Northern Portugal

Keep it in your pants, Portugal.
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We entered Portugal this afternoon via the Portela do Homen, an abandoned border post at the top of the Parque Nacional Peneda-Gerês, and descended on a twisting one-lane road through pine forests to the Rio Caldo.
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With just a little over a week left before we need to be in Lisbon to catch a flight back to the US, we’ll keep McLouis aimed south for a stop in Porto and a few nights on the beaches of the far southwest coast.
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#rveurope

Not long after arriving in a campsite just south of Porto the kids got to work collecting shells for the “beach” they wanna build with glue and an empty yogurt container in the camper tomorrow morning. Excited to check out the city after that. #travelwithkids #familytravel #porto #portugal

We’ve only been in Porto one day, and she’s already gone native. First stop today was the girls picking out cork change purses (if you followed our Airstream buildout - link in profile, you know my affection for cork). We’ll admit we’ve been bribing them a Euro a day to do their morning and evening routines (potty, brush teeth/hair etc) without prompting from us. With a little change in their pockets (or new purses), when they see a “can I have, can I have” on the street, we can just tell them they can spend their own money. Wynne spent all day looking for one of the gumball machine looking things where you turn the knob and a surprise drops out. She spotted this huge one just outside the Mercado do Bolhão and was happy to spend her coins. #travelwithkids #familytravel #porto #portugal #ronaldo

As we sat down for dinner at a cafe on along the Douro River with a view of Porto, we noticed a podium being set up. In the distance, the Ponte Luis 1 Bridge arched across the water, the lower level barely wide enough for the driver of our yellow double decker tour bus to squeeze across as the pedestrians on the narrow sidewalks dove towards the railing to avoid being smacked in the face by one of the mirrors. If they’d been more ambitious, they would have climbed to the top of one of the hills on either side of the river and walked across the wide upper level with only a train in the middle and broad views of the other 6 bridges that criss-cross the river.
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As the plates of roasted potatoes in garlic and steak topped with picked cauliflower and carrots - better than it sounds but not nearly as good as the similar orders of “meats and sides” we’d had for 1/4 of the price at the churrasqueira attached to our campground near a beach a bit to the south of town - arrived, we heard the engines revving. One by one, Cars from the RallySpirit 2017 were announced in Portuguese and assembled on the sidewalks in front of the cafe. From the looks of the cars, it was a pre-1975 or so rally class with Porsches, Alfas, Minis, BMW’s, Triumphs and even a few Fords and Toyotas. While the drivers and their navigators were in full race suits and looked a bit road weary, it was hard to tell if and where they’d been racing.