Author: Rose

Just some views around our little village. Cork trees everywhere, walking a trail behind our house, the view of the beach we visited yesterday from the church on the hill (whose bells play a tune every 15 minutes all day long), narrow streets and tight corners. Studying at sunset on the patio.

Dinosaur Parque Lourinhã — silly selfie points and no smoking signs, big dinosaur models and occasional references to Jurassic Park. We enjoyed ourselves but it wasn’t quite as interesting as we had hoped, given that this is a serious fossil-finding location. There was a lab where paleontologists were examining fossils behind a screen so we could watch for a bit, and some good info about fossils in the area, but the park itself was perhaps geared for a younger audience. Fun day out though, even if two of them did get eaten by a shark. Or was it a megalodon?

Today the boys and I went to the beach. This is the south side of the Lagoa de Óbidos. The sand is beautiful, the water is clear, and the currents are amazing to watch. The shape of the water and the sand just keeps changing. We didn’t swim, Nate and Tim just played in the sand and paddled a bit, while Ben mostly just sat and read. Out on the Atlantic side people were fishing.

We went to Peniche on Monday, a peninsula where there’s an old fort and some fascinating rock formations.

Then on Tuesday we enjoyed a leisurely walk around Óbidos, the medieval walled city, including a short section on the wall which is a bit nerve wracking with no safety rails!

And of course, we’re also hanging out at home and doing schoolwork.

We dropped Eric off at the airport yesterday for a short work trip to Washington DC, he’ll be back on Sunday.

The beach at Nazaré has some huge waves! Today’s weren’t the biggest but it was still impressive, and there were surfers out there to watch. Pics don’t really show the size of the waves but it was an absolutely beautiful day.

We drove home along the coast road and noticed a lot of these round towers (perhaps former windmills? the boys thought they looked like gun towers!). Whateer their original use, many appear to have been converted to homes. We stopped for ice cream in São Martinho do Porto, a really cute little port town.

Yesterday we made it a little past the French/Spanish border. Parts of that drive were really quite dramatic! We stayed in a hotel in Donostia San Sebastian, got up early and availed of the buffet breakfast (the kids love these breakfasts and eat *so* much!), then started driving south west. From mountainous to plains, and back to mountains, it was an interesting drive. We saw a herd of wild boar in one place.

After an epic 12.5 hour travel day (with only short toilet/fuel/food stops), we made it to our house in Óbidos, Portugal. It got dark in the last half hour and started to rain, so other than the well-lit castle, we have no idea what’s around us. The inside of the house is lovely though, and the car and trailer are safely parked. Apart from a little bit of moaning of boredom, the kids were really great in the car. Kindles are brilliant! 

We have two weeks to explore this area!

We’ve enjoyed more swimming, good food, beautiful scenery and stormy weather, and now our time in France is over.

We’re off again, on our way to Portugal now, with an overnight stop somewhere around the French/Spanish border. Goodbye Chevanceaux, it was fun!

A different kind of update — last weekend I ended up going to the emergency room. I’d been having a bit of tingling on one side of my face, just occasionally, but last Friday it was most of the day and Saturday it started to feel numb, so on the advice of the local pharmacist, we went to the nearest hospital. The staff were very nice, and quite concerned, and sent me in an ambulance to the bigger hospital in Angoulême, where within an hour I had an MRI. The good news is no stroke, no tumour, nothing urgent. They recommended that I see a neurologist at some point because it’s likely some weird nerve thing, but they stressed that it wasn’t urgent. I’ve felt it a bit over the last week, but not much. I guess I need to find a neurologist in Spain where our next long stay is planned.  

The bright side of all this? I spoke more French that evening than most of the trip so far, and it was very good for my confidence!

Up early to get to the Louvre before it got busy. We spent 2.5 hours there, which was way longer than I expected the boys to last! We saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo and lots more, of course. But by then the crowds were getting insane, so we walked along the Seine, past Notre Dame, to the Galerie d’Evolution for an hour, then more walking to Munda Lingua, a small funky museum devoted to languages and linguistics. And that was it! Back to Montparnasse for a quick dinner and the TGV back home to Chevanceaux. All exhausted but we saw a lot of Paris!

Paris : Eiffel Tower (we just looked, didn’t go up) bus tour, Arc de Triomphe (we did go up, so many stairs!) and the Catacombs (we went down so many stairs!). At the Arc we were watching the crazy people queuing in the middle of the street for the perfect photo and the utter chaos of the traffic on the roundabout, when loads of police showed up, and protesters on bikes, and drummers, and then suddenly the people beside us were unfurling a banner from the top of the Arc! It was Extinction Rebellion. Interesting experience. 

Lots of walking, now we’re all wrecked! But up in the morning and off to the Louvre.