We bought a Portuguese motorway!

We woke up in the isolated Portuguese service station to itsy bitsy teeny weeny little bunnies (without yellow polka dot bikinis) hopping around us, and teeny weeny itsy bitsy little birdies (also with no bikinis, nor any yellow) chirping away in the trees and bushes. Funny how one is so much more aware of nature and the little things when in the mindset of enjoying things/being on holiday, eh?

After having watched the old man trouble his way through cereal the last few mornings (corn flakes stuck on chin/milk spilt on belly/top), we took extra measures before breakfasting from the van.

We were poised for a day of driving and not much else so anything on top of plain rolling would be a bonus.

We headed for the motorway, east, and trailed along some super-duper impressive-looking large archey structure. Bonus #1. We had no idea what it was - it kind of lined the border with Spain but It wasn’t until a few days later we discovered it was the Amoreira Aqueduct. Impressive and, in hindsight, a bugger we didn’t get a snap.

Picture lifted from tinterweb so you have an idea of the size of this thing!

We continued on our way to the motorway and, having taken a ticket the night before at the tollgate when coming off the motorway, were braced for a toll of some kind.

What we weren’t braced for was a toll of bloody €89! You WHAT?!!

Abhorred, we paid and were keen to get the hell out of this country (as Tone said “before we get caught with our pants down even more!”).

There were a fair amount of castles on top of hills around us as we drove back east and we came off the motorway, joining an A-road so as not to retrace our steps (it also meant we wouldn't get stung by any more tolls!). Taking a slightly different road back into Spain meant that we saw lots of delights on the way. Bonus #2 was the sight of the Portuguese walls, all made up of small multi-coloured stones and rocks. Rusticalicious!

Bonus #3 was the castle we checked out on our way to Spain (well, having bought the motorway, we felt we needed to get out money’s worth!).

It was time for another photoshoot for our Smiles. Having a job uploading pics so will have to upload ones I've missed out from posts when back with sturdy wifi. A few sneak peeks:

See what I mean about the little stones? Even the paths were made of them :)

Anf and I talked about Madrid on the way east and it became clear neither of us had anything in particular we wanted to see there. We were still touristed out. “Shall we just push on past Madrid?” “Yeah.” New plan: let’s go to Barcelona and Andorra. After all, we didn’t stop in Barcelona last time because it was chucking it down with rain.

We found a service station with a little café but no overnight toilets. We grabbed a Russian salad (Anf’s new fav dish!) and I jumped in the back for a little lie down (this passenger malarkey is tough going!). I dozed off pretty much immediately, whilst the old man pushed on for another hour before stopping at another service station.