Wednesday 17th
After packing up everything neatly into the car. we drove to Gala, a campsite just south of the town of Figuiera da Foz on the West coast. Set up camp and went down to the campsite bar for pizza and the obligatory beers.
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| The Canvas Palace |
Thursday 18th
Went to Coimbra and visited Portugal dos Pequenitos, or "Portugal for the Little Ones." Our kids ran around like mad people in and out of the miniature buildings. We had some lovely falafel and lentil soup at a kebab restaurant, of which there seems to be many in Coimbra. Back at camp the children played football with the kid from the next tent along until his mother called him in for tea. When I repeated, "Vai! Jantar é pronto!" she laughed and became the second person that day to seem surprised that I could speak even a few words of Portuguese. Or perhaps she was surprised by how awful my Portuguese is?
Thinking of heading to the beach tomorrow morning and then perhaps to Figueira da Foz in the afternoon for shopping, but to be honest a lot depends on the weather which seems to be very changeable.
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| Entrance to "Portugal dos Pequenitos" |
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| Map of the Journeys of the Portuguese Navigators |
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| Miniature replica of the Chapterhouse Window in the Convent of Christ, Tomar |
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| View of Coimbra taken from the bridge |
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| Typical narrow street in Coimbra |
Friday 19th
As we had planned, in the morning we headed out of the campsite's back gate and along the dunes to the beach. The beach was, and there's no easy or nice way to say this, disgusting. Littered with all manner of plastic waste. The dunes were impressive but the beach definitely made our morning walk a lot less enjoyable. For our planned afternoon shopping trip we found a mall in Figueira da Foz and managed to get some veg and a few other supplies to last a couple of days.
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| View from the back gate of the campsite towards the dunes and beach |
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| Across the dunes, with a hazy Figuiera da Foz in the far distance |
Saturday 20th
Headed out for the Roman ruins at Conimbriga, and eventually found them despite Sat Nav Kate's insistence that we drive through all the very narrow streets of the village to get there. The ruins themselves were truly impressive and we thoroughly enjoyed them. (Unfortunately I left my phone in the tent and therefore had to ask my lovely wife to take some on her phone instead. I will post an addendum to this post later with some of those photos at a later stage. My apologies.)
In the afternoon we drove back into Figueira da Foz to the seafront, walked along the promenade, through the market and back through the narrow streets. Returned to camp and decided to have a quick dip in the pool only to discover that there was some kind of Aqua Fit Zumba session in progress. There were also a couple of inflatable bouncy castles too,which my children enjoyed playing on. Just as well really because the pool Zumba session was so popular that it was impossible to actually swim in the pool.
We move on to Porto tomorrow...
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