Praia da Vagueire

Up early this morning, John spotted a Redstart sat on a nest complete with babies  in an abandoned utility meter box on a derelict house.

Some places are special to wake up to, and So Juliao was one of them. Just after seven, local people arrived armed with buckets and tickling sticks. We thought perhaps they were after shellfish or octopus. Across from us two young men stripped off. Here we go again. How many buttocks are too many buttocks? They all start to look the same after a while. As we headed off along the coast road passing the surfing villages. We suddenly encountered an aggressive policeman on a motorbike stopping the traffic. Don't shout at Margery please. Of course we didn't have a clue what he was saying, but his hand gestures suggested it might be 'get out of the bloody way'. All the commotion was caused by a cycle race. We parked at the side of the road, with others whose ears had been abused by the irate policeman and watched peleton after peleton pass by.

There were well over a thousand cyclists. The racers long gone by, of course the police didn't bother to tell us if we could now move on, so tentatively we slowly followed the vehicles in front. The wind from the last twenty four hours had covered Margery evenly, and keen to clean her we were very glad to happen upon a car wash.

Less than two euros, for a six minute wash with soap and water and she was gleaming. Our chosen lunch stop was Nazare. Famed for it's huge rolling waves. Today the sea was calm, the town however not so. After a walk around and a stop at a seafront cafe for drinks we returned to the van, ate lunch and left. The area not to our taste. Much to commercialize. We were en-route to Figveira da Goz where we planned to stop overnight, but arriving at the town it soon became apparent that we probably weren't. Unlike a thousand cyclists this morning, here there were tens of thousands of motorcyclists. The noise of their revving engines abusive to our ears. By now we were both hot and tired. We'd really wanted to stay in this town as tomorrow we'd plan to drive a little inland to Coimbra. Looking at our blog from our 1999 visit we found we'd stayed further up the coast then at a beach side aire, so we began driving. Before arriving weary from a long day of traveling, we drove along a long straight road through a barren landscape. It had to be one of the most boring drives we'd ever done. At the end of it we found ourselves in a town where local people were outside the front of their homes selling produce from their gardens.

All of them selling potatoes. How could you choose who to buy from? Although it was late when we arrived at the aire, we sorted out Margery, ate a quick meal, and walked out to watch the sun set, and a maniac pilot flew up and down the beach.

We think it was our best sunset this trip. As the orange glow burst across the sky we sat and watched from the beach bar where we decided we'd earned a glass of wine and a beer. What a day it had been. Tomorrow we were hoping for a more relaxed drive.