Sao Pedro de Moel

It got a bit wet and windy in Guithary, so we packed up and drove down to Portugal. The drive took us diagonally across the northwest area of Spain. Lots of wind, very flat and a bit featureless (apart from the many wind farms). We had an overnight stop in Belmonte in northern Portugal and then arrived at Sao Pedro on Monday. We last visited this place in 1996, it's a lovely little village on the west coast and the campsite is set amongst a pine forest that is called the Pinhal de Leiria. It was planted at the request Dom Dinis about 700 years ago to protect farmland from the inward march of sand dunes, it is a huge national park now and the tall pines provide shade and a fresh fragrance. The campsite hasn't changed much at all since we last visited. It's a chilled out, relaxed place. It's not very busy at the moment as the season doesn't really start until July. Paul had a bit of a surf today that turned into an adventure, but as he's going to blog about it I'll leave that particular story for him to tell. There was a Euro match on tonight, Portugal v Denmark, the Portugese are clearly as obsessed with football as the Brits as there were huge cheers to be heard from the village when Portugal scored. Portugal won thank goodness! We went on a great bike ride along the coast this morning and there are lots of bike trails through the pine forest that we'll try out this week. The weather here is sunny and warm, but not too hot, perfect for biking and beaching. Sorry to read that the UK is having very heavy rainfall and serious flooding at the moment. I hope the summer starts soon for all you Brits.