wobbly
Well-Known Member
This was very much a change of game plan.
The original plan started at Braganca and ends up at Evora, with camping at different sites along the way, or rough camping on the track.
This was changed for a few reasons - each day was planned for between 60 and 70 miles of tracks, which was waaay too ambitious, we should have said 30 to 40 - the lack of current mapping didnt help, although we managed some good compass work (this is modern europe!) The campsites we hoped to find werent there, there are only about 100 in the country and many of these didnt actually qualify as campsites!
So we stayed at Valhoeles for 3 nights, and a good decision it was. From there we went and did the end of the previous days route we hadnt completed, we spent a day on the next route from the book, including a visit to Almeida, a Star Fort:

The photo was taken inside the fort, we were really surprised to find that people still live there! Its a bit like living inside an English Heritage site, the Portugese really do view things differently. This makes it an unusual experience for Brits, used to being members of the National Trust and speaking in whispers whilst walking around etc.
That day also saw us visit Castelo Blanco, which was the old Port/Spanish border crossing. It was odd, we had spent the day crossing and recrossing the border on tracks, its marked by granite blocks with E or P to show which side you are on, then in th emiddle of nowhere is a town around a crossing, which you could just drive round the outside of to bypass......
This saw my first experience with the Republican Guard.
The original plan started at Braganca and ends up at Evora, with camping at different sites along the way, or rough camping on the track.
This was changed for a few reasons - each day was planned for between 60 and 70 miles of tracks, which was waaay too ambitious, we should have said 30 to 40 - the lack of current mapping didnt help, although we managed some good compass work (this is modern europe!) The campsites we hoped to find werent there, there are only about 100 in the country and many of these didnt actually qualify as campsites!
So we stayed at Valhoeles for 3 nights, and a good decision it was. From there we went and did the end of the previous days route we hadnt completed, we spent a day on the next route from the book, including a visit to Almeida, a Star Fort:

The photo was taken inside the fort, we were really surprised to find that people still live there! Its a bit like living inside an English Heritage site, the Portugese really do view things differently. This makes it an unusual experience for Brits, used to being members of the National Trust and speaking in whispers whilst walking around etc.
That day also saw us visit Castelo Blanco, which was the old Port/Spanish border crossing. It was odd, we had spent the day crossing and recrossing the border on tracks, its marked by granite blocks with E or P to show which side you are on, then in th emiddle of nowhere is a town around a crossing, which you could just drive round the outside of to bypass......
This saw my first experience with the Republican Guard.
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