Author: taraabit

Thursday 17th April 2025.

Well we have finally arrived at The Algarve, Portugal’s southern coast. The aire we are staying on is large and quite basic but only 5 euros per night. We are going to hunker down here for a few nights as it’s Easter weekend and as you can imagine in a devoutly Roman Catholic country it is a popular holiday weekend and fetes and processions are planned. We don’t have the experience to know if we would have trouble getting onto an aire at this time so rather than risk it we have exercised caution and planned to stay here for a few nights and the site has gradually been filling up all afternoon.

We had decided to fill up with LPG as we wouldn’t be using any electricity for the next few days, 2 filling stations were on our map one of which , the closest was in Spain. So Michelle and I drove across a long bridge “Ponte Internacional deGuardiana” drove for a few miles in Spain only to find the fuel station closed. We were able to warn Peter and Alison to prevent them having a wasted journey and we headed back into Portugal to the LPG station there which thankfully was open.

We aren’t parked on the front row with its panoramic views of the River Guadiana but we can from the second row see glimpses of it and boats going past.

Vila Real de Santo Antonio is a traditional Portuguese fishing town, initially constructed in 1774 to resettle plague-ravished fishermen from Aveiro. It was built in 2 years with architecture resembling that found in Lisbon.

We walked alongside the river for a short way, to the marina.

The town is a marked contrast to the area where we are staying, it looks modern. there is a traffic free shopping street and in the sunshine it was a pleasant experience to ramble around ( and we didn’t spend anything.)

Wednesday 16th April 2025.

Today started out quite badly, we had only been driving a few minutes on one of the poor condition local roads when a van driving towards us moved close to the middle white line to avoid potholes and wiped out our wing mirror. Sadly it was an English van ! I’ve effected a temporary repair with lots of tape and we will try and purchase a new Peugeot mirror on our travels.

We stopped on route at Mertola wandered up to the castle and then walked around the small town which didn’t take long.

We scoured the town looking for a mirror of any sort that I could temporarily attach to Homer for now, eventually Michelle found, what is quite common in Spain and possibly Portugal a “Chinese” shop that are always like an Aladdin’s cave, yes I know that wasn’t Chinese, but she did manage to find a mirror which I’ve used.

We didn’t feel much like doing more sight seeing so we drove on to tonight’s stopover which is in the middle of nowhere.

Tuesday 15th April 2025.

Tonight we are on a largish aire on the edge of the above village where GULP we are having to pay to stay, all of 7 euros, such a shock as it is the first time for 10 nights it’s cost us anything for accommodation.

This small village has had a copper mine that was mined on a small scale for centuries but in 1859 an English company took out a 50 year lease on it and began to mine commercially even building a railway line to the nearby river to ease the export of copper. The mine continued production until the end of WW1.

Now much of the open cast mining pits are flooded and provide leisure facilities.

We broke our journey today with a stop at Serpa.

As we turned off the main road to Serpa there was a market taking place in a field so of course we had to stop.

Serpa is famous for its creamy cheeses but sadly we didn’t see any.

Serpa is a peaceful agricultural hilltop town of lovely white houses huddled around an ancient castle.

Serpa is the centre of a district dedicated to choral singing and we have seen several of the sculptures like this one below.

The journey from Serpa to tonight’s stopover was the worst road we have driven since we commenced our journey, the surface was extremely poor and potholed, it wasn’t typical of our experiences on previous days. Also it began to rain heavily as we pulled up and that has continued on and off now for hours.

Monday 14th April 2025

Our day started today with a drive over bridges and causeways as we crossed the man made lake and we made an unscheduled stop at the town of Mourao where we visited its ancient castle.

There was very little written information about the castle on display but it didn’t take much imagination to picture how it once must have been a grandiose structure and have a strong defensive system.

From Mourao we drove to the dam at the end of the lake “Barragem de Alqueira” which is a magnificent structure used to produce hydro electricity before the water disperses as the Rio Guadiana.

Michelle had decided that we needed to attend to some domestic duties, mainly doing the laundry, so we headed to Moura where there was an Intermarche with laundry service.

THE CASE OF THE MISSING SOCK.

We parked 10m from the machines and loaded our laundry, after 10 minutes of trying to understand how to start the process we succeeded and sat and had lunch in Homer whilst it took care of itself.

Then the mystery began, how in a span of 10m there and 10m back could Michelle manage to lose one of my socks, it’s a regular occurrence at home but never before on a motorhome trip😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

After I overcame the shock and pulled myself together ,we drove to tonight’s free aire at Alqueva , a quiet village that appears to have some wealth judging by the infrastructure of its sports and leisure facilities.

On the outskirts of the village is a rather gruesome statue of what I assume is a local custom, boar hunting.

Sunday 13th April 2025.

We had intended staying two nights in Evora but after a long walk around we had seen everything we could without leaving Layla in the van, also where we were stopping didn’t have the facilities to let her have a run off the lead, she was banned from the local park because peacocks/hens roamed wild. So Alison and Peter kindly agreed to move on today and we drove a short distance to Monsaraz.

Monsaraz is a tiny medieval walled town perched above the River Guadiana on the frontier with Spain. It has had a turbulent history with ownership passing from Portugal, Spain, Knights Templar and for a while by the English troops of the Earl of Cambridge. The main street leads to the castle built in the 13th century as a border defence against Spain.

At some point after it had been abandoned the local people turned the garrison courtyard into a bull ring.

The village has narrow winding streets with the houses painted white, there are of course tourist shops most selling pottery.

Monsaraz is one of the most splendid places to view the wonderful Alqueva Dam. This is the largest artificial lake in Europe and one of the greatest Portuguese constructions. You can rent a houseboat and cruise the waters (no license required.)

Monsaraz is one of those jewels of a place where you could visit regularly, it’s only small but it would be easy for it to become familiar.

Saturday 12th April 2025.

The first aire we stopped at here looked a little unkempt so we moved on to a larger spot outside one of the main entrances to the city. We were sharing the huge parking area with a visiting circus.

We are parked next to a war memorial showing Portugals involvement in wars in places like Africa.

Evora is a city with Roman, medieval and 17th century architecture. In 1559 the Jesuits founded a university which flourished for 200 years until 1759 when the Jesuits were banished, it was later re opened and is now a flourishing university. It is a city popular with tourists and its religious dedication is reflected in the variety of churches, over 20 churches and monasteries including “ a grisly chapel of bones”.

SAO FRANCISCO.

The principal attraction of this 15th century church is its Capela dos Ossos a gruesome chapel of bones created in the 17th century from the remains of 5,ooo monks.

Sao Francisco Church.

We arrived back at Homer just as the Circus performance commenced and we were treated to 2 hours of performance music.

Friday 11 th April 2025.

It rained on and off for the whole of our journey today, we took another country road to avoid paying motorway tolls but it wasn’t as easy today to enjoy the scenery and not only did it rain but the temperature was 15 degrees less than it has been for the past 5 days.

We took a detour on our journey to have a look at Albufeiro da Barragem de Sabugal, trying saying that after a few drinks.The river was dammed to make a huge reservoir which is the main structure of a hydro agricultural project.

We stopped for lunch en route and by chance opposite us was a stone structure that had been built to capture a small spring coming from the hill above.

All around us, where we had parked, was a wonderful display of wild flowers .

From the reservoir we drove on to tonight’s aire near the River Tagus outside the town, it again is free but no electric hook up. We took a slow walk along the river enjoying the views.

There were allotments dotted along the river with a variety of fruit trees and vegetables, also as we walked further there were olive groves and orange orchards.

We followed a small stream along a boardwalk , that lead to a main road and the road back to the aire.

The area where we were was very scenic however the main town a few kilometres away was quite industrial with a huge factory making wood chip from eucalyptus trees harvested locally. Unfortunately the emissions from this factory didn’t smell too pleasant.

Thursday 10th April 2025

Almeida is another town built inside a star shaped fortification, we have seen quite a few now across Europe and they all follow the same design of numerous defences against attack, some have a moat all the way around.

It was only a few hundred metres from the aire to the fort and we set off in what has been another day of glorious sunshine. Inside the fortified walls is a normal town with residential buildings and a few commercial outlets, bars etc.

Of course it wouldn’t be normal if we didn’t include a refreshment photo.

Thursday 10th April 2023.

Although we arrived here yesterday afternoon we decided to leave it until this morning to explore the village having had a very peaceful night on the excellent aire.

It was only 100m to the village and as you will see from the photos we were able to walk around without sharing the village with others.

This ancient village is built high up on a hill and there is now a new town built on the flatland below.

Figueira de Castell Rodrigo.

At the summit of the hill is the ancient castle where it cost us the huge sum of 1 euro each to enter.

Many things have of course changed over the centuries.

It was obvious that the village was used to having tourists however as we walked around none of the cafes etc were open to enable us to contribute to the local economy, we did however spend a fair bit in the supermarket in Figueira.

We returned to Homer and had lunch before driving another 20 minutes to tonight’s stop.

Wednesday it’s April 2025.

Today was designed to be a day of driving and oh boy it didn’t disappoint. The sat nav tried to take us on a newly built dual carriageway but we managed to find the original country road and stayed on it for the whole 86 miles. As my friend Arthur would say it’s not a drive out if you don’t find a few peaks, narrow roads and hairpin bends and today he would have been a happy man.

The road had virtually no traffic on it or villages along the way, although we did drive through two small towns, we stopped at one, Mogadouro and went for a walk around the town. There wasn’t a great deal there but we walked up hill to the old ruined castle from where there were good views.

The scenery was magnificent, we drove through regions with the almond trees in blossom, there were olive groves, small areas of vines, terraced hill sides with fruit trees. Other areas were scrubland but covered in Broom plants covered in white flowers, there were poppies, large bushes of white flowers and other wild flowers that I didn’t recognise.

We weren’t far at any time from the Spanish border and our route was mainly along the River Douro, often dropping hundreds of feet down to it and then climbing up again to gain height. The photos we took couldn’t do the scenery justice and at times the skill to take a panoramic view would have been helpful.