Been a while crocodile, bit I'm back again and full of the joys of Portugal. My wonderful mother passed away in August of last year and I took a 6 month break from writing. I still miss her every single day, but I'm ready to get back to my beloved blog.

Apparently in France, the tradition is that you have until the end of January to wish people a happy new year...so I'm not simply late, I'm merely obeying tradition! Here's wishing y'all the best year ever in 2020.

Last weekend, 29, 30 and 31 March, Alcoutim (Portugal) and Sanlucar de Guadiana (Spain), hosted an amazing festival which I am delighted to say we were able to enjoy to the fullest! Ourselves and, at a rough guesstimate, 10 000 other people too. Well done to both villages!

We stopped in this tiny village as I’d heard that there was a Dolmen church here…no, me either, so I googled it to save you having too. A Dolmen is also known as a cromlech (like that’s a help!) is a single-chamber tomb, mostly dating from 4000-3000BC. So like 7000 years old!

Coruche is situated about 48km inland from Lisbon and we discovered it and its Balloon Festival quite by chance. I tend to look for rivers, lakes or dams for overnight stops and this is how we discovered Coruche. And they threw in a balloon festival to impress us too!

Happy New Year everyone!!!!! We wish you a year filled with joy and happiness and that our planet gets just a little bit better rather than a little bit worse in 2019.
PS: This photo was taken by our deevine friends, Anouschka & Joachim - thank you!

We had heard about Nazaré from a friend of ours, Bob, whose son is Tom Butler a professional big wave surfer. In fact, just a few days ago on the 18th of December, he surfed the biggest wave ever at 30.8m (100 ft). I mean like the biggest wave ever surfed in the world!! And we know his Dad! I think this is called glowing in someone else’s shine or something like that!

Our journey in Portugal continues in spite of the fact that we are currently not there, but I would like to show you some more beautiful places we visited whilst we were there. Right now we’re in Germany and even had some lovely snow on Sunday, but we’re staying in lovely warm Portugal blog wise!

Chaves is another city Joerg and I have fallen in love with. It has loads to see and do, has THE BEST RESTAURANT EVER (my next post) as well as being picturesque and photogenic all in one. I look forward to visiting it again sometime.

Bragança, northern Portugal

Joerg and I aren’t city people, but we both loved our stay in Bragança and will definitely go back there again. The city has also cleverly provided a huge free parking area for campers with trees and green areas, so not just a piece of tarmac. And it’s right next to the castle so beautiful and accessible to the city at the same time. Awesome.