Into Portugal

We manage to get LPG the next morning and with a full tank drive onto Ciudad Rodrigo (an old walled town). We park up just outside the entrance - the motorhome is too tall to fit through the arched entrance. The tourist office is right next to us, but by the time we have some lunch the tourist office is closed for siesta time - we need to remember this whilst in this part of the world! We wander around for a while in the afternoon and then again in the evening, some locals are putting on a performance to music which we don't understand, but we watch for a while. We try to find somewhere to eat and manage to establish that the locals don't eat until later, so restaurants don't open until 8.30 - 9.00pm, so another failed attempt for us to eat out! We decide to get some cake from a nice cake shop to stave off our hunger until we get back to the motorhome, we won't be doing that again though, as two slices came to £7.00!

We wake on Sunday to freezing fog, thankfully we have plenty of gas so the heater is put on full blast. The motorhome warms up quickly. We head towards Portugal and just before we reach the border the sun starts to shine brightly. Unlike the border between France and Spain, the Spanish/Portuguese border has border control with serveral booths across the road, however we were able to drive straight through - maybe they don't bother on a Sunday! As soon as we were through the border we were waved down and given a bag of Portuguese newspapers plus a mobile phone SIM and a pair of stripy socks! Unlike France and Spain there were "Welcome to Portugal" signs to welcome us. The sun continued to shine and we decided to head to Belmonte as our Camperstop book said that there was parking beneath the castle and water available. Belmonte is just below the Serra Da Estrella which is the highest mountain range in Portugal. It was quite a steep climb to Belmonte but it was worth it as it's a lovely little town. We parked up on the main street, had some lunch then went for a wander. We found a good place to park right by the castle and found a water fountain in a small park close by. After our wander we popped to a busy pavement cafe and watched the world go by. It is a really, really warm day. We return to the motorhome and move it to the place we found earlier, fill up with water and put the water heater on to have much needed showers. Mark has bought a rechargable shaver today, so hopefully he'll be able to have a very overdue shave once it's charged up (he's not shaved for over a week as his shaver doesn't want to work with the inverter). Our new parking spot is the most picturesque that we've had so far, overlooking the Serra Da Estrela mountains with their snowy peaks on one side and the castle to the other.

Strangely Portugal is an hour behind Spain, so we're back on the same time as the UK, gaining an extra hour today. Later we try to find somewhere to eat, but as usual we give up and cook for ourselves! The town has many bars, but they only offer snacks.