We had delayed our long drive to Porto for a day, but today we had to cover almost 400 kilometers. It was raining steadily when we left the campground in Salamanca. In fact it rained for most of the trip today.
The roads were very quiet in Spain as the area between Salamanca and the Portuguese border is very rural. Because it was Sunday there were very few semi-trucks on the road as semi’s need special permits to drive on Sunday so there are almost no trucks on the road. This makes it a great day to cover long distances.
Once we crossed into Portugal the traffic picked up as eastern Portugal seems to have more population than western Spain. Also eastern Portugal is much more mountainous than I remember from our last trip.
Once we dropped down to the Porto metropolitan area the rain stopped and the sun came out. When we arrived at the campground before they would let us enter we had to confirm we had a reservation. The shoulder season when you don’t have to make reservations is getting narrower and narrower. Fortunately we had made reservations and were allowed to enter.
After we settled in we decided to relax by playing a form of rummy. None of us knew how to play four handed rummy, so we made up our own rules and proceeded to play 10 hands. We really enjoyed our brand of rummy and decided to call it Portuguese Rummy.
We went down to the beach for a quick walk. The sun was still shining and everyone enjoyed exploring the beach and some of the tidal pools in the area.
After the beach we went back for a nice dinner that Kit prepared. We didn’t get around to dinner until almost 8pm, someone joked we had finally adjusted to a Spanish meal schedule just in time to leave Spain. While the day mostly consisted of driving, we still had a very enjoyable afternoon.
