Portugal!

First on the agenda after leaving the campsite was to refuel, as we were already intro the red. The station near the campsite in Santiago do Compostela was busy and was also one that was attendant service. The chap doing the attending spoke reasonable English but disputed that he'd started to fill up using the expensive diesel instead of the normal stuff. When, half way through, I pointed it out to him he did change and did refund us when we paid. Not sure whether he was playing the "charge the gullible tourist" the maximum line or it was a genuine mistake but who knows!

We'd decided to head to a campsite I'd identified online to the north of Porto and, with no hurry, decided to avoid the toll roads as usual. The route took us through some interesting wine growing regions and was pretty scenic if slow. Fiona wasn't happy when we crossed into Portugal and I pointd out that, as they were on the same time zone as the UK, she'd have an extra hour to wait until lunch. Like lots of small animals she gets grumpy when she hasn't been fed.

While crossing a modern bridge Fiona spotted a really good car park near an interesting town so we detoured in there for a look see. This turned out to be Ponte de Lima, which has a great big car-park (with an Aire) right beside the river and the medieval foot bridge. This was a great find so we had a look around the town before heading on. Turns out we should have visited the tourist office though, as another British couple we met later said they'd also been there today and found out that there was some kind of festival on and the tourist office were giving out free food samples. Mind you, given I clipped one of the festival lights on the way out then perhaps it was for the best!

We'd decided to head for a campsite on the coast to the North of Porto and Fiona managed to wangle the ASCI discount there, which meant it was only 15EUR a night including electric. There were quite a few other Brits here and a lady behind us in the check-in queue gave us a spare ASCI book and card she had (from a friend who hadn't used it). Very helpful and well worth the bottle of Bordeaux wine from Rauzan we gifted as thank you. Another British lady we were located beside mentioned that the site had a very effective 20kg industrial washing machine so Fiona set off to get all our washing done. They also mentioned a beachside cycle ride along a boardwalk into Vila do Conde so we dug out the folders and gave that a go. Very nice it was too - the beach here is really, really nice. We then returned to the motorhome and had a very Spanish themed meal (Paella for Fiona and an Tortilla for me - both bought from the Carrefour supermarket in Santiago).

This is the first time we'd been in Portugal for 25 years and it'll be nice to explore further than the Algarve, which is where we were then.