A Year in Europe

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.

So what was my last update? Oh yes the Paris Trip! But this one is going to be about Portugal! So when we left Chevanceaux I was kinda sad. But I cheered up when I thought about a new country! Yay. Whooo.

But for the first drive I think we had to drive 5 hours? We stayed in a hotel for the night and then the next day there was a buffet breakfast and then we left. We drove for 13 hours!!!! Taking breaks of course! When we finally got there we had a very nice host named ‘Graça’ who gave us a nice tour of the house. The next day we went to Nazaré.

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.

From Chevanceaux to Óbidos. A stop over in Donostia-San Sebastian.

On Wednesday we said goodbye to Mairead, and James, Finley, Isaac, and Ruby. Mairead came over to help finish the lemon tart I made two days previous, which everyone ,but Ben, enjoyed. (He thought it tasted metallic).

We got on the road at 5:20, and went to about 7:30, then we stopped for an hour, ate a pasta salad we had prepared for dinner, and then continued on till about 10:00 when we stopped at a B&B Hotel in Donostia-San Sebastian for the night. That was about 350 km covered that night. We woke up at 7:00 and got a buffet breakfast (have I mentioned I love buffet breakfasts? [So much chocolate stuff!])!

We hit the road at 8:10, and drove for a couple hours, when, for a toll, we slowed down and the trailer started squeaking. Mom and Dad fiddled with the brake and it fixed it for the time being. Another couple hours later, we checked on it again and it was squeaking, but they fiddled with the brake and it was fixed again. This happened several times more and every time it was fixed with a quick fiddle of the brakes. At round 1:00, we stopped at a motorway services station and grabbed a few long thin breads that do not deserve the name ‘Baguettes’. Continuing along we got to Portugal. Portugal is hillier than most of the part of Spain that we had driven through, and greener. We stopped for dinner (just sandwiches) eventually. After 12 hours of driving that day, and 891kms, we had finally reached Óbidos. Our house. I’ll explain why that says 11h 20 min and I said that just the second day took 12 hours — we take 50% longer than Google’s estimate, because of the trailer.

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!

So we started by being woken up at 7:00 AM. Then left at 8:00 ish for a 40 min drive to Angoulême, which is about 2 hours north of Bordeaux. We caught a train at Angoulême. A TGV to be exact. A train of great speed!!! Woooo Hooo!!! Max speed for a TGV is 517 kph!! Average is 300 kph! The train was 2 hours long to get to Montparnasse train station. After we got of the train we put our bags in a BagBNB ;P. We then walked to the Eiffel tower. then we got on a bus tour of paris that was shorter than normal because the road was blocked so they skipped a bit of it. We got off near the end of it to go up the Arc De Triomphe. It was really cool. There were 291 steps and we h– to go up and down them. When we got to the top of the Arc, a protest about climate change started. It really was like the police were doing a Yakety Sax. routine. Please watch. It is really funny. Beside us people were throwing a cloth poster off the edge of the Arc. Anyhoo, after the Arc we went to the Catacombs. WoOoOoO!?Ha! It really was a lot of walking then SHOOM!!!! BONES! 6 MILLION PEOPLES BONES!!!!!!!☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️WOW!!! Then we went to the hotel. Nothing special and literally a Budget hotel. I mean, the name was Ibis Budget. Buut the next day we started off going to the LOUVRE!!! WOOO HOOOO!!! I was pulling along to get to the Mona Lisa. I SAW IT and Mom got a picture with me in it. We saw the Winged Victory of Samathras(No head) Then I fell apart.?As in TALKED. A LOT. Then we looked at the Notre Dam on the way to a natural history museum :P:P:P (My choice) We then traveled to Munda lingwa, a language museum. After that we left Paris?. I will spare you the details. We had pizza and left.