18th October 2024 Hi, Our last major family gathering was seven years ago when we assembled in Italy for big brother Donald's Big Six-O. Since then we've had a pandemic which restricted travel and although in the pipeline for some time, another event just didn't happen. Finally this year a global reunion was planned with family coming from New Zealand and Japan to meet up with the relatives based in Scotland and England. Portugal was chosen as the destination ...

10th April 2024 Hi, Regular followers of this blog will know that I've been to Portugal twice. The first trip was in 2017 when I visited Porto for a week with my brother Donald. In 2019 I travelled to Lisbon with my two siblings and brother in law Brian and we had a few days based in Lisbon before taking a car trip around the Alentejo region. These trips confirmed my liking for the country as a whole, but I had not really considered visiting the popular Algarve...

11th June 2019 Hi, Just a quick note to accompany the photos on the third part of our recent Portugese odyssey. We travelled from Evora to the Troia peninsula on 25th May and spent four full days there before returning on the fifth day to Manchester. Situated south of Lisbon the Troia peninsula is a huge finger of land which stick up just south of Setubal, which is a thirty minu...

May 29th 2019 Hi, Monday 20th May It was time to leave Lisbon and head out north east into the Alentejo region as planned. After picking up our hired car at the airport we headed for Marvao but stopped in Castelo de Vide en route. This area of Portugal seemed to be littered with castles atop the hills, with a town or settlement adjoining it. The castle is referred to back as far as the 13th Century and major building work took place in the 14th century. The...

28th May 2019 Hi, My brother Donald has recently retired from his role as headmaster at Dilworth School in Auckland and is over in the home country for three months. Leaving from Manchester with sister Rachel and brother in law Brian we caught a flight to Lisbon. From a previous blog you may recall that Donald and I visited Porto two years ago and very much enjoyed the Portugal ex...