Day 26 - Porto, Nazaré to Lisbon (349kms)

The girls have developed a fascination for maps, after encouraging Madi to read town maps - one of her homework tasks for the holiday.  In particular both her and Sierra have been pretending to be caravan park staff pointing out all points of interest on a map of the park.  This includes an explanation of how much various forms of accommodation cost and where you can access WIFI.  It's cute++ to watch.

We woke to another glorious day in paradise today, and before we moved on we gave the kids their choice of how to spend a few hours this morning - after a long and tiring day in the heat yesterday.  Of course time in the pool, the playground, and using the free WIFI were top of the list.  It was a quick swim - the girls complaining that the pool was colder than yesterday, and then a play in the playground and on the iPads before packing up to move on.

Driving from the campground, we passed the same giant strawberry in the middle of a roundabout we saw when we arrived in Porto.  A google search didn't reveal much, except to say that strawberries can be a symbol used to denote the rural nature of a municipality.  The immediate area does not look too rural - in terms of paddocks and farm activity, but we have noticed that there is often paddocks and primary producers very close to large towns and even cities in Spain and Portugal.  Quite often we have driven through or around towns, sharing the roads with tractors, and within a few kilometers of the town there is farmland.

The drive south to Lisbon, involved yet more toll roads, except it got even more complicated.  On the way to Nazaré we encountered toll roads that had electronic tolling only, and after some bluntly worded signs [something to the effect of "tourists get off here and pay"], we exited the toll road to a service station where I had to buy a 10€ ticket for 10.70€, then give it another man standing at a laptop who connected the ticket to our registration.  Go figure!

On the way south Kristie read about another beautiful town to we could visit to break the drive up, and just outside of it, a surf beach that was famous for up to 30m high barrels.  So our first stop was Praia do Norte - just north of Nazaré, to see this famous beach.  Apparently monster waves can be created when the storms and winds in the Atlantic combine with a 5km deep underwater canyon pointing right at Praia do Norte.  Not today though.  Look at the weather we had.  It is a steep beach, but literally no waves.  It was as flat as a tack, yet still beautiful water and beach - except for the steep ascent/descent to/from the car park above.

With strong currents and it being a steep beach, I wasn't too keen for the kids to swim, so after a play in the shallows we headed into the town of Nazaré and a swimmable beach.  Yet another pretty beachside town flanked by 100m high coastal cliffs.  The Lonely Planet describes it as a colourful umbrella clad beach, but while its not covered in umbrellas today, there is still enough people swimming.  The other thing that impressed the hell out of me was the moveable plank boardwalks that they roll out onto the beach.  They run out to little sunshade shelters that people in wheelchairs can get to, to also enjoy the beach.  Ingenious, and not an eyesore either.  Something that more communities need to consider.

The girls played in the waves, and were most delighted when told they could get their clothes wet.  Not sure why swimming in clothes is better than in bathers, but they were most excited about getting into the water yet again. 

After frollicking in the waves, it was a walk back along the promenade to the camper van, to continue our journey south to Lisbon.  De-sanding and a change of clothes for the girls and we were on our way to Lisbon.

More toll roads again, and this time I interpreted the toll plaza as a prepaid toll, as all the signs above the lanes displayed credit card symbols only (no pictures of tickets to be seen).  Given we no longer have a credit card (apart from Amex - which is not accepted for tolls), we headed to the only lane not displaying a credit card symbol and it was an electronic toll lane, so we just drove through the toll plaza without stopping.  With our credit card cancelled and only the travel money card (which is a debit card),  paying for tolls is going to be a problem from now on.  We will have to pay cash all the time.  

We continued along the toll road to Lisbon, and did call the information line for the toll road to work out what to do about the toll.  They said that we could go to a manned toll booth when we exit the road and pay the maximum toll possible, or could continue through the electronic toll lane and logon to a website in 2-3 weeks and pay the toll online.  Guess what we did, and probably won't do in 2-3 weeks?

So after a day of very confusing toll roads, we finally arrived in Lisboa at the Lisboa Camping & Bungalows campground around 6:30pm.  We checked into the campground just in time for the kids to go and have a swim in the massive swimming pool before it closed at 7:00pm.  The water was a beautiful temperature and it was quite a swimming pool - complete with diving boards and a diving platform, cafe and toddlers pool.

The rest of the park was also quite good.  The facilities included a bar, a restaurant, a mini supermarket, laundry, mini golf, a playground and the swimming pool.  It was very large, but well laid out with wide streets (including a garden mall up the middle of the grounds) and camper van sites separated by open space and trees.  It was nice not to be somewhere where vans were lined up side by side.