Tuesday 6th May - Salamanca

Rise early – sit on the porch – watch the sun light the Manteigas valley with its white and orange villas, its freshly tilled market gardens and its bright green steep slopes. Breakfast on bread, cheese and coffee and navigate towards Salamanca.

Be amazed by the wild flowers that adorn the roadside between Manteigias and Portuguegese border - red and orange poppies, yellow daisies, purple riverina bluebell, deep pink lavender, masses of yellow broom and white flowered bushes.

Leave Portugal and enter Spain - Approach Salamanca - Be reminded of the countryside around Dubbo in the middle of a good Australian spring – be amused by the storks nesting in trees and poles – feel comfortable and relaxed.

Enter Salamanca – streets wide by Spanish standards – traffic polite – chaotic parking practices characteristically Spanish – still feel comfortable and relaxed.

Find a parking station with little effort – be reassured by the nice attendant and his large German Shepard – be impressed by the traffic free 17th century plazas and streets in the centre of town - tow our cases 300 metres to the hotel.

Check in – nice small room – head out – become increasingly relaxed and impressed with Salamanca – walk 30 meters – enter the famous square – impressive in the extreme – wander the quite wide pedestrian streets during siesta – met happy polite people – wander around the historic university buildings in the middle of town – imagine that the chancellery at Coimbra would be jealous of all of this – try and find the frog on the university entrance façade without referring to the lonely planet – fail miserably. – wrong façade! –I go home for a siesta – Bernie finds the right façade and the missing frog – we have untold luck before us!

Sit in the open square - drink strong delightful G&Ts - watch people stroll around the square - 30 euros – shock - As John says – “not so bad in the scheme of things”

Wonderful town … not to be missed!

Our last night with John and Merie … Special dinner … celebrate with great travelling companions.

Monday 5th May - Lisbon to Manteigas

Rise early – bread, butter, cheese, jam and coffee on the house. Lug the increasingly obese cases down the stairs to the car –even it looks like it yearns for the country side.

Issue instructions to Tommy – avoid the motorways and get on your way! Tommy interprets us literally and endeavours to avoid motorways at all costs – we learn the Portuguese words for “deteriorating pavement ahead” -

We pass plantations of eucalypts many suffering die back, pass through small villages and towns – we take back streets and side roads – we climb and climb and climb the magnificent Serra da estrela . As we climb it shows us increasingly rugged terrain decorated with rounded rocky outcrops of granite coloured with vegetation of purple heath and bright yellow broom. As we climb higher and higher the flowering reduces and we alternate between bare ridges and lush valleys on roads that have Bernie gasping and tormenting the grab handles.

We pass spectacular views across the mountains, finish our climb and look down on the twisting, 10 kilometre descent into Manteigas. We pass a sheep herder with his flock and shepherd dog and reach the old, beautiful little town that is the main centre within the Serra da estrela – Out of season – the sun is shining and the tourists are few.

Sit on the porch –write – read – admire the view – look down at the car sitting in the lonely car park below – she smiles back – indeed it is nice to be in the countryside.

I don’t believe it – its true – no it cannot be true – the first snake that I see for the year weaves its way down the rock paved driveway of a hotel on a European mountainside– delivery vehicle passes - weaving ceases. Another lesson for the antipodean travellers!

End our afternoon watching sheep and goats being herded home past the villa.

Take out own advice – dine on Pizza and white wine – superb.

Sunday 4th May - Coimbria

Dinner last night – Open batting with strong G&Ts - taxi to old town – arrive in daylight at the Restaurant district in old town – looks seedy, unkempt, dirty, scary in the mid afternoon – comes alive at night – people everywhere- again a feeling of safety – police offer a fatherly presence.

North African hole in the wall – Couscous with chicken, cinnamon and sugar – multiple bottles of Matteus – rivals Valencia.

Head out of Lisbon on a quiet Sunday morning.

Fatima – an enigma for me – small groups of footsore pilgrims greet their supporter -thousands of people gather in the gigantic forecourt for mass –others wander the site – not many happy faces – contemplating? – puzzled? – not sure! - not as kitsch as expected – save one beggar not one request for money – no entry fee – no guide fee – it is actually a religious site! – I should not be surprised but I am!

On to Coimbria – a real university town – goes back to the 1500’s when Universities were fostered by the Church –

We arrive in town on the students parade day – students take over the town– thousands of students – even more spectators -– hundreds of floats full of students in various states of inebriation handing out beer and goodies to spectators also in various states of inebriation. Spectators include parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers and the local community. Concierge at the shabby,” wantabe” “old Europe” hotel warns us the parade is on but “will not be bad – parents here” – pity the town when the parents are not here!.

Strangely, as the procession raucously and erratically rounds the statue of Pope John-Paul II he seems to be looking down approvingly – I wonder.

Students beautifully dressed – girls in black blazer and skirt cut Latin style and boys in black slacks, with three quarter, fitted, black coats. Both wore white shirts and ties and top hats in their faculty colours and carried canes.

The old university area of the town is perched on the top of a hill – a wide set of a hundred or so steps provides access from the “new” town square – the university is a combination of narrow streets, old residences, faculty buildings, squares and churches. All looks a little unkempt - might just be the crowds and litter of parade day. I feel uncomfortable here – a sense that there is a missed opportunity to honour the pursuit of learning that has occurred here over 500 years.

We wander home in the very early evening - up steep roads - through littered streets - we thread our way past swaying students and locals - we take care to avert our eyes as we pass through a park where trees are in the process of being dosed with ammonia – I trust today is not the finest day in the University calendar.

Ah Portuguese food – perhaps that will save the day – There is no fool like an old fool - Michael you should know by now that in Portugal cities you eat ex-Pat food. Tonight amongst four we endured murdered baby beef and a bean and pork combination made tolerable by side servings of fried banana, orange slices, a local cabbage and rice. Without the side servings our tempers would have tested the lovely warm feelings created by the two bottles of chilled Portuguese Mateus.

Bernie was NOT impressed!

An education!.