with a stage, loads of stalls and overhead street lights being set up. With mounting excitement, we continued along the beach, spotting loads of campervans in the distance at the other end of the cove – was this the campsite, or a bunch of free campers? In a couple of minutes all was revealed – the municipal site (Baía Azul) looked on first impressions like a combined refugee camp and traveller park, with masses of near identical plastic tented areas set up in rows, augmented by an assorted range of white vans and caravans parked in the car park area at the front, with washing strung between the lampposts. So we drove past and explored the row of campervans at the other end of the beach. Sure enough, this was where free camping happened and seemed to be tolerated even though it was only 500m or so from the campsite.

Deciding that we fancied giving the municipal site a more thorough look over, we walked back and asked for the rates and to look around. Our first impressions were soon overcome and although the site was indeed ‘varied’ in its appearance, there was a large grassed area where we could camp up with a view of the cove, a short walk to the beach, and good enough facilities – all for €11 plus €1 each for a hot shower (strangely, set to 10 minutes – more than enough!). The rows of plastic tents turned out to be generally well tended weekend homes for local Portuguese, and the ‘traveller camp’ at the front of the site, nothing more than a group of labourers from the nearby roadworks!

And so we found ourselves amongst an eclectic arrangement of campervans that included a very tasty 4x4 French overlander…

…with a Portuguese camper that had been on-site for a good while and had been converted into a more permanent home!

As the national holiday weekend arrived (Portugal Day on the Friday), so did many of the inhabitants of the ‘tent city’, giving the site a busy and more family oriented feeling. We never did quite figure out what had happened to the tent on the corner in this pic though – no sign of its inhabitants!

The cove itself delivered on our hopes of calm seas and a nearby sandy beach, with enough wind for one of our fellow campers to get out on his windsurfer, catching the small swells that rolled in from the Atlantic. (Any dog owners amongst you considering Portugal, note the new ‘no dogs’ on the beach sign – apparently, a new law passed into effect his year and catching out lots of peeps.)

As the sun set and we prepared for a trip into town to enjoy the fiesta, the wind picked up – and kept blowing through the night and the next day – a bit of a recurrent theme for this trip!

As the wind increased and the sound of English language cover versions of all your favourite cheesy songs drifted in on the wind from the town, we decided to skip the fiesta and explore the town the next day.

We discovered that Saõ Martinho has been a holiday destination for quite some time, with the small fishing village giving way to tourists as long ago as the early 1900s. And, at this time of year particularly, it’s very much a Portuguese destination. Unfortunately, the lovely but now derelict central park hotel has been replaced by modern low-rise developments – but still low key, with over ¾ of the beach still backing onto undeveloped dunes.

As we wandered further south along the beach, we stopped for lunch at a small bar/café overlooking the cove, offering the ever popular ‘caracois’ (snails – in various sizes and colours) and – a first for us – the equally popular ‘bifana’ – a flash-fried bit of marinated pork, covered in mustard/mayo and piri-piri sauce in a bread roll (yum!). With two of those, a Sagres beer and Portuguese sangria coming to €8, what’s not to love about eating out in Portugal!

Having spotted the free campers the day before, we thought we’d explore further to the other end of the cove. Here we found even more campervans, a municipal swimming pool, an unopened aire for camping cars, and a picturesque estuary that seemed to be as popular as the other end of the bay!

After a relaxing couple of days, we decided we were ready to gird our loins for more culture and an inland visit – this time to Coimbra with its famous university, and the nearby Roman ruins of Conímbriga. As we drove off the site we reflected on what a pleasant stay we’d had – OK the site looked a bit odd, but it had a great vibe and was a great example of not letting first appearances put us off – and of seeking out places that many Portuguese go to on holiday!

S.