What a beautiful place Northern Spain has turned out to be and a real surprise, from the Eucalyptus plantations covering the spectacular mountains in Galacia, to the beautiful beaches and green rolling hills. And not to mention the castles, churches, artefacts and national parks. Since Finisstre, we have spent 2 nights near Foz, a night at Ponfedorra and are now in Comillas on the coast near Santanda for 2 nights. Highlights of Foz was having no idea where the...

Wow Spanish hospitality is wonderful. I will get to that in a minute. Travelled from Porto in Portugal up to Finisterre today via Cambados and Santiago de Compostella. Cambados was a great stop for morning tea. I was busting for a pee and as we could not find a parking spot, Chris dropped me off in front of a building with lots if let's say older folk (Matt) coming out of surmising that there would be a toilet. In I wandered and walked through a number of rooms a...

Our last day in Porto and Portugal and it has been a lovely stay. First up visited one if the famous Port houses, Cockburns. Funnily enough, many of the oldest and most famous are British owned and have been since the 17 and 18th centuries. The grapes are grown in the Duaro valley upstream if Porto which has unique microclimate for in this part of the world. So the story goes anyway but the port does taste good. Followed that up with a river cruise which was nice...

Arrived in Porto yesterday afternoon for a 3 night stay and what a wonderful apartment we have overlooking the Douro river, the Eiffel bridge and the famous Port houses of Portugal. Only negative was the 3 flights of very steep stairs to get up but once here as you can see from the photos, the struggle was worthwhile. Lunch last night in a restaurant was interesting with no English spoken at all. Part of the fun of travel. Porto is the second largest city in Po...

Wow what a place Sintra is. Today we toured a mansion, palace and castle that dominate the mountain towering over Sintra. The area has hundreds of chateaus and 4 palaces in the surrounding hills built from the 17th century by the very wealthy as summer houses. The Pena palace was the residence of the kings of Portugal until democratisation in 1910 and us now a museum. The castle was started in the 1100 by the Moors and built upon many others since. It and the cas...