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| A foggy start to the day |
Well some days on the road have their ups and downs, where
plans change. Woke this morning to thick fog blanketing the river, the bridge
disappearing into the haze. It was a leisurely start, chatted to the families
back home then once the sun came out we wandered into town to the bakery for
some fresh bread, and realised that I didn’t even know the Portuguese word for
thank you, somehow I didn’t think about a totally different language here, just
thought they would speak Spanish!
After a quick stop to empty our loo, we set Jilly to take us
to Porto. We don’t use toll roads when we are travelling and have the GPS set
to avoid them, so headed off on the lesser road down the coast which took us
through small town after small town. One thing that struck us was there were
many billboards, something we hadn’t seen in either Spain or France. And shops,
including supermarkets are open on Sundays. Drove through a large area of
market gardening with many roadside stalls selling their goods, and came across
another traditional market with crowds of people but didn’t stop this time.
The roads were really busy and when I looked on the GPS
realised that the route that Jilly had us to take us on non-toll roads into
Porto, which is a big city with an urban area population of over 2 million, meant
we were going to have to wind our way
through the suburbs. Not a very good idea. Found a place to pull over and googled
how to pay to use the toll roads, something we hadn’t thought about. Certainly
not easy for vehicles with foreign number plates especially as it is all
electronic and not toll booths. The best way seemed to be to use the Easy Toll
system where your credit card is associated with your number plate but the
nearest Easy Toll booth was just out of Viana do Castelo, where we had just
come from!!! Sat and had lunch and debated our options and decided to head back
and register. It was mid afternoon before we got back into town, and decided the
best option would be to take a breath and start again tomorrow. Found another camping spot on the other side
of the river to where we were last night, overlooking the port and near a
coastal beach. Sat down over a cuppa and relooked at the map and another change
of plan, decided that rather than going into Porto from the North we would head
inland to Braganca and come back into Porto through the Douro Valley, an area
we have heard was well worth visiting. Will register our vehicle in the morning
at the Easy Toll System before we go inland.
Walked down to the coast this evening along the board walks
and really impressed with the white sandy beach, a really beautiful spot. There
were a number of kite surfers enjoying the evening, and a many had foils and
were just gliding through the surf, they looked like they were dancing.
Impressive to watch….. as was the sunset!
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| Great architecture on this cafe on the beach. |
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| ...and lots of wind surfers |
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| The Basilica of Santa Luzia overlooking town. |
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| Views from our camping site |
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