and portugal and the uk and everywhere in between… falls mainly on the….well…mainly on us.  We have decided on our new careers….drought breakers!  Wherever we go at the moment – it seems to rain.  Our last night in London was spent with rain pelting in Purley, the Bay of Biscay was blowing and blustery, we were splattered in Spain, Porto poured and now Lisbon is lashing it down. The best £5 each spent on kit so far has been our pac-a-macs which so far have had plenty of use. We are certainly looking forward to never seeing them again!

If we trick the rain gods, and change our plans at the last minute, we can avoid it.  We spent a wonderful lunchtime stopover in a 13th century walled town called Óbidos. We parked up in a great ‘Camperstop’ (more about those in the future) and walked up the hill to the town – sun beaming down on us. The narrow cobbled streets twisted and turned, showing us several churches, old houses and a wonderful town square with the main street running across its top. A perfect place to pick up a souvenir and some postcards to send home.

Having given our calf muscles a workout on the cobbled hilly streets, we decided to break for our picnic (being on a budget) lunch. We climbed up on top of one of the walls of the town and settled down to our lunch in the sunshine. Unfortunately, the weather gods realised where we were and shortly after starting to eat our fresh bread and ham, we felt the familiar spots of rain. Trying to ignore them didn’t work – instead they got heavier and more persistent. We decided to admit defeat and start walking back to our van through the rapidly increasing downpour. By the time we got back we were soaked through. Lunch was finished in the van having changed out of our wet things – definitely one of the benefits of touring in our mobile home from home…

We motored onto our next camp which is at the beautiful Praia de Guincho in the Parque Natural Sintra-Cascais.  That afternoon saw that weird orange thing in the sky, so we decided to make the most of it and out came the bikes! We cycled off downhill from the campsite and then along the stunning coast, with the vast sand dunes to our left. After just enough time to tire out Will, we decided to head back and picked up the beautiful boardwalk across the dunes to the lovely café bar at the top. A biscuit, an apple juice and a beer were the perfect accompaniment to taking in those stunning coastal views once again…

Perhaps the weather would now be better for us?  Not a chance…but will write about lovely Lisbon after our second day there tomorrow….