Hot on the heels of the leaking window, we had a series of minor disasters in quick succession: the DVD drive stopped working on our old MacBook, leaving us without entertainment on long winter evenings; I dropped my iPad, cracking the screen; Alan realised he’d lost the keys to the Bimobil, (fortunately, I had a spare set in my bag which was not lost on this occasion…..) Aaaaaaargh!!!!! Keep going!

We were up the Douro valley at this point, the real home of port. To get there, we had driven through heavy rain, sleet and hail but once through the mountains, it began to improve and we arrived at Peso da Regua in……. dryness, let’s not get excited, it wasn’t sunny! I hammered on the door of the local fishing club to get a key to a parking site. Don’t worry they were very friendly and apologised for the door being locked! We had a pleasant enough walk with the Sandeman brooding on the other side of the river and were woken next morning by a farmers’ market where they were selling plants and shrubs, including massive bundles of vines. I apologised and said they wouldn’t fit in my autocaravana……

We hopped on a train on the famous Douro valley line and rode up to the end of the line at Pocinho, dutifully ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhhing’ as we went. Pocinho really was the end of the line, so we kept a beady eye on the train driver and conductor eating their lunches and then caught the same train back. There was no way we wanted to miss the train and wait 4 hours to the next one. Back to Regua where we found the strangest shop selling tins of quince paste, candles and cut price port. Handy.
Sitting in the cafe in Pocinho, we’d seen the TV weather forecast and it did not look good. Footage of surfers being rescued and mammoth waves in Porto (pat on back, we’d got something right!) It was all sweeping in from the west, so we decided to run away to the east. This meant turning our backs on Lisbon but sometimes you just have to take the sensible option!
To Coimbra, through more mountains and sleet. Still stinging from our multiple disasters we took to frequenting shopping malls like lost souls, in one of the oldest cities in Portugal…..what does that say about us? But….we did manage to get a key cut and a DVD cleaner, in case the DVD drive had years of accumulated dirt. No such luck. It remained stubbornly not working, spitting out DVDs after a few seconds’ consideration. We dutifully visited beautiful Coimbra, a beautiful old university town reminiscent of Cambridge on a large scale, with lovely riverside walks and a magnificent old library. It was hilly with narrow cobbled streets, this would soon become a recurrent theme in this part of Portugal……
To cheer ourselves up and to wash my hair(!) we booked into a hotel in the old Templar town of Tomar. It was as I was collecting up my toiletries to take with me (no plastic forks or shared toothbrushes this time!) I realised that there was a leak under the basin……I ran away after emptying and drying the cupboard……tomorrow was another day……
The hotel was an old family ‘palace’ and it was charmingly quirky. We lurched around in the dark, scrabbling to find our way as the automatic light sensors switched themselves briefly on and then off. It was all faded Portuguese antique furniture, lofty ceilings, wooden shutters and….hot modern showers hooray. A great place to stay. More cobbled hilly streets. This was keeping me fit if nothing else. I briefly wondered why penitent pilgrims used to drop to their knees for the last few miles, walking on the cobbles was bad enough…
Onwards to the east, a night wild camping by the castle of Belver, across the other side of the river but looking so close. It was easy to imagine how it must have taunted the Moors trying to attack it. The sun shone, the birds chirruped, we strolled by the river and Hilary, I even took my vest off for the first time! Goodbye rain!