Monday September 24, Foz Do Arelho

Pigeons enjoying a bath in the ornate waterbath at the monastery.

I have been raving about the toll roads in Portugal since we have been here but today we got caught out! We registered our credit card for the electronic systems that we pass through, but today we suddenly came across booths on the motorway. Thinking that with our registered credit card we could just follow the other cars driving through them. It wasn’t till a lot later when we came to some more booths, this time with a barrier up that we realised we had stuffed up. They were unmanned and the sign just said to insert the card…what card. Obviously we were meant to collect a card as we entered this stretch of motorway. Several cars were behind us but we could go nowhere. Finally pushed an intercom button and after some time a guy came on spoke to us in English and told us to put our ticket in…..I said we don’t have one! Oh well we have a big problem he said. Then up flashed the standard penalty fee we had to pay….€54. Couldn’t believe it, but we had no alternative. Put my credit card in to pay it but the machine didn’t want a foreign card. Luckily there was a cash option so I fed three €20 notes into it, it gave me the change then opened the barrier. Later as we stopped for lunch I did some research online and discovered that these are a different motorway and unless you have a vignette you need to collect a ticket. Thank goodness I checked it out as later on we hit another of these motorways, spotted the line up of booths and detected the correct one to manually collect a ticket, and it was a breeze to exit by inserting the ticket and paying the fee. I am still feeling “gutted”, but guess we won’t make that mistake again. I can now understand why tourists complain about the motorway system in Portugal!!

Apart from that we have had a great day. After the high temperatures over the past few days we decided to leave the inland area for the coast where the temperatures were in the low 20’s. Found this good spot on a small harbour just inland from the coast that was only €6 a night, perfect. 

We were going to be driving near Batalha where our friend Cliff had told us about a fabulous Monastery that has Unesco World Heritage status. Seemed to good an opportunity to miss. And what a great tip, driving in the monastery could be seen for quite a distance, and is magnificent. In 1385 King Joao won a major battle and promised to built the Monastery to thank the Virgin Mary for the Portuguese victory over the Castalians.

It took more than a century, 7 kings and 15 master architects before work finally stopped with one chapel not finished, the ceiling remains missing. This has to be one of the most amazing buildings we have seen, the filigree stone work that decorate the building had me with my mouth open…even Ian was impressed!!!

Surprisingly there were very few tourists, it was a pleasure to wander around the chapels and the two cloisters and try and take it all in, which was really difficult, there was just so much to see. It was 36 degrees when we finally left, cranked up the aircon for the hour drive to the coast. The camp is in a great location, we are parked just metres from the estuary with the coast not far away. Lots of motorhomes here and people are sitting out enjoying the sun and a number of people are fishing. One guy caught an octopus which he seemed pretty happy about! So nice tonight to feel pleasantly cool.

The monastery and lots of photos!

Photo bombed again!

The detail at the entrance to the unfinished chapel
was stunning.

Sunset at the estuary.