Our second visit. The aire proper has gone so we parked on the car park behind the sand dunes. Had a beer - no wine available - at the little beach bar and a walk along the deserted surf beach.

A dreadful day. It started raining shortly after we left Abrantes and has rained heavily since. We've rowed on and off all day, mainly because the TomTom has been rubbish, getting us lost time after time. We'd hoped to find a car park in Figuera da Foz to overnight in but have ended up on a layby with a bar just out of town The one good thing about today - apart from last nights neighbours leaving, was finding a McDonalds and being able to use their WiFi.

Is it us?. The aire at Abrantes is on a large carpark with spaces marked out for two motorhomes. One of the places was taken by a GB van with a Welsh pennant fluttering from its aerial. We took the space next to it, taking care to give as much space as possible. All seemed OK. The Welshman got out a bucket and washed his van and emptied his loo. We had a latish dinner and it was getting dark. As we were finishing our meal, he started his engine and backed out....

A new town, the original having been submerged in the construction of the largest man-made lake in Europe. Very little here - a couple of bars or so, social club, two or three small shops and two churches. Peanuts, sometimes sunflower seeds are commonly given in bars in both Spain and Portugal no matter the drink. Whichever, the shell is always highly salted and I think that the idea is to put the whole nut, including shell, into ones mouth before cracking to ea...

Before we reached Beja we put the castle car park as our destination on the satnav. Big mistake. We just managed to squeeze through the narrow alleyways. Had we been in a larger vehicle or towing we would really have had problems. Managing after some tight manoevering to escape we came across a large and nearly empty car park little more than half a mile from the town centre. We left the van -parked in solitary state - and went into the town. Returning some ninet...