Castelo De Paiva- 12 October 2018

12 October

We’re re-watching the series Luther, can’t remember where we got up to last time - but was a good series, and can’t totally remember what happened in each one anyway! Slept well! Now know I need to be active during the day to be able to sleep!

Bit of a nothing day. When we were watering up a nice young couple from Menorca came to chat. They were renting a Pilote with some friends, with a view to buying. They work summer months only, and want something to do the rest of the year. It’s great that doing this kind of traveling you talk to lots of different people, who all have the same aim.

My day for driving - went to an Intermarche on route so that we could wash our bedding. Didn’t have high hopes, the machines looked quite uncared for - but all ok. Even 40 minutes drying time instead of 30 for €4! Store smelt horrible, think it was salted fish! Veg wasn’t worth buying, spent the grand total of €5! Intermarche in France was like this when we were using the washing facilities - large store, but nothing we wanted to buy. Definitely can’t buy even chilled UHT milk here, the stuff we can buy is not pleasant - but have managed for nearly 6 weeks with milk that’s been ok!

Then drove for another hour or so on fairly small, bumpy, windy roads - alongside the river Douro for some of the way. Can appreciate why Mum & Rod enjoyed their river cruise on the Douro!  Arrived at:

Castelo De Paiva - free

A large car park with town commerce 300m away, although in the port wine region, not far from the river, no views of the Douro. The circus is in town! How do we always pick them?! On for the next three days, starting 9.30 tonight, but seems quite a small one - and no, we have no desire to see clowns 🤡!

The only other moho here when we arrived are Dutch, so they shared a few lat and longs of various nice places they’ve stopped over at. Went for a walk into the town. Visited the tourist office, they seemed delighted to see people!  Visited the Memorial of Sobrado. Apparently different from other funerary monuments in that it does not present an arch, has been dated from mid 13th century, and you can see Tintin sitting on it on the ‘dish of the day!

Town was bigger than I thought, visited an absolutely massive shop selling everything by the garage. Still no rubber door wedge, but Tintin bought some cheap wooden clothes pegs, and has fashioned them sufficiently to work as wedges!

Weather has been warmer than forecast, but feels like it will rain soon! Baked yet another batch of granola - this is getting repetitive! Generally Olive the oven plays up, and the gas goes out, we have to take it it turns to watch it - today only a couple of times! Progress! No, something else to be looked at when we’re home...

Next up we’ll be following the river for a while on the scenic N222 - and hopefully will be able to get out for some good bike rides.