Douro Valley back past Porto to Vila do Conde (147km) then to Fisterra (292km)

Having had our fill of the beautiful Douro Valley Views we soon found ourselves on the outskirts of Porto. 

 We headed on up the coast road to our next destination Vila do Conde to a free parking area overlooking the water for the night. Unfortunately as we reached the coast road in Vila do Conde, there was obviously a feud against the motorhome as there appeared to be signs with motorhome and caravans and big crosses all along the coast and the area we had been led to believe was a stop over on our 'search for sites' App was all cordoned off and being re-purposed. Just before this area there was a gravel area next to the lifeguard station with no apparent anti-motorhome signage, so we decided to take a gamble and pulled in and parked amongst the local fishermen casting off from the harbour wall.

 

It was a great location, but we were hoping we would not get moved on. Chris took himself down to the beach for an hour while I caught up with my blog. We then went off to the supermarket and Jack took Winnie off for a walk. I cooked a simple paella style rice supper and we went off to watch the sunset.

 

We had a relatively quiet night although the local fishermen did come and go all night to have a stint at fishing. 

Morning view from my bed...

In the morning Chris and I wandered off for a walk with Winnie and continued our café breakfast routine with coffee and croissant allowing Jack a little longer in bed before we headed off on a longer stint North into Spain and off to Fisterra and The Cape of Finisterre (Finis=end, Terrae =earth/land). Many Pilgrims walk the 'Camino de Santiago' (The way of St James) to Santiago de Compostela, and decide to continue walking to Fisterra to find the sea at the end of the land. The first Pilgrims arrived in Fisterra in the middle ages, and those that arrive today can get the 'Fisterrana' an official document to say they have come here.

Crossing into Spain:

Drive on up- lots of forested hills:

 and eucalyptus plantations

Across the large Estuary at Vigo:

I had emailed a popular Aire run by a very friendly Spaniard with good English as the reviews warned that it is a very busy site. He said as soon as someone left he would save us a space and true to his work when we arrived at the site he showed us to our spot for the night.

View through our windscreen in our parking spot:

The town was underwhelming, but maybe because of the heavy cloud. It was a little like Padstow in feel, but more run down. 

 

An interesting British boat moored up:

On heading down into the town later for supper we hit the dreaded curse of Covid. In order to get into any restaurants, we needed our Covid Passports - which was fine, but Jack also needed to do a lateral flow which we could not be bothered to walk back to the motorhome to do. We therefore decided to look for a restaurant with outdoor seating, and found what we though to be the perfect one with some empty tables, only to be turned away because they already had their outdoor capacity under the new covid rules 😒. In order to sit outside we ended up at a very uninspiring place next to a table who's kids turned out to scream through most of our meal and the waiting staff used the alley just behind our table for their fag breaks - all in all not the best night, but I did get to have fresh Razor clams and Chris had Cuttlefish, both caught fresh off the coast. 

We finished the evening with a few rounds of Uno.