Monday, 18 May 2009

Douro Valley - part 1

Set off early to drive the 90 miles or so around Porto (no way do you want to go into Porto with MH) and then along the picturesque Douro valley. The road heads up into the hills and then dives down to the river again numerous times giving spectacular views of the Douro and hillside villages along the way. Its cherry time and every parking area has liitle old ladies (and men) selling them at around 2euros a kilo. The vines start to appear in precipitous vine yards by the the time we reached the end of our first leg in Pego do Regua, which is also a regular stopover for the the Douro river cruises from Porto. Its not far from the N-S motorway system so a popular day trip tourist spot.


We had not seen another motorhome and got some funny looks as we drove thru the mountain villages, until we reached Regua. We found a small '4 berth' MH parking area with a Portugese MH and with a view of the river and went down to the quay for a coffee. As we walked back Rosemary spotted a convoi of 3 motorhomes heading for the parking area. Sure enough when we got back we were surrounded by 3 muttering French drivers trying to squeeze 3 MH into the 2 remaining slots! We were in the middle. We bade them 'bon jour' and they retreated, still muttering, to an adjacent car park (without a view) - YES!!! Entertained in the evening by a bus load of (happy!) day trippers singing and dancing to accordions and drum accompanyment.

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