Monday, 2 April 2018

First day in Portugal

 Monday 2 April 2018 - Day 29

Nido’s parked up in the aire in the village of Castro Marim - we’re in Portugal.  Today was mainly a transit day, a 3.5 hour drive, by-passing the metropolis of Seville and into our next country. Portugal’s on the same time as UK, so we had to put our clocks back one hour and consequently it’s darker earlier tonight.

Castro Marim’s a small village, not far from the border and a few miles inland from the sea.  It’s a nice place to walk around with some interesting little houses, some with tiled frontages that open direct onto the road and others with long gardens behind.  We found one little house that we saw up for a sale a few years ago on ‘Place in the Sun’ - looks like it’s had some improvements since then.  There’s a couple of castles and we had a walk around one of them (entrance fee is €1.10).  There’s not a great deal to see inside and little renovation or preservation has been done.  There was an interesting display of torture methods, including the spiked chair shown in the picture below - that’d make your eyes water!

So not much to report today after a long, hot drive.  We’re fed and watered and I think it’ll be a read and an early night, ready to start exploring more tomorrow.

Looking down on the aire





The little house and garden on 'Place in the Sun'



Ouch!

Salt pans



In need of some TLC