Day 23 - Santiago de Compostela to Viana do Castelo (234kms)

Despite wishful thinking, we again had an all night party going on somewhere out the back of the camping ground.  I'm not sue what time the music finished, but it was the early hours of the morning.  We think there has been some festival on all weekend, but a quick google says that the "Feria de San Miguel" festival was on this weekend in Seville.

Our last morning in Santiago started with a visit to the large shopping complex in front of the caravan park.  We needed to resupply our grocery supplies but we also purchased some camper van essentials also, missing with our rental.  We purchased some cheap 2 for 1 sheet sets - so that we did not have to continue to sleep in socks every night, some drinking glasses - to replace the ones that have broken on the road in our unpadded camper van drawers, and Kristie really wanted a sharp carving knife.  We thought Carrefour was groceries only but this was a large modern department store also.  In fact, being inside the Centro Commercial as Cancelas, you could mistake yourself for being in any modern big city in world. 

Shopping is always an experience.  Trying to work out what things are (usually using the translating camera on the phone), and then finally when you do, you move into a new country and the name for everything changes again.  Then there is just the things that are different altogether.  Europe does not seem to drink fresh milk.  It was difficult in Paris, but as we have travelled further from Paris it is now near impossible to get fresh milk.  We sometimes manage to find the one or two bottles of milk tucked in the most obscure part of the fridge, but in Santiago we have had to accept UHT milk as a substitute from the biggest supermarket we have been in since leaving home.  10,000 different types of fresh cheese, just not milk!  The other thing we have noticed in Spain is the whole legs of pigs in store.  You can cut your choice of pork straight from the bone at home.  Hmmmm !

With the van packed with our new supplies we weren’t really on the road much before midday.  Then we weren’t on motorways for long before we turned off and headed for some more National Parks - this time in PORTUGAL. Yes, we have left Spain (for now) and crossed over a beautiful river into Portugal.  The girls were excited about being in a another new country, but no border control again, so no stamps in the passport.

A town called Peneda - which is described in the Lonely Planet as the one with unequal rival in a choice of many places in the Parque Nacional du Peneda-Geres, was our destination.  It is supposed to be the park’s most stunning mountain village that straddles both sides of a deep ravine and is backed by dome mountains and a gushing waterfall.  From the direction that we approached we weren’t as impressed as the Lonely Planet writer, but it was pretty.  We approached over the back of some bald uninspiring hills (almost like a high altitude barren landscape), on narrow roads, and eventually dropped down into the heavily wooded valley and eventually the village.  There were lots of long horned cows all over the roads, and on top of the hills/mountains, there were some “windmills” (as Madi calls them) - wind power generators.  They seem to be very common through all the countries we have travelled, in fact so common that even in spectacular scenery they don’t seem to be an eyesore.

In the village of Peneda, the roads got very very narrow (just wide enough for the camper van).  No sign of the gushing waterfall, but there was an alcove of cobblestoned streets, a plaza and beautiful church on one side of the “ravine”.  We had some lunch (stale baguettes) and then went for a walk through the plaza and church before heading off on a one kilometre walk to the top “dome” mountains above the village.  

Our first Portuguese church was quite different to those that we’ve seen so far.  White walls instead of exposed stone, and a large chandelier making quite a statement in the centre of the church.  As usual the intricate and ornate sculpting that adored the church made it feel very grand, despite its size in comparison to large city churches.

We then headed off on a very steep (nothing new there) walk up to the top of the domed mountains above the village, to see a lake.  Half way up we passed another family coming down who were French and Portuguese, and we are not sure if the message was lost in translation, but we asked if the lake was worth the steep climbing we were doing, and the French man said it was “beautiful”.  So on and up we went in the heat of the day.  After about 700m of steps, the path flattened and eventually the lake (I wouldn’t call it that) came into view.  We tried to capture the nicest aspect of the lake in the photos as it was really a manmade lake, with a brick wall at one end.  I enjoyed the walk, but if we had of known about our destination beforehand we might not have walked such a steep path for it.

The descent didn’t take nearly as long, and in fact by the time we got to the bottom, the other family had also just reached the bottom.  With a dog and three children, it was really slow going for them as the adults and children alike, seemed very unsure of their footing on such a steep path.  Not sure who was holding whose hand for assistance.

Back in the van and it was off to look at a historical bridge on our way to the coast.  The descent out of the valley - across another valley, and then up and over mountains on the other side of the Peneda valley was a beautiful drive - albeit on very narrow roads yet again!  Every now and again we turned to look backwards to where we had come from and we could see what the Lonely Planet writers were excited about.  If you can see from the photos below looking back at the valleys, the second photo is a closeup of the valley on the right in the first photo.  Looking at the second photo you can just see the white of the church (square with two spires) high in the valley, and then our walk was up to the left from the church to the top of the rocky looking mountains above.  Madi’s great eye sight spotted the church when we stopped to take photos and it gave us a real sense of achievement to look back at where we had been.

Leaving the mountains behind, our next stop was Ponte de Lima and the 31-arched Ponte Romana crossing the Rio Lima.  It is considered the finest medieval bridge in Portugal, and it was beautiful.  As the Lonely Planet points out, the town and bridge are very photogenic.  The bridge dates back to the 14th century, as I’m sure does most of the town.  Even the small part we saw on the eastern side of the river was quite medieval and beautiful to look at.  You can see the remains of a castle and parts of its walls and turrets scattered amongst the village.

The other thing that the girls have mentioned in their journals was the mess that the carpark and river were left in post a market today.  Every second Monday they have a market in town and it would appear that it was massive before we arrived.  The entire carpark, streets and plaza in the area were littered with rubbish.  Hundreds of empty shoe boxes and tissue paper, even piles of clothes had been discarded on the ground.  Obviously anything they couldn’t sell (that had little value) they left behind, for the army of cleaners and garbage trucks that swept through the area as we were departing.

With the sun setting we decided to head to the coast and the town of Viana do Castelo.  Here we camped in a camper van designated (free) carpark at the beach, and given the hour were happy to setup have dinner and get a good nights sleep.