Our destination today was Amarante, which was supposed to be a nice scenic town with a lovely old bridge and church/monastery. Per our research there was both a campsite and a car park for motorhomes.

On arrival at Amarante things didn't quite go according to plan . As usual the Sat Nav got us in a pickle and we had a local lady and then man waving their arms at us telling us to retreat. Eventually we found the campsite but it was not pleasant, we were going to accept anyway as we desperately needed to do washing but when the machines only washed in cold water we gave in. Next we tried to find the aire, which turned out to be in the towns popular car park, so after a few adventures down cobbled streets and round bends that we couldn’t fit, we parked on a very steep gradient hill, gave in and explored on foot. It took us about 30 mins to explore, the bridge, the river and the monastery were nice, but it was a small place and that was it really. We then spent a couple of hours in Intermarche carpark having lunch and doing the washing in their public machines.

We decided to move on to Vila Real as there was a campsite. On arrival the Sat Nav said the campsite was a further 17km so we managed to find a McDonalds, parked very dubiously and Penny went in with her PC to get the internet (nothing purchased, just shared a table with a family looking oddly at her!!), where she found 3 more parking areas in the next few villages .

A car park at Mateus was first on the list so off we went. As we crossed the bridge into the town we saw the little side road where our Sat Nav was taking us, it looked okay and seemed to have an ice cream stand part way down the road.

Once we got down the road we established it was a beer stand and there were about 20 old blokes drinking and listening to loud music. We parked anyway and went up to the tourist information booth we’d seen and found that it was a village fiesta lasting for 3 days celebrating the village patron saint and the partying had been going until about 5am every morning, so if we wanted sleep it would be best if we moved!!

We also wanted to visit the Quinta (winery) and Palace of Mateus which was literally 10m away and they advised we booked a tour for the next day.

I suppose luckily we went to book and ended up on the tour then as the next one was late the following day . The tour, palace and wine tasting was good but what should we do about parking overnight??

On returning to the van we actually didn’t have a choice as we were now parked at the front of the party (the party had moved not the van) and the hundreds of people and cars had blocked us in. Instead of moving we bought beer from the stand and joined in whilst hoping the bangers they were setting off just outside the van door wouldn’t hit us. (it transpires this was what kept us awake the night before for a few hours, Mark thought it was a firework factory set alight!!).

As it happened the party wound up early evening, so we ventured to the village to the local restaurant, which was another experience, including an odd sausage, the most vile olives ever, a bottle of home brew wine and 'pudding’.

After the last few brilliant days, this was definitely one that you chalk up to experience and have an early night.