I'm not sure that our stop in Horta is blog worthy but given that it's the first time in days that we've seen dry land it's probably worth a pin in the map. It's a clear sign that you're travelling too much when you opt to take a 26 day trans-Atlantic cruise to Europe rather than put up with the miseries involved in flying. To be fair we had a good time on our last, somewhat accidental cruise so we thought we'd jump on one that, in add...

While dropping off our rental car (our hosts in Porto were right- it is the best way to see Portugal), DH handed in the GPS unit while holding her nose and pinching it between her thumb and index finger- apparently she's becoming quite fluent in Portuguese sign language because we immediately got a refund without a word being said. We made our way to our accommodation in the heart of the old town to continue our journey through Portuguese history (from the c...

Since we gave up our homestead in Tottenham, DH, aka She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed, aka The Princess, has been without a castle. And given that royalty without a castle for any significant length of time tend to start wars with everyone around them, it was just about time to find an abode more in keeping with her imagined royal status. Obidos Castle crowns the town of Obidos and now houses guests of a certain pedigree (or at least anyone willing to pay their high rates)...

As we get closer to Lisbon we racked up five highlight stops in just a couple of days. The first was in Batalha where we stopped to view the intricate architecture and beautiful stained-glass windows of UNESCO World Heritage-listed Batalha Monastery- a Gothic masterpiece. The convent was built to thank the Virgin Mary for the Portuguese victory over the Castilians in the battle of Aljubarrota. It served as the burial church of the 15th-Century Aviz dynasty of Por...

Apparently there's a saying in Portugal that suggests that 'Lisbon plays, Porto works, and Coimbra learns’ (not exactly the catchy simplicity of "where’s the beef" but it’s supposed to be an accurate portrayal of each cities character?). DH is always looking for opportunities to fire up her cerebral cortex’s, so the centre of higher learning, Coimbra, was the first designated stop on our cross-Portugal adventure. To call Coimbra a...