Final leg: last of Portugal, rush back through Spain and ferry home

The Christo Rei overlooking Lisbon

We were up and out fairly promptly, one of the big differences between Spain and Portugal is lunch. In Spain restaurants often don’t open till 13.30. In Portugal they open at 12.00 and can shut at 14.00. Our first stop was to Christo Rei, a statue heavily influenced by Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, looking towards Lisbon, Built in 1949 as a thank you for Portugal coming out of WWII relatively unscathed. Although not on the same scale it is still an amazing construction. We got the bus from our Aire (location: 38°37'56.8"N 9°09'19.2"W), when it finally turned up, and the plan was then to walk along the coast into Almada. We found the path and skirted the burned out, derelict and heavily graffitied buildings following a man and his dog who seemed to know where the were going. Until they got to the locked gate! On going to the wall and peering over he decided that we could get round this by retracing a few steps and going through a derelict building out onto the very front. What he didn’t realise was his dog had followed him to look over the wall, but couldn’t make it back up the big step. He missed the comedy jumping and barely visible flapping ears, till I rescued the little thing! I’m sure the locked gate was to prevent people accidentally wandering through the derelict buildings coming out of Almada, but we weren’t about to retrace our steps, it was a long way. We lived to tell the tale though!

Lisbon and the 25th April bridge from the top of the Christo Rei

Looking up at the Christo Rei

On the riverside walk from the Christo Rei to Almada, through the derelict buildings

It's not surprising the path was officially closed, it's rapidly falling into the sea!

The derelict and graffiti covered buildings - and the notice advising it's dangerous to go that way!

Finally we got to the elevator to find it closed!

The second thing on Brian’s todo list was the panoramic elevator, which sadly wasn’t running. Oh well, we’ll go and look at the Dom Fernando II e Glória a rebuilt 19th century 50 gun frigate, which turned out to be an interesting well laid out museum, before sitting ourselves down to a last fish bbq mixed plate. We head inland tomorrow, away from the coast so we had to indulge in a last fishy meal.

She didn't mention the lady who looks after the stray cats by the elevator. We gave her a donation for the cat food

The Dom Fernando II e Glória frigate

Below deck on the Dom Fernando II

A fabulous mixed fish lunch at the Escondidinho de Cacilhas restaurant

The castle at Montemor-o-Novo

We were actually pleased to head inland the following day as the wind had got up considerably on the coast. Possibly the very edge of Storm Eunice that was battering the U.K. Our destination was Montemor-o-Novo with its castle. We’d heard you can park up by the castle, but having looked on Google we were not sure about the sense of this on a Saturday, particularly when there were three dedicated motorhome parking spots very close to the bottom (Aire location: 38°38'39.0"N 8°12'39.7"W). We were glad we made this decision when we got up there! It was a strange town, we never found any life, people, bars.... most odd on a Saturday.

There's a big swing in the grounds of the castle with this fabulous view over the edge. Of course, nearly everyone who who walks past has to have a go on it

We'd parked Big Ted in the middle of the town at a free Aire in the car park of the bullring. We took this photo from the castle and you can just see him down there in the car park (the round building - !). We spent the night there on our own and it was fine. Not bad for free

Estremoz, the marble town. There's a lot of marble here...

Sunday, we headed to Estremoz, the marble town. Not just towers and churches, but cobbles and kerbstones are all marble which made it a very pretty town. It didn’t seem to be what they focused on as their main tourist attraction, that was some very strange clay figurines that have seemingly been made to the same design for many generations. Not to our taste, but it was good to see these things being passed on and traditional crafts being maintained. We hadn’t planned on staying overnight though in theory we could in the main square, and we were pleased we hadn’t. We were following another mobile home and the sat nav when we arrived at a very solid, narrow looking gate in the city wall that was about 20m deep and had a bend in it. The van ahead of us didn’t fancy it, and we didn’t either, fortunately there was lots of space in a residential area, so we left Ted there while we went to explore.

...curbstones, floor coverings - everywhere!

Even this tower is completely made of marble (we wanted to go up it but it was closed)

The view over the town (marble) walls were quite nice too

A cork tree with it's lower trunk stripped of it's cork outer

We’d got two nights booked at camping Alentejo (location: 38°47'32.6"N 7°41'16.4"W) so we could arrive relatively late which is most unusual for us! This would be our last ‘chill’ day, so a gentle walk among the cork tree groves was very pleasant (see our short Relive video with photos: click here).

Here's one in close up, you can see the layers of cork that form  the bark of the tree. Where it's been stripped back you can see it forms a new cork bark, so it's self renewing. Did you know, Portugal produces 50% of the worlds requirement for cork? With the move towards plastic corks the industry and Portugals already poor economy is facing big problems

Our walk through the cork forest took us to this very attractive lake (pond really) and here's my attempt at art!

And this is a turtle swimming in the lake/pond

This is a town plan of Elvas, the fortified town

Our last stop in Portugal was at Elvas, a late breaking addition we are very pleased we made, a lovely walled town with castles, and forts, right on the border so very well defended (nighttime parking location: 38°52'41.0"N 7°10'08.0"W). We visited Forte Sante Luzia built to defend the city, but carefully planned so the wall nearest the city was a fraction of the width of the rest of the walls, so if the fort was every taken, they could blow up the wall so preventing the enemy being able to put their own canon on them to fire on Elvas. All very clever! See our short  Relive video of our walk with photos: click here

This was our parking spot for the night in a car park very close to this impressive 16th century aqueduct. We did ask in the local tourist centre if it was OK and they said yes.

Elvas is a fabulous town, very close to the Spanish border who were the enemy of Portugal when it was built in the 13th Century. The fort on top of the hill on the left is the Forte de Nossa Senhora de Graca and is one of two outlying fortes built to protect Elvas

You can see a section of the fortifications below there. Beyond is the Spanish border

In one of the underground tunnels in the other outlying forts, the Forte Sante Luzia. This used to give access outside the fort to lower ground

At the very thick outer walls facing the Spanish frontier

And this is one of the walls facing the town that's quite thin to allow destruction from the town should the enemy occupy the fort

The Roman bridge next to our Aire in Simancas

With that we had three more one night stops in Spain as we headed to the ferry. We could have done it in less, but three hours driving a day is quite sufficient. We needed time for important things like buying our 18 litres of wine, each to bring back to the U.K! We stayed at Caceres Camper Park just north of Caceres (location: 39°47'07.1"N 6°23'44.7"W) and near Valladolid at Simancas Aire (location: 41°35'15.3"N 4°49'22.5"W). We went on a short village walk in Simancas, have a look at our short Relive video with photos: click here

Simancas is a lovely old town with some really nice restaurants. We managed a fabulous lunch in the Restaurante Los Infantes

In Lierganes Aire next to the Breast Cancer screening unit

Our last stop was Lierganes, about half an hour from the port (Aire location: 43°20'41.5"N 3°44'30.4"W). We weren’t the first there, but we’d just parked up and started on lunch when two more vans arrived, travelling together, can we move these barriers? They were just about to when the reason for the barriers appeared, the mobile breast screening unit. Wanted half the space, and us to move, so the tractor unit could get in and out. It wasn’t quick, but finally we could park up, by which time the six of us had all bonded quite nicely. From then on we kept bumping into Jayne, in the cafe at the port, waiting for the bar to open so we could buy our farewell to Spain drinks, up on the deck, waving to Spain....

Lierganes and a church on a hill

After waving goodbye, we weren’t the only ones, we went and chilled with a movie and shower before the included three course meal, another movie and bed. Very relaxing

Made the most of the included continental breakfast before looking around for somewhere to sit around and write this, do a crossword, that sort of thing. There was space by the couple we’d spoken to on deck the previous afternoon, Peta and Nigel, “May we sit by you?” “Please do”, and with that we were off, we chatted, had a drink, chatted some more, had another drink, didn’t write the blog. Stopped about 17.00 just to go and sort our stuff out, before meeting for supper at 17.30, when we chatted some more. What a lovely way to spend the day, which absolutely flew by.

And another church where we could see the church on the hill

We had planned to spend the night in Portsmouth and drive back on Monday morning, but with the threat of rain and rush hour traffic we decided to drive back on Sunday night. Definitely the right decision when instead of the two hours I’d expected to get out of the port we were off and through in 40 minutes and back at mums by 23.30.

We’ve started on Ted, emptying, cleaning inside and out, shopped, had coffee with John and been to the pub for dinner with mum, and finally written a blog, it’s all go......

Here we are on the ferry at Santander and down there are the queue's of other vehicles yet  to get on board

We've set off, the pilot has steered the ferry out into the open sea and now he has to get off, so here's the boat sailing alongside and the chap in the orange jacket has just got off the ferry and onto the boat to go back to shore

And this was our inside cabin on the ferry for the 30 hour journey with one overnight. It will take four people in bunk beds, which would make it quite crowded. The en-suite is through the door on the right