General Observations

Restaurants

We had real difficulties adjusting to the lifestyle of the locals in both Portugal and Spain. Throughout our trip we had to accept the fact that restaurants would generally only open at 20:30 hours. While it was still possible to eat earlier in Lisbon, it became more and more difficult as we progressed. Even in the bigger cities in northern Spain, there was no way for us to have dinner at 18:00 or even 19:00 hours. During those times, people would still be out shopping or sit in lovely street-side cafes and enjoy tapas. Not wanting to accept this simple fact of life in the area, we often set out to look for a restaurant at around 18:00, only to have us walking for a good 2 hours before settling in some restaurant, even before the chef arrived.

Generally, we found prices to vary quite a bit. In Lisbon, one could have a good main course for between 11 and 15 Euros, while further north and in Spain things were more expensive. Considering the latest prices back in SA, it was probably very similar. The same goes for the wine. Barring exceptions, we paid between 10 and 15 Euros for a decent bottle of red wine, much the same as in SA. Tapas in Spain were generally fairly low cost and often we would pay in the order of 2 Euros for a good coffee and a small bread roll him ham and cheese. Once we paid 2 Euros for 2 glasses of decent red wine.

There is no restaurant variety in Portugal or Spain. Almost no "foreign" restaurants a all. There are a few italian restaurants, but even they are truly rare. We saw no Greek, Balkan, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese or any other foreign restaurant in any of the cities we visited, bearing in mind that we always visited the relevant "restaurant mile" of each town. While the local food is certainly very good, things can become boring after a while. This is pretty much in line with what we found in southern Spain and Mallorca, even though the occasional foreign restaurant may be found there.

Internet

Generally, Internet cnnectivity is very good, certainly better than in Germany, Austria or Switzerland. The majority of all hotels offer free WiFi connectivity and probably half of the restaurants and cafes in Portugal and Spain do. It is quite easy to find a cafe somewhere and sit down to engage in some heavy email or web browsing activity. That said, we have found various hotels who make life more difficult for their guests than what it should be. 

To understand this, one needs to look at the various ways internet connectivity is offered. And one needs to understand that there are significant differences in how WiFi services are offered. In the simplest case, the hotel or restaurant will provide an unprotected network with no password. In this case, one simply connects to the visible network and all is good. We have found this form of connectivity in smaller hotels and various cafes and restaurants in Portugal. One step up in terms of complexity is a password protected network. The password is obtained from the host and is usually a simple to remember sequence like "1a2b3c4d5e" (we actually used this once). Such password is of course shared between all guests and probably does not change very often. From our perspective, this was the most preferred option as it provided some link security yet was easy to use. Better still, the same password could be used for multiple devices and those devices would automatically reconnect after having been out of range. Even though neither Vero nor I carried our laptops on this trip, we both had our iPhones and iPads which meant that we always had four devices which required connection.

The next step up in connection complexity typically comes as a result of the establishment in question deciding to outsource their WiFi provisioning. In practical terms this means that one connects to an "open" WiFi network, i.e. no password is required to join the network. Once connected to the network, a web browser opens and one is taken to a special provider web site where a user name and password needs to be entered to gain internet access. This clearly is the least desirable form of internet connection because it provides zero network security yet complicates life for the user. The following example demonstrates how bad things can become:

We had checked into a 4-star hotel which offered free WiFi on all rooms. Upon check-in, we were provided with a complicated username / password sequence. Anybody who has ever entered such complicated passwords which include upper/lower case numbers, letters and symbols on an iPhone knows what I am talking about. The chance of making an entry error are great and you can start all over again. When I finally succeeded, getting my iPhone connected, I tried my iPad, only to be told that the username was already in use and could not be used again. So, back to the hotel lobby again to ask for 3 more (!) usernames and passwords. I was provided with three more pieces of paper containing the important access details. Back at the room, we found that the 3 new access details were valid for 24 hours only, even though we were booked for 2 nights with an option for more, and the first slip had the correct duration. Still, we proceeded to use those access details just to get going. Soon we found other issues. A period of network inactivity of only 10 minutes would cause your device to be disconnected, requiring re-entry of the full credentials. Worse still, the service was a pure web service only and did not allow port numbers other than for Web browsing. This rendered my iPad mail client useless, as it relies on other port numbers to talk to the mail server. It also prevented the use of Skype, FaceTime, SIPGate or other communication services because they too use other port numbers. In addition, I would not be able to carry out any urgent work on our US based servers in case of an emergency. The situation amounted to a completely crippled internet connection and was reason for us to leave the hotel after only one night.

The bottom line is that free WiFi availability is no guarantee that one has a good internet connection. Paying for such connectivity is not really an option either, as such paid solutions pretty much fall into the same inconvenience category as described above. Besides, the prices asked for by some hotels are beyond comment. I certainly have no intention of paying 8.30 Euros per hour (!) for a connection. If one had to make a general observation than it is that the smaller hotels (less than 20 rooms) are likely to deploy an easier and more user friendly option while the bigger hotels in the cities rely on outsourced service providers with the associated inconveniences and service difficulties.

Day 25: Tue 29 May

Our hosts had kindly offered to drive us 60 kms to Bordeaux airport, in time for our planned 10 o'clock departure. This meant leaving Lados at 08:00 hours. Unfortunately, traffic around Bordeaux was heavy and we arrived at the airport about 40 mins late. We adopted easily by delaying our flight plan accordingly. The handling agents at the airport did their job well and all admin tasks as well as refueling were completed fairly quickly.

An uneventful flight of 2.7 hours duration brought us to Luxembourg, where we again enjoyed quick and efficient handling service. Unfortunately, when trying to depart, the starter motor on our aircraft did not want to move, despite trying numerous times. We were forced to suspend our flight plan and contacted our maintenance man in Mainz. After a few phone calls within about one hour, our maintenance man had located an exchange starter motor and was on his way to Luxembourg by car to get us going again. We had in the meantime made arrangements for a potential late arrival in Hildesheim. When all arrangements were made, we tried the starter once more and suddenly it worked. In quick succession we canceled the maintenance man, re-activated the suspended flight plan, notified handling and soon we were on our way. 

We reached Hildesheim at 19:00 hours, still well within normal operating hours. We were glad to be back home again and for the first time since weeks enjoyed a dinner ordered from somebody with whom we could communicate properly.

Day 24: Mon 28 May

The day was spent relaxing and preparing for our return to Germany the following day. I was able to do all flight planning for our 2 sectors from Bordeaux to Luxembourg and Luxembourg to Hildesheim, along with the notification to the handling agents in both Bordeaux and Luxembourg.

We also packed away the scooters in a shed, after disconnecting the batteries. We enjoyed a lovely home-cooked dinner on the terrace.

Day 23: Sun 27 May

There were only around 100 kms left to reach our final destination, so we took it easy and enjoyed a leisurely ride. The scenery was still rather nice at first, but became less interesting as we went along. The closer we came to our final destination, the more rural the environment became. There was no evidence of tourism in the area, other than the odd wine farm offering direct sales as well as numerous Foie gras offers.

We reached our destination during early afternoon and tried to shop for some fruit and bread for breakfast the following morning. Unfortunately, we were out of luck, despite spending more than 2 hours in two different towns looking for open shops. 

We eventually gave up and proceeded to our host's house, where a friendly neighbor opened up for us as planned. Soon after our arrival, our hosts arrived as well, along with granny, their youngest son and their dog Nelly. We enjoyed a lovely dinner in a top-class restaurant in Lagon.

Day 22: Sat 26 May

The remaining distance to Lados, our final trip destination was below 200 kms and we had the luxury of splitting this up into two days. We consequently opted for a daily destination only 90 kms away, which would take us further north and out of the Pyrhenaes.

A leisurely and still very scenic 97 kms brought us to our hotel located in a small village in a very rural area. On the way, we traveled through many picturesque small french villages, which became less picturesque as we moved further north.

After checking into our hotel relatively early, we set out for some wine tasting in the area. Another village, 12 kms away, featured a Co-op which had all the local wines on offer both for tasting and for purchase. We tasted 6 different wines and ended up buying a small bottle of sweet wine. Back in SA, this would be sold as a dessert wine. The French drink it as an aperitiv, ideally with blue cheese.

Our hotel proved functional and we enjoyed another good 3 course french dinner, if not as sophisticated as the previous day.

Day 21: Fri 25 May

This was gong to be another travel day with close to 200 kms to be covered. We would cross into France during the day and our destination was a small hotel with good restaurant facilities in a small french village.

To cut a long story short, the drive arguably presented us with the most scenic roads we had covered during our entire scooter trip history. Passing through quaint villages, picturesque valleys and stunning mountain ridges, it was an absolute pleasure and we hope that the many pictures we took will do some justice to it. We reached our hotel after 191 kms.

The hotel, or rather its restaurant, provided a welcome change from the spanish environment. It apeared that the restaurant was well-known and sought out by both locals as well as remote visitors. We enjoyed an excellent 3 course menu with rather sophisticated food and an excellent bottle of red wine.

Day 20: Thu 24 May

We had decided not to return to San Sebastian on our way to the Bordeaux area and instead wanted to stay a bit further south, so as to see a bit of the Pyrhenaes. We had identified a small village in the area and pre-booked a hotel. With more than 200 kms to go we set out for what would be a travel day through mostly densely populated areas, including the city of Bilbao.

What a pleasant surprise the trip turned out to be. The navigator was set to "scenic" routing and it truly lived up to it. We were mostly routed through mountainous terrain and forests. The most impressive was the routing past (or should I say through?) Bilbao. We were routed through the area along the ridges of various mountains, passing very close - or even through - the city while being presented with most fantastic views of the city. Our track shows the spectacular routing.

Having passed Bilbao, our route took us away from the busy route to San Sebastian and towards the Pyrhenaes. The scenery became more and more beautiful and we eventually reached our hotel after 226 kms. The hotel itself was nice, but unfortunately, it was located on the outskirts of a small town in a light industrial area. We opted to have another "Picnic Dinner" in the room, as the alternatives did not appear to be very appealing.

Day 19: Wed 23 May

Our destination for the day was Santander and we had pre-booked a hotel on the other side of the bay in a small village the day before. With less than 200 kms to go, we were expecting to be at our hotel before lunchtime, which is pretty much what happened. Although we traveled almost exclusively on highways, the drive was pleasant and rather scenic, providing alpine like impressions. 

After checking into our hotel we drove around 20 kms around the bay to the Bahia hotel in front of which we had left our scooters 3 days before. After ensuring that the scooters were still ok and unharmed, we proceeded to the Santander airport (10 minutes drive) to return the rental car. A bus took us from the airport to the main bus terminus in town, which was close to where our scooters were parked. Finally back on our scooters we enjoyed the clear weather ride to our hotel on the other side of the bay.

The hotel provided us with a solid and reliable internet connection both on our room as well as in the public areas. This was something we had missed for a few days and we used the rest of the afternoon to catch up with admin work.

Not in a mood for long restaurant hunting, we decided to have dinner at our hotel. While the hotel was truly nice and recommendable, the dinner was rather unexciting and could best we described as successful blend of boring spanish cooking and orig english cooking.

Day 18: Tue 22 May

My foot was still painful in the morning, with no improvement in condition. Still, a "Go" decision was made and we proceeded to check out. We asked reception to call us a taxi to take us to Cascais airport and had to wait almost 30 minutes while lots of other taxis went past. Eventually, a stretched Mercedes 124 series limousine arrived, expecting to take us to Lisbon airport. To us, this was clearly a case of the concierge calling a buddy taxi in an effort to earn some extra bucks at our expense.

After navigating heavy rush hour traffic in Cascais, we arrived at Cascais airport somewhat late but still in time to meet our filed flightplan departure time of 10:00. Our on-time departure was made possible by friendly and efficient handling of both airport fee payment and refueling procedures.

The flight to Bordeaux was uneventful. After a standard instrument departure out of Cascais in fairly good weather we flew across Portugal and Spain on an almost direct routing to Bordeaux. The last half of the trip we were above a solid cloud cover with no more ground visibility. We performed an instrument approach into Bordeaux, breaking out of cloud at 2500 feet and landed in otherwise pleasant weather. We were greeted by a pleasant handling agent who took us from the aircraft into their facilities and from there to the Avis counter in the main terminal building. 

The Bordeaux airport left a good impression and soon we were on our way to San Sebastian by rental car. The drive was pleasant, initially through flat terrain, later becoming hilly as we came closer to Spain. We arrived at our hotel at around 19:00 hours, pretty much as planned the day before. At least we were now closer to the required spanish dinner time. With my foot still causing me discomfort (dentist speak for pain), we set off to town by car to have dinner within close walking distance from our parking spot.

Day 17: Mon 21 May

The alternative destination to take our aircraft to turned out to be Bordeaux. Agen was originally chosen because our hosts use the Agen airport for their own aircraft and we had assumed that it was due to very close proximity of the Agen airfield to their home. Upon closer examination, we found that their home, located in Lados, was 80 kms away from Agen. Looking for alternatives, Bordeaux was actually closer with only 60 kms distance. So Bordeaux it was.

Several hours of internet time eventually got us set for the trip as follows: Alarm at 06:00, Taxi to Cascais Airport at 08:00, refuel the aircraft, sort out landing, parking and handling fees, take-off at 10:00, fly for  3.5 hours and land at 14:30 (1 hour time zone change), collect rental car at 16:00, drive to San Sebastian, book into Hotel at 19:00 hours. All necessary flight planning along with booking of a rental car from Bordeaux to Santander was done during the day. Booking a rental car as a one way option with collection in France and return in Spain turned out to be quite challenging and while it could be done, attracted an unusually high rental fee. We had looked into other forms of transport including bus and rail, and the rental car was still the best option.

During the course of the day, we also explored the town of Cascais. To our delight, we found a Segway rental booth and decided to rent two Segways for an hour to better explore the hilly parts of town. Having been on Segways several times before, we needed no intro and were on our way quite soon. Different from riding off-road, we were presented with uneven cobblestone areas, narrow alleys and we were required to master various other obstacles like switching between pedestrian walkways and narrow roads. This is were things went wrong. During one of those road to pedestrian walk transitions, I failed to pay proper attention to where I was going and promptly fell off my Segway. At first, it didn't seem like I was hurt much with a few bruises here and there. Over time however, while all other bruises disappeared, one major one remained on my right foot. The Segway must have run into or over that area of my foot to bruise it heavily. By late afternoon it had become clear that this was not going away soon and the foot had become rather painful to the point that I was worried about being able to fly next day. We decided to make the final go / no-go decision in the morning.

The dinner we had planned in the old part of Cascais was scrapped in favour of an in-house hotel dinner, due to my rather limited walking ability. The quality of the food was average at best and pretty much in line with our other impressions of the hotel, which would best be described as poorly run and not caring, coupled with neglected maintenance.

Day 16: Sun 20 May

We departed the hotel as planned before 06:00 hrs in the morning. Although it was still dark, we realised that we were traveling through beautiful mountainous terrain, soon after leaving Santander. As it got light, our impressions were confirmed and we even passed close to completely snow covered mountains. We traveled mostly on highways with an interim section on a smaller national road. It took us around 5 hours for the trip, including some short stops.

Arrival at the Madrid airport was interesting in the sense that there was a choice of 4 terminals and we had no idea where we needed to be. Worse, there was absolutely no indication where to return rental cars. This was the first time ever that I returned to an airport with no rental car return signage. After wasting some time unnecessarily, we eventually found the return station near terminal one. Spending the next few hours at Madrid airport provided us with all the time one would ever want to spend at that airport. In short: Not a glamourous airport that you would want to spend any more time than necessary.

The EasyJet flight proved to be efficient and uneventful. Like Ryanair, EasyJet charges for every piece of luggage that is checked and they only allow a single piece of hand luggage, the size of which is meticulously checked with no deviations allowed.

In Lisbon, we picked up our rental car and traveled to our hotel in Cascais, about a 40 minute drive. We enjoyed a nice walk around Cascais and had a nice portuguese dinner. We spent the evening looking at our transport options from Agen (once we landed our aircraft there) back to Santander. After hours of research with a good internet connection it became clear that Agen may not be a good option for us to fly into, due to the poor transport connections available. We decided that the next day would be required to find an alternative to Agen, then do the flight planning for that destination and have a plan for the onward transport to Santander.

Day 15: Sat 19 May

It only rained lightly in the morning, so we borrowed an umbrella from the hotel and went for a walk. We also sat down for a proper lunch, in an effort to avoid the late spanish dinner. Our new plan had also been formulated and called for us to pick up our aircraft from Cascais in Portugal and fly it to Agen in France, near our final tour destination. We concentrated on making arrangements to get us to Cascais. The plan was to somehow get to Cascais from Santander on Sunday, use Monday to plan the remainder of the excursion, fly our aircraft from Cascais to Agen on Tuesday and return to Santander on Wednesday. This would ensure that we could continue with our scooters on Thursday and meet our hosts in France on Sunday.

While the plan was simple in theory, putting it into practice proved to be challenging, with rather limited flight connections out of Santander, car hire companies with restrictive operating hours and other challenges. Still, given enough time and a decent internet connection, one can usually find a solution. Well our internet connection, while much better than at the previous hotel, was still far from optimal, requiring us to repeat our login procedure every couple of minutes.

The most favorable airline connection would take us from Santander to Madrid in the morning, and from Madrid to Lisbon in the afternoon with a 6 hour layover in Madrid. While this was not too exciting, we eventually decided to use that connection. With Ryanair providing the Santander - Madrid leg and EasyJet the Madrid - Lisbon leg,  I tried to book the Ryanair flight. To my utter amazement, I learned that Ryanair had closed for business for 24 hours. They had simply shut down their website for updates and advised their clients in a notice that all ticket changes, bookings, check-ins, etc. should me made before the scheduled outage. No telephonic alternative, no emergency numbers or procedures - nothing! What a statement to make for a carrier like Ryanair which completely relies on its website for all its business.

The unavailability of Ryanair required us to use a hired car from Santander to Madrid instead. We all like to marvel at how easy things are these days, with being able to make all your bookings online yourself and not having to rely on anybody else. Well, making the required bookings for the next day took me a few hours and included the hired car from Santander to Madrid, the EasyJet flight from Madrid to Lisbon, the hired car from Lisbon To Cascais, and the hotel in Cascais.

Having completed all the necessary bookings, we ventured to the Santander airport by bus, departing from the nearby main bus terminus. We picked up the rental car and parked it close to the hotel, ready for an early morning departure in what would probably be another rainy day. The day was concluded by us enjoying a "Picnic in our room" instead of a late dinner.

Day 14: Fri 18 May

Although it was not raining heavily in the morning, the day certainly would not have been suitable for further scooter travel. So we lived by our decision to remain in Santander until the weather cleared.

We started the day by having breakfast around the corner from our hotel and proceeded to check out of the hotel to move into a similar hotel which had more reliable internet connections. Once settled in our new hotel, we decided to visit a major local shopping centre. This shopping center turned out to be rather unusual. It was essentially one really big department store, with a few small independent stores in the same complex as well as one other hypermarket type retailer. We have never seen a similar center before, not even in the U.S.

Later in the afternoon, we tried to re-assess the weather situation and made a truly disturbing discovery:  The forecast for San Sebastain included snow (!) showers for the next few days, with the associated low temperatures. There was no way we could reasonably circumnavigate that area so it became clear that we needed another plan or risk being stuck in Santander for yet a few more days. We discussed various options over dinner and decided to spend the next day working out a "Plan B". 

Day 13: Thu 17 May

As per the plan, we set out to reach Santander by the afternoon. The weather forecast had changed to predict rain already from Thursday evening, so our objective was to reach Santander in a dry state.

After a quick continental breakfast at the hotel we were on our way, using "optimum" as opposed to "scenic" routing on our navigator. And again we were treated to some rather nice country roads covering areas of scenic beauty, hilly and foresty terrain, while being provided with a glimpse of the sea from time to time. 

We reached our pre-booked hotel in Santander during mid afternoon after having traveled 196 kms. Like all other hotels on our route, we had chosen a hotel with in-room free WiFi connectivity. In this case however, despite the fact that the hotel did indeed provide free WiFi in the room, it was simply not good enough and became the reason for us to check out early after one night. We had discovered a comparable hotel which offered much more acceptable connectivity.

We again spent considerable time looking for a suitable restaurant for the evening. We eventually settled on an italian restaurant (quite unusual in spain) and enjoyed a good dinner which include Lasagne Bacalhau for me.

Day 12: Wed 16 May

There was bad weather on the way and forecast for Friday, so we were looking for a bigger city to stay for a few days while the rain passed. After some deliberation, our choice was Santander, which we could reach within the two days remaining before the rain came. This made the town of Gijon a suitable inbetween stop, before moving on to Santander.

We left our rural Guest House after enjoying a simple but pleasant breakfast and we expected to travel along fairly unexciting flat country roads, in an effort to reach Gijon as soon as possible. We were pleasantly surprised therefore, to find our route rather interesting, going up and down hills on sometimes narrow, winding roads with stunning forest sections. All said, it was a pleasant run and we reached our pre-booked hotel in Gijon after 191 kms.

We spent the evening looking for a suitable dinner venue and were happy with both the evening's dinner as well as the hotel. While Gijon is probably not a prime tourist destination, we found it to be a pleasant town which despite its industrial surroundings was quite charming.

Day 11: Tue 15 May

We left the hotel at around 09:30 hrs and proceeded to have breakfast in a Cafe down the road. While the hotel was priced reasonably, its breakfast was not. In cases like this, we often chose to have breakfast elsewhere and most of the time, we ended up having a better breakfast at a substantially lower price.

Our destination for the day was the area of Foz, on the coast, and Veronika had found a small rural guest house for us. Like on many other occasions before, we had problems entering the hotel's address into our navigator. The reason appears to be that there are many different ways of spelling a village, a road, or whatever. The way a specific address is spelled on a map or even by the hotel itself may be quite different to how it is spelled elsewhere, including the different navigation units. Anyway, as long as one has a working internet connection, these issues can be solved with patience and some extra time.

We arrived at our destination after traveling for 177 kms. The rural guest house turned out to be ok, if simple, but a major problem was the promised internet connection. There was absolutely no WiFi reception in the 2nd floor where our room was located. What made matters worse was that there was no public area where one could sit and be connected.

The internet issue was resolved by us going out early for dinner with not too many options in the area. We ended up at a truck stop which had good internet connectivity and we enjoyed a good dinner.

The best thing about our rural guest house was the fact that there were decent washing facilities and Vero was able to wash and dry all the clohes we had used so far. All of that of course with no additional cost.

Day 10: Mon 14 May

Our destination for the day was Santiago de Compostela and we were hoping to get there early enough to still be able to take a good walk through the historic part of the inner city. We departed in clear sunshine and were worried that it might get too hot during the day. Well, as the day went on the opposite was the case. We traveled on both countryside and national roads, most of which were a pleasure. Unfortunately, I only switched on our track logger 20 kms into the trip with the result that the first 20 kms are not included in the track log for the day. Still, after making allowance for this, we reached our destination after 160 kms.

The hotel we had booked was situated within the historic inner city and our navigator had a hard time guiding us there. What we found was a quaint little hotel which was well run and could not be better situated. We enjoyed an extensive walk through the narrow alleys of the old town which included a visit of a live church service in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostila. The day was concluded with a nice dinner in one of the many tourist restaurants in the area. I enjoyed what was probably going to be the last Bacalhau for some time.

Day 09: Sun 13 May

Our destination for the day was less than 90 kms away which meant that we could take it easy. Leaving our very special guesthouse after we enjoyed a very nice breakfast, we set our navigator to route direct to destination. As our destination was a small village inside a national park in the most northern corner of the country, we were treated to some really scenic roads and views. We reached our destination after 97 kms.

Before getting there however, my scooter didn't want to carry on, just 4 kms short of the destination. The scooter didn't want to develop power, so it wouldn't go uphill anymore, which didn't help because we were in the mountains. I used Vero's scooter to go to the hotel, check us in and I returned to Vero with the intention of towing the other scooter to the hotel. When I tried my scooter again, it eventually worked fine after passing what I think may have been some dirt in the fuel line or carburettor. 

Day 08: Sat 12 May

The distance to our destination was established to be less than 70 kms. We did however select an interim destination east of the direct route to take us away from the densely populated area north of Porto. Still, even with this interim destination the first part of the ride was not very pleasant. It was Saturday morning and the amount of traffic on the roads was remarkable. Still, we made good progress and we reached our daily destination after 145 kms.

We had booked a remarkable guest house with a user satisfaction rating of 9.6. Having stayed there, we believe that the rating is justified. The guest house consists of old stone buildings, renovated to the highest modern standards. Nowhere else in Portugal have we seen such high building and finishing standards. Better still, the couple who own and run the place are most pleasant and made our stay a real pleasure. 

When we arrived at the guest house, we were greeted by loud music blarring from high mounted speakers next to a church located nearby. The music lasted through most of the afternoon and could easily be termed a disturbance in an otherwise rural and very quiet area. We learned later from our hosts that the music was due to some traditional festival which happens around three times a year and has become rather controversial, with the younger generation wanting to do away with the blarring loudspeakers and the older generation insisting on maintaining the tradition.

For dinner, we visited a near-by restaurant and we again enjoyed good traditional portuguese food. Like many other restaurants since Porto, almost all of the main meals were offered as full and as half portions. We did not specifically specify our portion size when ordering, assuming that the full size portion would be the norm. When the food arrived, we looked at each other and agreed that ordering half portions would have been the better choice, given the size of those portions. Imagine our surprise when we received the bill and found that we were billed for half portions!

From Vero

Morgens hatte ich noch Zeit einen kurzen 1Std Spaziergang zu machen, am Lagos entlang, am Waldrand, und dann hiess es Abschied nehmen von dieser unglaublich schoenen Landschaft.

Auch heute begneten wir staendig Caminho de Fatima Pilgerern.

Wir sin vom Lagos Azure bis nach Sierra Da Estrella gefahren, durch den Parque Da Estrella. Die Buesche und die Felsen sehen genau so aus wie bei uns in Kapstadt.

Unterwegs haven wir uns, wie jeden Tag, Obst gekauft, dieses Mal bei Lidl. Wir wollten nicht wieder faule Obststuecke essen! Dazu ein Stueck Kaese, das perfekte Piknik.

Unterwegs hatten wir auch den besten Kaffee, in einem Dorf, nur die Lokalen machten dort Halt.

Die Fahrt durch die Berge war mich mich recht abenteuerlich, Kurzen ueber Kurven, sie wurden immer enger...

Bei Ankunft im naechsten Dorf fanden wir auch gleich ein Hotel, sah gut aus, und war auch gut. 

zum Essen gabe es Bacalhau fuer Dietmar und Garnelen und Calamari am Spiess fuer mich.

Day 07: Fri 11 May

We had decided to have a rest day to give us a chance to see some of what Porto has to offer. The big attraction of Porto are of course the many Port wine cellars. They are all located in the same area of town, on the southern banks of the Rio Douro. A bit too far to walk comfortably, we used our scooters to take us there and we then walked around the area. After enjoying a late breakfast, we visited two Port wine cellars, including Ferreiras where we booked ourselves onto a cellar tour. We certainly learned something during the tour and we got to taste some of the excellent Port wines.

Another well known tourist attraction in Porto is the "Cafe Majestic". We visited the famous cafe and were quite impressed by the state of its furniture and fittings. It takes its visitors back in time by a few hundred years.

In the evening, we visited the Porto waterfront, which hosts endless restaurants along the northern banks of the Rio Douro. Dinner was again good, although it appears that numerous restaurants have no credit card facailities, but act as if they do. Our restaurant was one of those and while they attempted to run our card through a portable machine, that machine appeared unworkable with no replacement or manual alternative available. We almost left without paying, but to save ourselves some stress, eventually paid in cash.

Observation: None of the restaurants in Porto we visited offered the well-known portuguese Rice Pudding. We had become quite fond of it, ordering it at various restaurants around Lisbon.

Day 06: Thu 10 May

We started the day with some business calls and eventually left the hotel at 10:30. The first order of the day was to fill up with Petrol. While this is not normally a major task, this morning it turned out to become one. Relying on our navigator (which was still set to scenic mode) to take us to a Petrol station only 2 km away from our hotel within the old town of Manteigas, we were truly given the scenic tour of the old town, traversing very narrow cobblestone roads. We eventually reached the petrol station after having criss crossed the town for about 20 minutes.

Once on the road, we picked the interim destination village of Vila Nova de Paiva to prevent the navigator to bring us too close to the larger cities on our way to Porto. The distance to be covered was just over 100 kms. Departing Manteigas, we were again taken onto a spectacular mountain pass with outstanding views. Once clear of the mountains, we continued to travel along scenic roads until reaching our interim destination at around 14:00 hours.

After a short lunch break we continued towards our final destination for the day, which was a pre-booked hotel in the historic part of Porto. Unexpectedly, we were able to enjoy some more scenic mountain passes. Unlike the surronds of Lisbon, we were treated to scenic routing until only 6 kms away from the hotel. The hotel turned out to be very nice with modern rooms although only rated as a two-star B&B. We had traveled 239 kms during the day. The dinner in one of the restaurants close to the hotel was again first class although somewhat more expensive then we were used to from Lisbon.

Day 05: Wed 9 May

Leaving our hotel at 10:30 with perfect weather, we set out for the day's trip. Our chosen destination for the day was  Serra Da Estrela, Beira Alta, which is a Nature Reserve in the mountains.

We made good progress and traveled along some rather scenic country roads. As we came closer to our destination, the road took us into the mountains. The last 30 kms were rather spectacular with snow covered mountain tops close by. Having ascended to more than 1800 meters we eventually descended again into a long valley at the end of which we found Manteigas, our selected destination for the day. We found good accommodation at the Hotel Berne where we again enjoyed a fantastic traditional portuguese dinner. The distance covered for the day was 189 kms. 

Day 04: Tue 8 May

It was still raining heavily in the morning, but we decided to drive to the airport with our hired car to pick up the scooters and take them to the Yamaha dealer for minor repairs. The weather forecast predicted that the rain would stop later during the morning and we were relying on that. Upon arrival at the scooters we set up our helmet intercoms and were happy to find that the new helmet with its new speaker / microphone setup was working well. By that time the rain had indeed stopped and we were on our way to the Yamaha workshop. It took some getting used to driving around the heavy Lisbon traffic with scooters which both lacked the essential left rear view mirror. Anyway, our minor problems were fixed within an hour while we enjoyed some coffee in an adjacent coffee shop. Satisfied that the scooters were now fit for the trip, we proceeded back to the airport to return the hired car and pick up our luggage.

We departed the airport  at 12:30 and had decided on two destinations. The first destination was about 10 km outside Lisbon and served the purpose of getting us out of the city of Lisbon while still using motorways. Upon arrival at this interim destination, we changed the GPS parameters to exclude motorways and toll roads. We then proceeded towards  our second destination which Vero had picked based on observations she had made while we were on our flight to Lisbon. The destination was situated around 150 km north of Lisbon and it appeared to lie in an area of forest and lakes. We travelled along various country roads and noticed the decreasing traffic density. Taking it easy with several short stops in between, we arrived at our destination area late afternoon. The village did not offer much in the way of accommodation so we consulted a local person in a cafe as well as our navigator. The best option appeared to be the "Estalagem Lago Azul" which appeared to be a scenic hotel on a blue lake within hilly forest terrain. We travelled 7 km from the village to the hotel and found a very pleasant 4-star house presenting the charme of yesteryear. We decided to stay and were treated to an excellent in-house dinner with Bacalhau and very good local wine. While the hotel did not have internet facilities, the friendly staff made a plan by arranging for us to use the internet facilities of the "Apart Hotel" which was part of the group and situated just one kilometer further along the lake.

We covered 168 kms during the day. 

Day 03: Mon 7 May

Our priority list for the day included the following: Find a new helmet for me, find the correct speaker / microphone set for installation in the new helmet, matching the one in Vero's helmet, and find a motorbike workshop which would be willing to work on our scooters the next day while we waited. I am happy to say that we were able to resolve all three issues. 

The day started with heavy rain and it never really stopped raining for the whole day. After breakfast we spent some time searching the net for some suitable motorbike dealers. We eventually left the hotel and used our hired car to drive to an industrial area outside Lisbon where we found a Honda dealer and I purchased a suitable helmet. The Honda dealer had done some research for us with regards to the Interphone F4 communications system that we required and concluded that there was no representation for the equipment in Portugal. 

We decided to do our own research nevertheless and spent another few hours in a cafe inside a big shopping centre where we used our iPads to find more information. The time was well spent as we came up with addresses for both a Yamaha dealer who appeared to stock Interphone equipment as well as the address of the Piaggio agent in Lisbon. This may sound like a simple exercise, but in reality it's not that easy. For starters, all the info is of course in Portuguese. It also doesn't help that some critical Web sites, like the official Vespa site for Portugal, is Flash based and hence not viewable on an iPad. Suffice to say that such research is rather time consuming and does not always yield the expected results. This pretty much confirms our experiences from when we did similar research for Palma de Mallorca two years ago.

We paid the Yamaha dealer a visit and were very happy to find the correct Interphone equipment for the new helmet. Better still, the dealer promised to look at our scooters during the next morning to fix some small issues while we waited.

By now it was late afternoon and we returned to our hotel. We had dinner (Groupera and Bacalhau a Braz) at a restaurant just around the corner from our hotel. 

Day 02: Sun 6 May

We returned to the airport in the morning, using the same Taxi and paying the same 45 Euros as the day before. The weather was overcast with several cloud layers, starting from around 2000 feet. Our instrument departure out of San Sebastian was  "interesting" as it seemed to offer rather low ground clearance. Will investigate later. The flight took us right across Spain to Cascais on the outskirts of Lisbon. Here we landed on the local GA airport which left a very good impression. Extremely friendly people helped to tie our aircraft down, provided transport to the terminal and called a taxi for us.

The taxi took us to Lisbon international airport, where we had booked a card with Europcar. We quickly went through the car-hire procedures, eager to find out if our scooters were still where we left them more than 18 months ago. After we accepted the hired car on the first floor of the parking garage, we loaded our luggage into the car and went for a walk to the parking lot where we had left the scooters under a bridge. Fortunately, our parking spot was only a few hundred meters away from the car-hire garage. Imagine the suspense, as we approached our parking spot! And then - there they were, our well used Vespa ET4 scooters. Still standing in the same spot, although one could see that they had been tampered with. Aside from the rust which had grown noticeably on one of the scooters, and the thick layer of dust and grime, we noticed signs of attempted forced entry into the scooter's storage compartments. Each scooter has 3 compartments and all had been tampered with, in some cases successfully. The front compartment on both scooters had been opened, but there was not much to be found there. The center compartments (under the seat) resisted the break-in attempts. Finally, one of the top cases had been opened and one of our helmets had been stolen, along with the installed intercom rigging.

We were of course very happy to have our scooters back. The next step was to get them back into operational status. We had brought along two new batteries for the purpose. So we walked back to car-hire garage to prepare the batteries for use This involved filling each battery with the supplied asset and leaving the battery alone for 30 minutes. We filled the batteries and went for another walk back to the terminal building to have some coffee. Then back to the car, pick up the batteries and walk back to the scooters. We were of course delighted to find that both scooters started after some cranking and the engines worked as well as ever. Now it was a case of taking each scooter to a nearby petrol station for refueling, washing, tyre pressure adjustment, etc. We got all of that done and finally parked both scooters back under the bridge, ready to be used when required. Due to the fact that we were short of one helmet, we left the scooters at the airport and used our hired car to take us to the hotel right in the center of Lisbon. 

We spent the evening enjoying dinner at the "Number 2 Restaurant in Lisbon", following the recommendation of a front desk staff member at our hotel. No doubt that staff member was paid off by the restaurant, because the establishment appeared to be a true rip-off. We ended up paying 3 times (!) the price of similar restaurants in the area, with the total bill coming to around 160 Euros for a two-course meal including wine. Still, we enjoyed the evening, walking through the old part of Lisbon and went to bed happy to have achieved a lot for the day.

Day 01: Sat 5 May

We departed Hildesheim in rainy weather, using N6593W, our pressurised and Turbine powered Cessna Silver Eagle. Our first stop was Luxembourg, where we paid 0.74 Euro for fuel instead of 2.05 Euros. Much like on previous occasions, the handling service was fast and efficient and we were turned around within about 60 minutes. Our next flight took us from Luxembourg to San Sebastian, which is located in the north-eastern corner of the country. Arriving after 12:30 on a Saturday meant that all car hire companies were closed and we had to use a Taxi to our hotel in San Sebastian, which was 20 kms from the airport. This despite the fact that scheduled flights were arriving and departing in the afternoon from the airport. Still, we had a nice evening, walking around the old city of San Sebastian and having dinner in the appropriate part of the city.