Portugal 3

We're currently on site at a place called Luso, 60 miles or so south of Porto.  Having moved inland we're back on a virtually deserted campsite.  After our last note we did head south, just touched the western Algarve without reaching the south coast and got to the edge of the land on the western coast.  Our first site there was fairly empty and we saw some fabulous cliff scenery which was very colourful.  Strange landscape with sand and dunes on top of the cliffs.  One of the (to me, many) iritating things about this country is that the dunes on the cliffs are like all dune environments very fragile and easy to damage but there are no marked paths.  There are tracks everywhere.  Then a few miles up the coast are big signboards with EC funded notices on explaining about the wildlife and the protected sea zone all in Portuguese and no other language.  Perhaps they have lots of Angolan, Mozambique and Brazillian tourists but I doubt it.  What they have in these areas are boardwalks 200 yards or so in from the cliff along the ROAD from which you can't even see the coast..  A fraction of the money on a few signs along the coast itself would have been better.  Heather says I moan too much but I think I'm being very controlled.  It is a spectacular coastline and we managed to hit it just as Portugal Day, a public holiday was starting.  Then we did see crowded sites.

I mentioned the lack of restaurants before but on the coast all the usual tourist ones appear so we did get a meal on the beach.  They really haven't a clue about tourism.  Most things are in Portuguses only although our camp cafe did an English translation.  One dish, God knows what it was, was translated as 'Secrets of the Blak (sic) Pig'.  Some desserts appear to be vegetarian.  On the public holiday itself we had arranged to be on the nearest bit of coastline to the south of Lisbon.  Not the best plan. 

So on Sunday, we had a 200 mile drive northwards to get here.  On the way we stopped at what are described as the best Roman remains in Portugal and they were very impressive.  A town split in two by a defensive wall meant that the houses outside were destroyed at the time but of course all the mosaic floors were just covered up.  They are really spectacular.  Pleased to report that info. was given in Portuguese and English.  It doesn't have to be English but a wider known European language would be reasonable at all info. points.  Spanish or French would do.

Tomorrow we'll probably head to Porto for 2 days and then to a protected area in the north.

We read somewhere that the second largest Portuguese city by population is Paris.