River Beach house

Next stage of our journey..... we stayed in the area that we have bought our cottage in to explore.

We chose a beautiful house to stay in with our friends 300m from the river beach...it was absolutely huge, sleeping eight in four double bedrooms.

After deciding that we should let our friends have the master bedroom with ensuite, we chose one of the other bedrooms and waited for them to arrive.

When they did, they went upstairs and opened the windows to air the room...several hours later they returned to their room to find it full of insects....hence a quick room change.

All went well until one of our friends walked into the glass outer door, hitting his nose and head causing him to fall backwards, it was the one and only time we have heard him swear. After a short lie down he was up and about again.

We spent a total of five days, four nights at this location visiting Penela, Coimbra and the local river beach Praia Fluvial da Louçainha.

On of our days was spent negotiating the 6.2km river walk from Praia Fluvial da Louçainha to Espinhal, it was a very beautiful walk with more than 20 species of butterflies, birds, beautiful scenery and waterfalls. There were several tricky bits to negotiate with rope attached to the rock walls to hang onto.

 About halfway through the walk, we came upon a 'help yourself to green tea and beer' which was set up at the back of the only house for miles around. We had quick refreshments and a chat with the owners.

As the walk progressed and we left the cool of the forest, the temperature rose to about 36/37 degrees, one of our friends began to struggle with the heat and the muscles in her leg began to hurt, we took frequent breaks and fashioned a walking stick out of a branch. On one of our breaks, we met Hermon who offered to drive our friend in his car however after a rest and a massage she turned down the lift and we carried on arriving in Espinhal tired and in need of coffee and food. We found a local café who supplied both and then visited a 'supermarket' which was the size of the average person's lounge. We bought the few items she had then tried to get an uber or bolt, none of which had any cars in the area. We returned to the café for help and they rang a local taxi for us which took us back to the house.

One of our evenings was spent at the Praia Fluvial da Louçainha where we swam in the dammed river, the water was still cold but much warmer than other river beaches we had swam at.

Our last full day with our friends was spent in Coimbra, the third largest city in Portugal. We visited the botanical gardens, the outside of the university, had dinner in a vegan café, visited the old and new cathedral, saw the river view and saw the archaeologists painstakingly digging up skeletons.