Our first weekend in Portugal

Saturday was our day for cleaning the caravan and doing some washing and plenty of research regarding renewable energy,it seems that it is possible to build wind turbines ourselves for a fraction of the price,but a lot more research is going to be needed

Sunday

This morning we headed off to a nearby seaside town called Nazare,the sun was out and it was substantially warmer than it has been



After our lovely morning walk on the beach,we headed of to our local town of Caldas da rainha for a proper look around

It turned out to be a nice little town with some good shops and a fruit and veg market where we bought some tasty oranges



Renovate or rebuild ???????

So the big question is,do we renovate or rebuild?
what do you all think we should do?
your opinion would be much appreciated

This is where we are on the map

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=39.330493,-9.089829&num=1&t=h&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=6.881357,14.941406&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=39.330314,-9.089298&spn=0.001938,0.004812&z=18

Land clearance and meeting the neighbours

Today we went to the land early to try and clear some of the overgrowing plants  and finally enter the house.  Susie was not looking forward to the last bit after having had an awful nightmare about the house and the "previous" owners still being there (I tell you it was horrendous!!!!).  We cleared a bit of the plants and then Glenn decided to face it and managed to kick one of the doors in.  There were quite a few remnants of the previous owners, but luckily we saw no bodies or ghosts and unfortunatly no treasure either!!!!  The ceiling has caved in though and it is so old it is hard to understand, but it is standing and there was no damp or any wet patches in there even after the heavy rains on Tuesday so not all bad.  Saw no living creatures in there either so that was a relief.  We found a wedding photo which looked fairly recent so will take that to the estate agent in case the previous owner knows who it is of.

We also met our new neighbours, who seemed lovely.  They told us there had been pine trees growing on some of our land which had been sold and how overgrown the rest of it used to be. Well they told us a lot more but this was the only bit we could really work out with our very limited Portuguese, or rather non existing Portuguese.  They seemed lovely though and hopefully soon we can communicate a bit better with them!

After our mornings hard graft,we returned to camp for lunch and showers and then ventured into the nearest town (Caldas da Rainha) to look for a wireless dongle for the internet,go to the bank and on the way back try to catch the estate agent (Marco)

Finally got the dongle after several problems with Jersey bank cards here,then off to the bank to change our UK pounds to euros.there is only one small bank in the village so we decided to use this,but were told that they couldn't change money unless we had an account with them,but as luck would have it,the Portuguese lady being seved next to us was going to the UK soon so offered to swap our pounds for her euros at the same rate as the bank,great for both parties no commission for either,what a nice lady,also ended up spending about half an hour chatting to the cashier as he had friends in Jersey

Our final stop was with Marco,to discuss our options re the property,he basically told us that if we choose to renovate the existing property we should not need any planning permission but if we want to start again then we do!!!

So now we have some more thinking and planning to do,all in all quite a productive day

France to Portugal

We finally made it to Portugal early Tuesday morning after a somewhat long journey.  The first day after we left France we drove for a nice 8ish hours and managed to set up camp at a nice campsite before dark, had dinner and a good night sleep. Second day started off well with us making our way down quickly and smoothly.  however, when we reached the campsite, which advertised both on the internet and on a board outside that it was open, and found out that it was closed we were slightly disappointed as it was getting late and we were hungry.  We decided to drive to the next town to see if we could find another site, but only made it a few km down the motorway when Glenn noticed something weird in the mirror.... one of the wheels of the caravan had come off and was being dragged along the road creating a large amount of smoke!  So on with the high vis vests and out on the motorway to see how bad the damage was. Lucklily Glenn is a clever and very handy guy so he managed to save the caravan and get the spare wheel on (Thank you Mr and Mrs Murphy for making sure the spare tyre was there and in good condition!!!)

Anyway, so after  finding out there was no campsite in sight, having almost been hit by a driver doing 130 on the hard shoulder where we were parked and being starving we were getting pretty fed up and homesick.  We made the decision to keep driving and after a couple of hours we stopped at a restaurant and had some dinner and some chill out time before setting off again.  We then drove through most of the night with a couple of stops where we had a nap (well Susie had a few of those on the way too).

Once in Portugal we found it was raining A LOT! And it was about 8 degrees so were feeling a bit deflated and  set up camp only to find our electricity cable did not fit and the campsite had no adaptors.  No electricity means no heating and we were cold and tired, so went on an adaptor hunt. Luckily we found one in shop number  2 so not too bad.  by this time we were feeling too awake to sleep so decided to go and see the land.  It was pretty overgrown but still looked lovely so that cheered us up.So as we tried to leave we realised the car was stuck in the mud up to the sills and after a bit of digging we managed to get it out.Even this didn't dampen our spirits!!!

We did some food shopping went back to the caravan and cooked an early dinner and went to bed at 5!! Weather hadn't cleared up much so we fell asleep to the sound of rain drumming against the roof and felt pretty good after all.

Wednesday morning was completely different, woke up early(ish) to a bright sunny day! We got the caravan sorted and set the awning up, which gave us a lot more space and made everything a lot easier. We spent the afternoon going round diy shops and tried to find builders merchants etc. We got some wellies for Susie and a couple of machetes to clear the land.

19 november 2010

We got up fairly early to beautiful sunshine and got our gear together asap to go to Chamonix/Mont blanc.  It was not a long but a truly spectacular journey up the mountains.  Once there we decided to go on the train up on the glacier and then take the cable cars up on the opposite mountain to mont blanc for a full view of the over 4000m mountain top. 

With the sun blazing it was a stunning train journey, there was also new fallen snow so all was white and sparkly, not what we are used to from Jersey.  Luckily the temperature was not too low and there was no wind so not even Susie felt cold, woop woop!

Once back down we had a gorgeous lunch and didn't realise time had disappeared so quickly and after a run up a massive hill (it was, honest!!!) we realised we missed the last cable car.  Can't say we were too disappointed as it looked very scary and we were stuffed from lunch but would have been stunning I'm sure. 

As it was still only fairly early we decided to go for a coffee in Cormayour in Italy, as we were only km from the border and glenn had never been to Italy before.  Had a smashingly lovely coffee and made our way back to ali and dom's.  Went to the their local restaurant for dinner, which was lovely and all in all had a brilliant day!

Mont Blanc

Today we are off to Mont Blanc and Chamonix!  Can't wait :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Blanc

French alps

Spent yesterday afternoon drving up the French alps and reached, what we thought, was a staggering 1036m above sea level and the views were just stunning.  Not sure about some of the roads taking us up there as it felt like we could've easily slipped off the edge but obviously we didn't so really enjoyed it.

This morning we spent exploring Geneva, which is half an hour away by train and tram from here so not really a very long trip.  Unfortunately it was raining a bit so our first impression of the city probably wasn't as good as it could be, but saying that we saw some stunning architecture and had an absolutely lovely coffee.

The afternoon we spent driving another route up the mountains and saw loads of snow and reached nearly 1200m. Again the view was stunning and we ended up in Evian, where the bottled water is from. On the way back we went past Yvoire, which we will explore more when we get daylight again!

First post

We have now left Jersey and made our way through France to Saint Cergues in the French Alps. It may seem strange as we are on our way to Portugal but we thought as we were already on the road we'd take the opportunity to go and see our friends here. 

We are probably a bit in denial still of the big adventure ahead and it feels quite nice to have made a stop over so we are looking forward to spending some time with Ali and Dom and do the touristy thing for a few days.  Just the drive here was absolutely stunning and with towing the caravan we had to take it nice and slow and got to enjoy it!

Photos and further updates to follow!