Adventures in Daisy van

   Time to rest and time to enjoy Playa la Puntilla, El Puerto Santa Maria  On leaving Tavira we headed south in Spain, going to a part of the country we had never been to before and in search of a bit more sunshine, before heading back north. This part of the adventure was meant to be relaxing, no churches, roman ruins, stones or amazing buildings, just chilling…and that is what we were mostly able to do.   Camping las Dunas  was our home for our first stop in Spain. It was enormous but had THE CLEANEST toilet block of the trip. The ladies who cleaned were like a clinical team, even down to their uniforms; the shower block shone. This was good for us as we opted for 6 nights here, what we didn’t opt for were the biting things that attacked us repeatedly, which after day one was enough, by the time it got to day six we were ready to go, as we looked liked the surface of the moon with all of our bites and bumps. No amount of solutions, sprays and creams...

 Last stop Tavira, Algarve! Praça da República This is what we learnt...a really important lesson...older travellers get on the road quickly in the morning! It would seem there is competition for places and they know it and are determined to get to the next site as soon as possible. Now it was our turn to join the rush as we were heading to the Algarve, a particularly pretty part, almost in Spain, in fact about 39 kms from the border. We were on our way to Tavira, allegedly the prettiest town on the Algarve, we didn't see any other part so it's impossible to offer an opinion, but this was the kind of town we like. No high-rise buildings, lots of history, easy going and with delicious food.   However, the motorhome park I had chosen and had been watching fill up (it shows the number of spaces available in real time on the website) was a shock when we arrived. We stopped outside and I said to Pi we cannot go in there, it looked like a trailer park and nothing like most of the lo...

This is almost goodbye to Portugal and hello to Spain… Coimbra There’s a little bit more to report before we leave and what a great way to end our time here in Portugal. A round up of the last parts of the trip starts back in the Beiras region for the university city of Coimbra, and then moves into central Portugal in the Alejento region.  Parking at the bottom of the hill was our first mistake, another super hilly town, the second mistake was winding in and out of passageways as we then went down again before going back up; my calf muscles are not thanking me. No other mistakes though as we were here to see a library…for those who are following this journey, I can almost hear you groan for Pi’s sake.  The university is the oldest in Portugal and was founded in 1290. It’s buildings make this a beautiful city. Our entry ticket, costing 12 euros, gets us into the chapel, which is stunning, the library where we cannot take pictures (!), the palace and the chemistry lab…so we visi...

 Some unexpected finds in Central Portugal Oves moles - egg sweets - Aveiro After leaving our beautiful first vineyard, we headed back to the coast to do a circuit of the cities of Aveiro, Obidos, and Coimbra. Along the way we nearly tasted some weird egg sweets but remembered our last experience of weird egg textures, met the blue Terracotta Army in a garden of Buddhas and watched the famous waves of Nazaré. The weather wasn’t so kind to us in this part of the trip and this may have coloured our views of some of the sites we found, which should by all accounts have been wonderful and we didn’t find them so…sorry Evora.  Beautiful Aveiro Art in Aveiro Staying for the night in a water park sounds weird but it was a small site right on the coast very close to Costa Nova. It was one of the cheapest we have stayed at and was on the dunes alongside the Atlantic Ocean; this obviously meant having some sundowners and watching the sunset. At this time of the year the water park was cl...