Thursday 23rd March

After another fairly uneventful drive we arrived on the Portuguese border. The first thing you have to do when you have crossed the Rio Guadiana, which form the natural border between Spain and Portugal, is to register your car with a debit card so that it will pick up and charge you for the motorway tolls.  This is far easier and quicker than having to stop at booths as you do in France and Spain.

Lepe Beach, nearly home !

The motorway road signs in Portugal are so much better than Spain, they give you more warning and are a lot clearer, however in the towns and villages the signs on the roundabouts are over run with directions to MacDonalds and Aldi, so it’s very difficult to pick out the important ones!

As soon as we got to the Algarve, I noticed that the roads were so much quieter, with no huge lorries driving 2 inches from my rear bumper!

Turiscampo near Lagos is probably one of the most up to date sites we have stayed at, everything is 5 star, and Jane loves the shower block, which feels like you are in a top class hotel.  There is a great-looking pool which is open (all of the other pools have been closed until May !) but its not heated and its a bit chilly here at the moment.

The only thing this place lacks is free WIFI, which has become very important for us, especially me who can’t keep off Facebook and the BBC news page .

After setting up camp we headed off to Cabo de São Vincente, the Portuguese Lands End, and the most westerly point of Europe.

Very windy, but very beautiful its so much like one of our most favourite places in the world, Cornwall, only without the pasties !