We arrived this afternoon after an uneventful flight from Glasgow.  The hardest thing we had to do today was navigate our way through Glasgow airport to find rental car returns!

We are staying in a nice hotel in an area called The 9 Streets – lots of little cafes, bars and shops and central for most things. We had a quick walk before having dinner at the hotel.  Early start tomorrow as we have tickets for the Van Gough museum and have to be there by 9.

The light wasn’t particularly inspiring when we were out – hence these are black and white.  Looking forward to some photographic opportunities over the next few days!

We are now in Amsterdam after a relaxing few days with Liz and Ray in Dollar and Jeanette and Andrew in Elderslie.

We basically did no sight-seeing but caught up on washing, had a walk up Dollar Glen to Castle Campbell, and hung out.  After five weeks of moving alot it was lovely just to refresh and catch up with family.  When you only see folk every two years there’s generally alot of catching up to do.

So, where’s Scotland?! It was in the mid 20Cs and sunny here yesterday and today!  We expected Edinburgh to be both cooler and more expensive than where we’ve been and only one of those assumptions was correct.

We stayed at Northbridge, adjacent to the Royal Mile, in a hotel we’ve used before.  The Royal Mile was kind of sleazy – very touristy (expected) but also grubby and tired.  There’s only so much tartan you can take!

We had a full day here – I had a place booked at Scotland’s People – basically births, deaths and marriages – to do some family history research and John wanted to check out the outdoor stores in the UK for new boots as the choice and quality is better here. We were both successful.

After a nice meal in the New Town area of Edinburgh last night and a bit of a walk around for photos as it’s not really even starting to get dark until 9:30pm we drove to Dollar today to stay with Liz and Ray, my aunty and uncle, for a couple of days.

So, here’s Edinburgh Castle rock – clearer than we’ve ever seen it!

So, a few more pics – a view across the Douro, a scene from the marvellous tiles in the railway station which illustrate aspects of the history of Portugese life, some city buildings and the Sandeman port sign in Gaia, across the river.  

And here we are on the rooftop terrace of the Santa Cruz port house restaurant in Gaia where we had the final dinner if our tour.  So much more to do here!

That would be pressing the wrong button before you’ve written a post!

We really felt like we didn’t allow enough time to do Porto justice.  After a port tasting we had a city tour and then some free time.  The city is quite different to Lisbon – which was rebuilt with wider streets after an earthquake in the 1700s.  Porto still has its original medieval street layout (and therefore terrible traffic) but has some really interesting older neighbourhoods, old churchs and a really nice area down on the Douro River with lots of restaurants and bars.  There’s defintely more to explore.

As part of our tour we visited the Taylor’s port facility in Gaia, across the river from Porto.  It was interesting and informative.  We also tasted a product they don’t send to our side if the world – a white ‘chip dry’ port.  You drink it chilled or mixed with tonic – delicious 😀

We really enjoyed this area – we had only one night on a quinta – a wine estate – and it was so quiet and peaceful after the bustle of Coimbra.  The valley has been producing port for centuries and the terracing for vines is everywhere.  

Increasingly the same grape varieties are being used for table wines instead of port, but port is still dominant.

We had a morning trip to Aveiro from Coimbra.  Back in the day it was a fishing port and also made salt.  Now it has a big university, tourism and wonderful art noveau buildings in the centre of town, with, of course, amazing tiles.

These photos don’t do it justice; the fishermen’s houses were originally painted in stripes (allegedly so they could find their way home), and the oddly shaped boats were originally used to transport salt; now they transport tourists on the town’s canals.

We got to Fatima about 9:30 in the morning and while the mass being said in the little chapel outside the main church was packed, the vast square was pretty empty and the church itself not too crowded.

It had a nice, tranquil feel – lots of folk there were on religious tours so even tho’ later in the day it gets busy, it wasn’t a tourist circus yet.  The sculpture of the rosary beads is new – it was designed by a portugese  sculpture in honour of the centenary of the apparitions.  

Candles were available in multiple sizes – John’s were modest by comparison with some of the choices!

We had two nights in this pleasant university town – Otago had some nice buildings but Coimbra was in a different league.  Here is the view from our hotel bar of the university at night, the tower of the university and the view from the top of the tower – 184 stairs!