Onto the west coast of Portugal

We stay in Belmonte until Tuesday as it was such a nice place, the sun continued to shine. We moved location from the castle as a huge bonfire was being built and we were starting to get in the way, so moved into the town. The next day we were wedged in by parked traffic, but were soon able to get out.

We headed off soon after mid-day over the Serra Da Estrella mountains and down the other side. The views were amazing both en route and at the top, the photos we‘ve taken don‘t do justice to what we actually saw. The roads were a little scary at times, but we live to tell the tale!


We saw quite a bit of snow when we got to the top. It took longer to go over the mountains than we expected due to only being able to go at about 10mph for much of the way therefore we didn’t get to Coimbra as we hoped, so we parked up somewhere en route.

We headed to Coimbra first thing on Wednesday and parked up by the university, had a bit of a wander round and then drove onto Condexia. We had a walk around the old ruins and then headed to Nazare which is supposed to be a nice old fishing village. We got there about 4pm and left by 5.30pm as we weren’t impressed, it was tacky and scruffy and not where we wanted to spend Christmas eve night (apart from it had a nice sunset as we were leaving...)

So we headed down the coast to Sao Martinho do Porto which was only about 15 minutes away but 100 times nicer. We parked up on the sea front and went for a walk around and found somewhere to eat (at last!) and had a couple of drinks. Our Portuguese is getting a bit better and we at least know how to say Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Goodbye, Thank-you, Yes and No! We bought some drinking water today as we’re getting a bit low and the last thing we want is to run out of water on Christmas Day!!

On Thursday we woke to the sound of waves crashing onto the beach which was unusual given it was Christmas Day (photo shows the view from the motorhome). We moved the motorhome to a side street one block away from the sea front due to daytime parking restrictions of 2 hours and went for a long walk around the town with a stop on the way back at a beach front café for a coffee.

We found a water supply at the market, so we’ll fill up the water tank tomorrow. After some lunch at the motorhome we went for our first cycle ride, away from the town across the sand dunes. Luckily there was a boarded walkway/cyclepath the whole way or we’d have got nowhere fast - sand is impossible to cycle on!

After cycling back we had another walk around town. Throughout the afternoon there were loads of people out and about walking or driving along the sea front, the cafes and shops were very busy too, quite strange for Christmas day. We returned to the motorhome early evening and cooked our Christmas dinner - turkey, mash, broccoli and gravy with Christmas cake for pudding.

We stayed at Sao Martinho do Porto until Saturday and planned to drive to Estoril. It was a good day to drive on as it was overcast and quite chilly!

We didn't get far on our travels before noticing a large walled town on a hill in the distance, as we got closer it seemed very busy so we decided to park up and take a look.

We quickly found a car park specially for motorhomes with about 20 motorhomes already parked up. The medieval town of Obidos was well worth a visit, we took a walk around the rampards which were open on the one side with quite a long drop below! We had a wander around the old town and had a cherry liquor which seems to be a traditional drink of the area. We then drove on for half an hour or so and parked up in a town square for the night.