5th - 11th March 2018
Monday
Brenda and Dave’s final day and guess what? It’s still Raining!
Sue and I have been coming to the Iberian Peninsular since 1995 thats 23years and since 2011 (ignoring winter 2012/13) have been spending the winter months here, so you would think we would remember that restaurants on the Iberian Peninsular close Mondays so when we went out for lunch all the places we fancied were very firmly closed.
We were forced to leg it to the nearest supermarket and buy some lamb which Sue turned into a delicious dinner, oh well, at least as (permanent) designated driver I was able to enjoy a glass or two of wine with it.
Tuesday
It was still raining when we ran Brenda and Dave back to the airport and waved goodbye but by the time we got back to the house it had stopped, hurahhhhhhhhhh
Wednesday - Sunday
It stayed dry until we had cleared our kit from the house and started back to the caravan when the rain started again and continued raining the rest of the week while we stayed in the caravan and kept dry.
12th - 18th March 2018
Monday
Its moving day, not a big move just 71 kilometres to the north, to Camping Tamanco. This was, despite the continuing bad weather, a very pleasant site in an area that although visited in 2011 we had not explored extensively.
Tuesday
The town of Outeiro de Lourical is small but the nearest of any significant size to the campsite and we went there today to see the blue picture tiles in the church of Igreja do Convento do Louriçal. It seems we were poking around not in the church entrance as we thought but the convent entrance when a young woman approached us to explain where the entrance to the church was and offered to give us a tour of the convent museum, which is private and not normally open to the public. We had a very interesting tour in some private parts of the convent, sadly we were able to take photos only in the public areas.
The church of Igreja do Convento do Louriçal
Wednesday
Rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain.
We went out for a drive today looking for Fraga da Pena waterfall that had been recommended thinking that with all the rain it should be looking good and when we reached the car park the rain had stopped. Just as well as the information board showed the waterfall to be at the end of a 2.6 km (1.6 ml) “moderate” walk. We set off but before we had got very far the rain started again and the wind picked up just enough to prevent use of brollies. By the time we had got some way I was soaked through, my waterproof wasn’t, and I was frozen cold and very grumpy. My grumpiness was not helped by a car that drove passed us seemingly going to the waterfall.
That was it, I’d had enough I was going back. Sue wanted to continue so I said I would bring the car as far as I could to pick her up and trudged back. Getting to the car I stripped off my wet jacket and started back the way I had just walked. The road/track ended in a small open area into which you could just get two cars, I parked and wandered off to find Sue. If the path to the waterfall was, as the info board indicated, “moderate” I hate to think how hard a path rated “difficult” would be, Sue had managed to get within 300 metres of the falls before accepting that she could go no further on her own, when I caught up with her we continued and managed to get within 100 metres of the still unseen waterfall before we decided that we were beat - twenty, well thirty years ago we would have made it.
Thursday
Between showers and bouts of torrential rain we visited the nearest beach Praia Osso da Baleia, today, at the end of a long straight narrow road it is, other than toilets and a small cafe, totally un-commercialised. Nothing but a boardwalk over the dunes and miles of golden beach.
On our arrival back at the site we saw that Brits Vicky and Brian, a couple we had met last November at Haro, had arrived on the site. They had spent the winter at Tourist Campo, a site well loved by snowbirds of many nationalities, and had enjoyed it. We however walked round that site in 2011 and decided we would not stay then or any other time. It is a well run site with a popular restaurant and bar and good reasonable sized pitches, however many return to the same pitch year after year and we found it (even in the short time we were there) very “clicky”. Brian agreed with this assessment and said they would not stay that length of time at one site again, but they are young - early retired - and still organising trips like walking the Spanish St James Way a 800 km (500 ml) “stroll” through Spain starting around 9th April and later this summer a bicycle ride following the 1200 km (750 ml) River Rhine from Lake Constance to Rotterdam, good luck to them. You must do it while you can.
Friday
Rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain.
As well as providing complimentary coffee each morning the camp site have been advertising a “soup night” tonight so we toddled to the site restaurant along with everyone else, customers and staff alike, to eat a delicious home made vegetable soup with fresh crusty bread, as much as you wanted and all for the princely sum of absolutely nothing. What better way to get to know everyone on the site and learn about whats on offer locally.
Saturday
Golly gosh hooks, a dryish day, we were forced to spend it doing washing not very exciting but we were virtually out of clean clothes.
Sunday
Rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain.
19th - 25th March
Monday
Rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain.
Tuesday
Its not raining, wonders will never cease.
Told that the nearby town of Leiria has a good market every Tuesday we toddled off there but were very disappointed. It was as promised it was huge but virtually all large non food stalls just a couple of fruit and veg stalls and absolutely no farmer/smallholder stalls. The disappointment continued when we tried to stop to visit the Leiria castle. There was simply nowhere to park, a situation almost unheard of in Portugal.
Feeling rather flat after two disappointments we drove to Figueira da Foz where we wanted to see the Casa do Paço House. An historic building built in the 17th century by D. João Melo, a Coimbra Diocese Bishop, its facade and tower look to the river but its the interior we had come to see, and first we had to find it. Despite having co-ordinates in the sat nav we drove up and down, up and down trying to find it. We parked and walked up and down with an equal lack of success. With local help we eventually found the entrance in a back street (the ground floor at the front was a row of shops), with a large sign that declared it to be open from 10.00 am till 5.00pm. We approached the door, locked, being a little after 2.00pm we assumed it was lunchtime and looking around for confirmation found a small notice that said please ring bell. We did, it was opened by a young lady who invited us in and took a fee of €1.20 each then asked us to wait while she fetched someone who spoke better English than she. A few minutes later a young man appeared introduced himself as Aleixo and proceeded to treat us to a guided tour of the building interior which contains an excellent collection of Delft tiles, dating from the end of the 17th century. The tiles represent landscape, religious motifs, kings, queens and knights. Alexio was able to identify and tell a brief life story of a good number of each. The history of the tiles is shrouded in mystery but thought to have been recovered from a Dutch merchant ship that sank in the area during a storm. Equally fascinating was Alexio’s lecture on Portuguese picture tiles and where to see them, but how can a guided tour and lecture for just the two of us and lasting over an hour cost the total sum of just €2.80?
Casa do Paço House
Wednesday
Rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain.
We had intended to move on today but the weather tomorrow is forecast to be better so we will go then
Thursday
Moving day. Well that was the theory! we packed everything into its travel place, motor moved the caravan on to the road hitched it to the car plugged in the lights at which point the AlKo ATC, the caravan anti-snake device went through a self test and instead of the LED turning from red to green it stayed red. Its a long time since I’ve read the units owner manual but as far as I could remember if the LED stayed red you should not move the van and get it seen to by an engineer.
Caravan shops are few and far between in Portugal but as luck would have it there was one just 5 km (5 ml) away and explaining the problem the proprietor promised an engineer would visit site around 5.00 pm.
The engineer duly arrived but sadly had never even heard of an AlKo ATC let alone know its purpose and in trying to explain I went onto the AlKo site and started reading the manual description to him. As we got further into the manual it said the van should not be towed with a FLASHING red, a steady red simply meant that the computer error memory was full and the unit disabled. It further stated that the situation was “easily remedied” by plugging into the car for a period of twelve hours. Oh great!! we plugged it in planning to leave on the morrow.
Friday
Twelve hours later - still the same red light. I phoned Steve (our UK engineer) who said it was never that easy to clear it and suggested we leave it until we got back and as he had all the AlKo diagnostic software he would check it, clear the memory and get everything working again. His only suggestion was that we did not tow with it active but unplugged its power cable located centrally under the caravan above the front axle.
Even with the front of the van jacked up as far as possible there was no way I was going to get underneath. Fortunately there was a very thin young man working on the site who was able, just, to slide underneath and unplugged the unit for me.
As tonight was free soup night we decided to postpone our move till Monday.
Saturday
Another day sitting in the van reading and waiting for the rain to stop.
Sunday
It is not raining, well not much anyway so we have gone to the local village market. We were not expecting much as it is a small town and, like in the UK, Sunday markets here tend to be flea markets, people pretending the junk on their stall is really valuable bygones. We were to be pleasantly surprised the market seemed to cover every street in the town with stalls selling everything from brand new tractors (I kid you not there was a tractor stall) to local homemade cheese, bread, smoked meats and all stations in between. Quite simply the best market we have been to in a very long time.