Moving on Day….

This place here in the hillside where we are staying, up from Pinhão is absolutely an oasis of beauty and peace. Matilde who owns it was so lovely - we were running out of clothes to wear after a week away (only took a carry on each which is liberating (will do this in future) . She lived in London for many years working as a nurse but Brexit happened and made to feel unwelcome and then the pandemic so she came home and now works and farms her land. She’s tiny as well but strong, and young! There are so many Quinta’s harvesting the grapes in the Douro, and the scenery is spectacular.

We packed up and headed up a twisty mill road with many switchbacks to the beautiful hill town of !Tabuaço for breakfast and to take in the views. What a lovely clean and pretty little town it was. We walked around and sat in lovely gardens with a public toilet which was sparkling!!! It even had a bidet with cleaning tablets sitting at the drain bit! Why can’t we have these!! Although they would never be as clean like these ones. I saw two men already going around sweeping the roads .

We found a little cafe to have our coffee and croissant and sat in the park in the sun for a little while. Then It was off to join the motorway for the 1 hour 45 drive to Porto airport to drop off the car. All went well, the roads were pretty quiet again till the outskirts of Porto . So spectacular bridges over gorges it was a lovely drive. It was a much easier navigation To Porto airport than Lisbon , all went smoothly. I really liked the car we had some Renault diesel GT automatic. The seats were so comfortable.

We then Got the train from the airport to Trinade station. That was horrendous it was rammed. I’ve never been on such a busy rammed train since coming back from Edinburgh fringe with the boys way back in august 2017 . Everyone wears masks still in public transport in Portugal which was good as def breathing in the air from the person next to me. And no one got off until Trinadade, the. End of the line…. Ugh! I’m a bit claustrophobic so I had to move to near the door.

It was a short walk to our apartment which is a loft apartment on a quiet street. It has two balconies but not really much of a view to speak of. It’s fine. The shower tray is not the cleanest which I will mention in the reviews. I am always honest in reviewing , also with detail like comfy bed and good pillows as I like to hear this myself. I also like to k ow about noise levels for sleeping. (Yes I’m fussy worse since got older).

It has a big sitting area with kitchen but they have not left washing up liquid which I would say is basic.

We walked down to the river after unpacking and got our bearings. The waterfront is lovely but busy. For our meal at night we chose a nearby restaurant and I had the prawns cooked in garlic and French fries. S had that Porto speciality dish of 2,000 calories but it was too spicy for me. No dessert.

Toddled back to the apartment amd collapsed exhausted into bed!