Spain. Again.

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

We find our camp in Santiago pretty easily which is always good when you've been on holiday for over a hundred days! We settle in and find to our delight that there is free wifi in camp so we set to downloading (naughty, naughty) some episodes of Outrageous Fortune. Ryan heads off on a 20 minute walk to the nearest supermarket. Two hours later after getting a bit lost he returns. Seems the campground lady sent him on a wild goose chase, but on the way back from the supermarket he found the easy way back to camp. We have hot showers and crawl into bed early. We haven't headed far north from Portugal but there is a chilly nip in the wind that we are not used to after almost four months of hot summer weather!

The next morning is bitterly cold (remember this is relative to the high 20/early 30 temperatures we've been having!) so we wait for the day to warm up before heading into town. We head to the Santiago De Compostela Cathedral first, and think that all the people in their hiking gear are a little odd, until we remember that a lot of pilgrims walk to here from all over Europe. After a look through the church we head into the streets of the old town which is said to be the prettiest in all of Spain. It's alright, but we've seen better (no really we have - Ronda, Cordoba or Segovia for starters).

We come across the post office so head in to get some stamps for the small mountain of postcards that we've had building up. The lady serving us doesn't seem able to read our '37' that we write down for her to know how many stamps we want (she has no English and we have no Spanish!), but we eventually get it across. We show her the postcards, pointing to the country they are destined for - New Zealand. She tells us the stamps will be 61c which seems suspiciously cheap compared with other countries in Europe we've posted from. We say 'New Zealand, near Australia??' She doesn't quite understand, but does tell us that stamps to Australia are 78c. Hmm. We start to spell New Zealand on a piece of paper for her, but she waves it away and hands over our stamps. We ask in English if she is sure that the stamps are the right ones for postcards to New Zealand. She tells us in Spanish that they are stamps, that she thinks they will do and that she doesn't really care (our interpretation).

We head out into the street extremely uncertain where our postcards would end up if we put these stamps on and post them. A short way down the street we decide to head back and see if anyone else has any better English. We get lucky with a slight improvement in English and a great improvement in a willingness to listen and help. We explain our postcards are for New Zealand and that a woman just sold us 61c stamps. It turns out that we do need 78c stamps so we get a swap done by the same cross-eyed wench who sold us the wrong stamps. Just to be sure we check at the tourist office where they confirm that the 78c stamp is sufficient to get our postcards all the way to little old NZ. We gladly dump all 37 postcards into a post box.

To relax after the tricky stamp business we sit down in the sunshine and have a coffee and a Spanish hot chocolate that's heavy on the chocolate part (mmm so good!)

We have a bit of a mooch about the town, with Ryan admiring all the seafood on display at restaurants along the main street. We pass a couple of pintox bars, with all their tapas on offer lined up along the bar and take some snaps with a couple of cute statue ladies. Ryan has to pull me out of a chocolate shop selling the tasty stuff in all shapes and forms. After a couple of hours we've had enough so head back to camp. Ryan makes friends with the dog in camp that looks kind of like a lion. Maybe he's feeling guilty because last night a golden lab in camp owned by some other campers gobbled up the very un-eatable rind off our cheese out of our rubbish! He wolfed it down before we could do anything to stop him!

LOSING OUR FREEDOM-CAMPING VIRGINITY

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. From Santiago we had a long drive along the coast to Santander. In Santander we found two camps closed for the season. So we headed further along the coast to Loredo where three camps we could find were all closed. Out of ideas after our long drive we're unsure about whether to keep driving to San Sebastian or stop for the night. Stopping for the night wins, and we decide to follow the lead of three campers already parked up on the grass across from a pony club on the road to two of the campgrounds. Ryan heads up the street to find somewhere playing the F1 race while I stay with Betty.

One by one the campers around us leave until it is just us and a French campervan left. When Ryan returns from watching the race it's almost dark so we settle in for the night. We snuggle into bed when it gets dark and listen to every little sound. We're a little nervous, mainly about being asked to move on by the police as free camping isn't legal in Spain. Around 10pm we are joined by a third van. We spend a quiet night without being accosted by the police or anyone else and move on early in the morning.

THE POST-SUMMER SANDS OF SAN SEBASTIAN

From our little free camping spot we don't have far to go up the road to San Sebastian. Ruth directs us off the motorway to our campground. Soon we are questioning Ruth's choice of roads, as we are on one of the narrowest, one laned, crazy tracks, heading up, up and up away from the motorway. With no chances to turn around we press on, hoping we don't meet any locals coming the other way. Eventually the road tops the hill and broadens out and we find our campground.

We settle in and have showers and some breakfast before we catch a local bus into town. Once in town we hike up to the top of an observatory hill and take in the views of La Concha Bay below us, stretching wide across the beach. We walk back down and walk the length of the beach. We admire the hardiness of the old locals who are in the water swimming. Once I dip my toes in gingerly and beat a hasty retreat from the chilly waves my admiration for those swimming increases. It was not warm! At the other end of La Concha Bay we catch an old funicular up a ridiculously steep hill to another viewpoint. After finishing our day in town we head back to camp and watch some more Outrageous.

On our second day in San Seb we explore the streets of the old town and eventually find an elusive Christmas decoration. We continue our exploring and are taking pictures of a pretty square we happened across when an old lady taps us on the arm and beckons for us to follow her. We follow her across the square, not sure what's going on, is she offering to take our picture for us? No, she wants to show us something - its an old black and white picture of the square. Through our Spanish/English divide we manage to understand that the square has been used since ages ago for bullfighting. The apartments with balconies are used for viewing the fighting, with numbers still above each apartment balcony for spectators. She tells us that if you had a lot of money you would watch from the balconies. If you had only a little money then you had less advantageous seats. The old black and white photo was taken during a bullfight that Napoleon was watching.

We thank her and carry on our way, exploring the streets until we come across a little cafe serving chocolate and churros, which we haven't tried yet. We head in and order two servings. Our chocolate comes first as it's kept warm and viscous in a machine on top of the counter. This is not just chocolatey hot chocolate, its hot, melted, liquid chocolate. We sit sipping teaspoons of the stuff, giving ourselves chocolate moustaches and smiling chocolate filled smiles at one another and generally being very grown up while we wait for our churros. The lady indicates that they just need to cook first, which intrigues us, us being not exactly sure what churros even are! They come out soon enough, two piping hot platefuls. Turns out they're a type of donut, but much thinner and not quite round, more horseshoe shaped. They're hot and good and covered in sugar. We discover that you don't need much melted hot chocolate and hot sugary churros to fill you up and that we probably could have shared a serving! But then we wouldn't have any to takeaway with us in a little doggie-bag for later!

From the cafe we decide to pop into a supermarket and get some chilli beans and natural yoghurt for nachos for dinner. But things go a bit awry at the checkout. It turned out that the yoghurt was part of a four-pack. We don't want four natural yoghurts. We try to indicate that we did not know it was a four pack and wish to leave the yoghurt behind and just take the chilli beans. This has worked for us in a number of other supermarkets where we've unwittingly made the same mistake and separated a yoghurt. It does not work this time. The checkout woman has an unusual take on things. We must either buy the full four-set of yoghurts or she will not let us buy anything! Not even the poor unrelated kidney beans! We are at an impasse, she will not let us leave the yoghurt and will not let us buy just the kidney beans! Eventually frustrated we walk out. No yoghurt and no kidney beans.

Portugal

LAZING ABOUT IN LAGOS

We hit the road to Lagos, Portugal with me in the captain's chair. Much of the drive is quite barren. We arrive into Lagos and after mistakenly pulling into a military base we find our campsite a short walk from the old city walls and a hop, skip and jump from the beach to boot. I think I'm hearing things when the reception tells me the camp is €9! We'd heard the Portugal would be easy on our pockets and it seems it's true. We've pretty much hooked up the power and then Ryan is itching at the bit to get to the beach so we put on our togs and head through the streets. We find the beach by following our noses and it's probably the best beach so far. Big call I know. It's small, has golden sand, turquoise waters and lots of little caves in the rocks that lead through to more and more private beaches. We settle in for the afternoon. Ryan spends some time snorkeling in the clear waters around the rocks into each little bay and walks back through the caves. We see a butt naked man. Not pretty.

After we've had enough sun, sea, sand and snorkeling we walk through town to the supermarket to restock the cupboards.

WHAT'S THE TIME THEN PLEASE?

The next morning we're up before 7am getting ready to hit the road to Lisbon at 8am. The security guy lets us out of the camp and we hit the road. In hindsight, the security guy letting us out of the camp should have been our first clue. Anyway, we get a few corners up the road before we remember that the camp has my passport so we turn around and head back to get it. Reception is still shut so we ask the security guy when it will be opening. There is a language barrier, but the conversation and hand gestures go somewhat like:

What time (pointing to watch) does reception (pointing to reception) open?

8am.

What time is it now (pointing to watch again and gesturing at his watch).

7.15am

Bum, we must have missed something here; maybe last night was daylight savings, it is a Sunday so that's a possible answer. We must have gotten up at 6am! So we sit in the campsite parking lot and wait for reception to open at 8am. 8am comes and goes. Someone else waiting tells us reception opens at 8.30am. 8.30am comes and goes. The security guy leaves. Reception is still shut. Around 9am a guy comes to open up the camp supermarket but not reception. Eventually around 9.30am someone manages to get the supermarket guy to make a call and someone is on their way to open reception. Seems there's been a bit of a communication breakdown over who was manning reception today. Ryan is fair fuming to put it politely.

Eventually just before 10am someone arrives, we grab our passport and finally hit the road to Lisbon. We found our campsite easy enough and it's pretty nice. Each site has a concrete stand, picnic table, rubbish bin, water tap and the pool is even still open! We have hot showers, lunch and do a load of washing for free as there's no one around to pay. We also manage to sort out the time, turns out Portugal is on the same time as London rather than the rest of Europe! Talk about confusing. You know, a sign telling you the time zone is changing at the border wouldn't go astray.

MMM CUSTARD TARTS

Then we catch the bus into town. In town we come across the infamous images of charming old Lisboa. The ceramic tiled buildings, the old yellow trams shuddering up steep hills and lines of washing hung out on street fronts. We traipse through the streets, up, up and up to the castle to find the picture postcard views of the city. We reach the castle and then change our minds and head along to the viewpoint from Lago Das Portas Do Sol. There's a good few people up there, sitting at tables, chatting and drinking a beer in the late afternoon sun. We get beers and sit on the low stone wall and take in the city below us. We reel off the photos as we watch the setting sun from our vantage point. Then after a long day we head down through the low lit streets after its dark and catch the bus back to camp.

We do another cheeky load of free washing the next morning before heading into town. We jump off in Belham and head past the monastery near the waterfront. We stop by the Discovery Monument, built to celebrate the Portuguese discoveries. We carry along the waterfront to the Tower of Belham, a 16th century fortification for the river that splits Lisbon.

We head back along the waterfront to one of the main attractions of Belham. Yesterday on the bus we saw people in a line spilling out onto the pavement and wondered what the fuss was for. Today we're off to find out what all the song and dance is about. The line of eager shoppers is out on the pavement again today. We decide to venture in first to see what wares are on offer here. It's a cute little pastelaire, selling an array of baked goodies. In addition there are glass cabinets all around the room full to bursting with ports, of all brands, all types and all ages. It dawns on us that this is possibly the bakery selling the best custard tarts in the whole of Lisboa, quite a mantle to carry. I scour the cabinets for custard tarts but can't see anything that resembles such a tart. We decide to line up and get some pastry goodness of some sort or other. Its when we reach the front of the line that Ryan spots the custard tarts. They're on a big table behind the counter and they're in their moulds still, fresh and piping hot out of the oven. They must make these little tarts of golden goodness around the clock to keep the punters satisfied. We get some b&e kish (quiche) and three custard tarts. We grab some cold drinks and head just up the street to a park to devour our lunch.

The b&e quiche is heavenly, quite possibly the best we've ever had. Then the custard tarts, still hot to the bite are filo pastry and hot custard goodness. We've even been given little sachets of cinnamon and icing sugar to sprinkle over them. Ah heaven. You would have to roll me out my front door if I lived in Belham.

In case you're ever in Lisboa (and I'd recommend it!) Pasteis de Belem has been baking Pasteis de Belem since 1837 with an ancient recipe which has been kept secret to this day. Get your delicious Portuguese sweet fix there!

Stuffed full of quiche and tarts we decide to walk the 6km to the town centre, through the Belem district and into the Alfama district. Houses completed in ceramic tiles line the streets we walk, all different colours and patterns and quite eye-catching. Halfway through our trek we stumble across a shoe store about to shut for a siesta but we've spotted some jandals so dash inside. Luckily there is a pair in Ryan's size so we hand signal that we'll take a pair. Then we share a bit of a chuckle with the old shoe store lady who indicates towards the shoes Ryan's wearing and waves her hand under her nose. We laugh and nod. We're on the same page - Ryan's feet honk in his shoes so he'd like to put the jandals on straight away. She cuts them apart and hands them over. We pay and thank her. Then her hubby teaches us the Portuguese for thanks 'obrigado'. So with our new word and new jandals we carry on our merry way.

Eventually we arrive into the centre of town and explore the great pedestrian shopping streets. There is street after street pedestrianised (I think I've made that word up!) Tables and chairs under umbrellas are lined up down the middle of the street and shoppers amble about down either side. A parade of students come down the street, yelling and chanting. We find out later that it's the beginning of a new academic year so the new students are subjected to an initiation by the older students. Some things are the same the world over. We spend a bit of time watching the trams amble about the streets before heading to one of the many squares that are links together in the heart of the city to catch our bus back to camp.

Back at camp Ryan dominates the pool by doing bombs and staples into the deep end. Luckily it's only him in the pool!

SUMPTUOUS SINTRA

The next day we catch the train from Lisboa northwest towards the coast, to Sintra, a small little town that used to be the ritzy summer destination of choice for Portugal's kings. We pay for tickets on a hop-on-hop-off bus that does a loop between the three main castles - the Palacio National de Sintra a bizzare Moorish and Gothic construction, the 8th century Moorish castle and the kitsch romantic castle Palacio de Pena. Our favourite is definitely the latter. It sits high above the town of Sintra amongst the bush and is painted all in bright colours. We spend a good couple of hours exploring the castle grounds which include a garden with tree ferns from NZ and the castle rooms. Late afternoon we head back into the village and wait for the train with some iceblocks to cool us down as it's been a scorcher again.

PORT(O)

We eventually find our campsite accidentally a short distance along the coast from Porto. It's pretty dead, with just two other campers there! We're just up from the beach in some tiny coastal town. We have a crazy bus ride through the narrowest streets possible (they really could do with a smaller bus!) and arrive into Porto. We amble about for a bit, admiring the odd but pretty churches, a mix of plain blockwork and patterned ceramic tiles and soaking up the busy main street. After finding our way to the tourist office for a map we head down the steep streets through the old world part of the town to the colourful Riberia district flanking the famous Douro River.

We have a coffee, an argument and then head across the river for a real drink. We head into Sanderman, one of the old (dating from 1790!) port houses right alongside the river. We manage to catch the last tour so pay our €4 and join the group. Forgive me for being unworldly but it turns out that the Port is actually a type of wine. It starts as wine, but then halfway through the fermentation process they chuck in some brandy which stops the last half of the sugars turning to alcohol, leaving a sweet wine. The brandy also gives Port its 20% alcohol kick! We learn more about the tipple that is Port and the port house of Sandeman, inlcuding that Sandeman was started by a Scotsman. Then we get to the good part, the tastings. Geez it packs a punch! It's alright, but may be an acquired taste; let's see if we can acquire a taste for it with more tastings tomorrow!

From Sandeman we hike up to a viewing spot above the river looking across into the old part of town with an Aussie guy who was doing the tastings with us. We take in the sunset and cool bridge and watch as the city slowly lights up after nightfall. Then it's back to camp on another hairy bus ride through the narrowest of streets. There are just centimetres to spare in places!

Halfway through the night a fierce wind whips up and we sleep restlessly until the morning with Betty being shaken about like no man's business. When it finally gets light the wind is still howling so we hustle about camp and up to the bus stop. Today our bus is another delight, decked out in very 70's green seat covers and curtains. Personally I preferred yesterday's orange decor!

In town we've got our priorities straight and after using some of the cheapest internet in Europe (€1 for one hour!) we head straight across the river to the port houses of Vila Nova De Gaia. We head for Croft, said to have free tours and tastings. As per normal, we get lost in the back streets but a friendly port house worker helps out and gets us where we need to be. Croft is even older than Sandeman, 1678 in fact. There's no English tour until later in the day but they line us up with a free tasting of their white port anyway. It's quite nice, well compared to the rocket fuel Sandeman served us up anyway. We head off for some more tastings and a tour at Taylor's. Again we get a couple of complimentary tastings before the tour and one is very good. A sweet red that was almost good enough to be a vintage. We have good taste you see!

Several glasses of port have sapped out will to sightsee, so mid afternoon we call it a day and head back to camp. We sit on the boardwalk down by the sea, watch the sunset and write out the last of our postcards.

Later that night, strike me dead if the same howling wind doesn't strike up again. It's the strangest phenomenon. Starts about midnight and is so fierce that you have trouble sleepiing Betty rocks about but holds steady. We leave early in the morning with the windy wind behind us.