Peniche to Óbidos to Alcobaça to Batalha: Peniche is on a windy peninsula sticking out into the Atlantic. It had little to recommend it to us though surfers flock here for the good waves and surfing championships are held from time to time. The waves were still rough and quite big from the storms that had passed through earlier in the week. Despite it being a weekday, the car-parks at the beaches were full of surfers changing into or out of wet-suits wh...

To Sintra: Getting to Sintra which is just to the west of Lisbon was harder than it should have been. Our GPS is set to avoid toll roads as we don't have the mandatory device for the automatic toll booths in our van. So it was a long and complicated journey around Lisbon which took hours and hours longer than it should have. Eventually we arrived in Sintra along with, it seems, everyone who owns a car. The place was packed and there was nowhere to park...

Lisbon: Lisbon sits on the Tajo River right near its mouth where it is wide and still quite swiftly flowing. Our campsite was on the coast a little south of the city on the other side of the river. The best way to get to town is a bus then a ferry to the Belém area then a bus or tram or train to the centre. The bus was a little late arriving at our stop and so arrived just as the ferry was pulling out. No worries we thought - we'll get the next one in h...

Évora: Évora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site so promised us some interesting sight-seeing. But the rain and wind had followed us inland and overnight had increased in intensity - not the best conditions for walking around. To top it off, we walked to where we had been told the bus stop was. But we could only find the one on the side of the road leaving town, not going towards it. While puzzling this over, the bus arrived - early - and sailed past us lea...

The Megalithic Sites: The countryside around Évora is particularly rich in megalithic sites so we went in search of a few of them. The first we found at the end of a long dirt road of rain-filled potholes. The Cromeleque dos Almendres is a group of huge stone circle of around 95 granite monoliths up to a couple of metres high. They sit on a gentle slope surrounded by cork trees. This is the biggest and most important megalithic site on the Iberian Pen...