Monday 8th October 2018

After a rather lazy start to the day, a little bit of novel reading, catching up with the news on the BBC  (when will this Brexit thing ever get sorted?) and seeing what is going on in the world of Facebook, we took the decision to go out and explore our local surroundings. A short drive from the campsite and we were up in the hills.  Jane had seen a picture of an old mill so that was all we had in mind for a lazy afternoon as well!

On our way to the mill we saw a sign to a medieval bridge and decided to divert towards that and so automatically double our excitement for the day!

The bridge was still one of the main ways into the charming little village of Vilar de Mouros.  This seemed to us a little like the land which time forgot…………

It was still a working village with people living in it.  The sort of place that if it was in the UK it would be a tourist destination and the place would be crowded.  Here the farmers on their tractors bounced noisily over the cobbled streets on their way to the fields whilst the other villagers went about their daily business, wondering why there were two strangers wandering around with a camera taking pictures.

Northern Portugal is relatively unspoilt with people like us, the tourists, and it is great to see how real-life goes on before it gets too commercialised.  Everywhere is so quiet and it is an absolute pleasure to drive along the country lanes – a bit like Braishfield in the early 1960s when I was a kid. This is definitely a place I would love to come back to because it seems to have the values of a nearly forgotten age with less stress and more focus on family life and having fun!

The cost of living for us here is so much cheaper than we have experienced on the Algarve and on the Costas, a round of drinks including a glass of wine, a beer, a soft drink, a coffee and 4 cakes only came to 7.6 Euros!