Celorico Da Beira - 16 October 2018

16 October

Simple pleasures in life - no street lighting last night, so could have the blind open, and actually know when it was morning - bonus!

Husband was washerman this morning whilst I was showering, the clothes survived a good 24 hour soaking!

The lady at the tourist office yesterday mentioned a place to visit - so today we found S. Salvador Do Mundo. It has wonderful views of the Douro. It is a group of nine small isolated chapels built in the 16th century. Quite a steep walk up, shame the weather wasn’t better, but at least it wasn’t raining and some of the fog had lifted!

We were the only ones there, beautiful views in every direction. Also happy, because we now know what the cork trees look like! Inside each chapel, which were locked, each had various religious scenes. Personally, I found them a bit freaky!

Tintin had about two hours of driving today, but we stopped off at the above too! Was a mixture of really windy roads, then a motorway type road (100km speed limit), which seemed to be down hill for a long way - yay - good for fuel consumption at last! Frankie Goes to Hollywood was chosen again by you know who, who gave a cheeky grin as he turned the volume up and sang along to Relax!

On the way we saw an Intermarche, topped up on fuel as it was €1.37 instead of over €1.50/litre at some other garages and decided we may be better to tumble dry our clothes as the weather is still a bit iffy! Unfortunately we had to wait for nearly an hour as some Dutch people had filled the 18k drier to capacity. Anyway, meant we could have lunch.  Arrived at:

Celorico Da Beira - free

This aire is in a residential area, with a hilltop castle nearby. Co-Pilot did wrong again in the final directions! He needs a holiday!

Parked up and went for a walk. The Romanesque-gothic inspired castle suffered insults over the centuries, and has had numerous restorations. They think it was originally constructed in the late 11th/early 12th century. The design was developed to sustain enemy attacks, using the height advantage. Apparently there was a long siege, in response to people not accepting Afonso III as King. The siege ceased after an eagle flew over the castle and dropped a trout. This was prepared and sent as an offering to the enemy. The enemy took this as a sign the castle had an abundance of food, so wouldn’t concede any time soon - and the siege was ended! Brave tactic!

I’m a little disappointed in a way. In one of the ‘I sell everything’ shops, Tintin found some door wedges! What excuse do we have for trawling future towns?! Anyway, joy short lived, when he opened them, they’re plastic and not rubber!

The town is quaint, lots of narrow streets - and of course a lovely scenic view! Wherever we’ve been, in every town - we see groups of men chatting. Are the women all chained to their kitchens?!

There have been many dogs we’ve seen in most towns (I’m presuming they are stray as they don’t have any collars) which I’d love to adopt! We saw one today that was following a female around, saw them a few times, tails wagging - and seemed happy to be free to roam... I know it’s not really possible - and could Stevie dog communicate if they are Portuguese? Best have another look in Spain on the way back!