The weather, stray dogs and more kite flying

So to be truly British its about time for a weather based blog! Yesterday in Coimbra we awoke to a temperature of just 1 degree, this morning it was 14 and the walk to the unheated shower block seemed a lot more appealing (I chickened out yesterday!) The last few days have been more like an English spring than anything else, glorious sunshine and heavy showers, and its quite strange to think its only 4 days to Christmas.

Tonight we are in St Pedro de Moel on a brilliantly cheap campsite on the coast. We have spent the day wondering along the beach and flying Chris's big kite. The wind was so strong I was almost pulled off my feet a couple of times and found myself running along the beach to avoid falling over several times, great fun though.

Since my last entry we have spent a couple of days in Luso, and had an interesting walk around the Mata Nacional do Buçaco, a large forest laid out by monks in the 17th century, its a beautiful if somewhat neglected spot, full of lovely old trees, hermitages and chapels. The only slight draw back to the area was the number of stray dogs on the streets around town. Of all the countries we have been on this trip, Portugal has by far and away the worst problem with stray dogs, and I have to admit it makes me feel very uncomfortable. Not being a huge fan of dogs anyway barking mangy creatures on the streets do not help me form a good impression of a place!

From Luso we went on to Coimbra, where we spent a fun day Christmas shopping. It seemed a lot less manic than I remember the Saturdays before xmas at home being and was actually quite enjoyable! I am now having to guard my cupboards to stop Chris trying to find his presents, its a lot more difficult to hide things in a campervan!

Tomorrow we more on to Salir do Porto and a week of living in a house. We are both looking forward to a few creature comforts (a bath and plumbed in water!), but its going to be quite weird not being in the van.

pictures

The Beach Bar Blog

The title says it all. Portugal has been glorious so far! We spent
yesterday kite flying on the beach and today I have been having a gentle
stroll along the beach, followed by a sit and a catch up on emails while
looking out across the sea. It is lovely but also slightly strange, they
are playing "have yourself a merry little Christmas" in the bar!

We have mains power today in the van so am back to typing, easier on the
eye for all of you. I promised some pictures last time so have attached a
few pictures in the next entry. One of me on the beach yesterday and a
couple of Aviero on Saturday.

I am starting to get quite excited about xmas and have been shopping today
for xmas bits to jolly up the holiday. cottage. We have hired a house on
the coast north of Lisbon and are being joined by the family for a week
which should be great fun. We have had a fun few evenings leafing through
recipe books and now have a very comprehensive shopping list (with
quantities in kgs!!) for lots of yummy food for the week.

Tomorrow we move on towards Coimbra for a bit more site seeing. Our first
stop hopefully at the national forest with some 700 types of tree!! More on
all that next time. I have run out of coffee so time to sign off, head back
to the van and cook some dinner.

Pen & Paper

bodegas and battlefields

Looking back at my last entry it seems that I have been neglecting the blog
sadly the past few weeks. Its difficult to know where to start as we have
travelled a long way and have seen so much since I last wrote.

Tonight we are in Burgos in Spain having spent a lovely day wandering the
Rioja region and visiting some fantastic bodegas, one designed by Calatrava
(picture, building in vines ) and the other by Gehry (picture). They were
both amazing buildings in their own way but I have to admit to preferring
the one by Calatrava, the building and its setting were stunning. Infact
our sojourn in Spain so far has had a very architectural bias, our first
stop being in Zaragosa, where we visited last years expo site, in
particular to see a bridge by Zaha Hadid. My pictures make the bridge look
stunning, and in reality it is very impressive,but I was somewhat
disappointed by the finishes which are not weathering well. I guess the
budget was pretty tight! Zaragosa itself is a great town, with some
wonderful old cathedrals and Mudejar (moorish) architecture, and the added
bonus of some really great cafes and bars!

From Zaragosa we took a day trip to the nearby town of Belchite. Words just
can't describe this town, it was one of the most sombering places I have
ever been. It is in essence two towns, the old town was so badly bombed by
Franco's armies in the civil war that the residents abandoned the town and
rebuilt next door. Today you can walk through the old town gate, and
though the crumbling ruins of the streets, town squares, churches,
convents and public buildings, some little more than piles of bricks. As we
entered music from the new town church drifted across on the wind adding to
the eery impression. Seeing the decimation of a town on this scale really
brought home to us the destructive nature of war, which no pictures can
prepare you for.

On a far lighter note our last week in France was great fun, it was still
warm enough to paddle in the sea! and we were also lucky enough to see a
whole load of A380 parts in transit near Toulouse, being sad engineery folk
this was really cool!

We plan to stay in Burgos for two or three days before heading further west
towards Portugal. Hopefully I will manage to update this again a bit sooner
next time, it should be easier now we have new van batteries and I can
charge my blogger!