Tuesday 28 August 2007

We slept over in a great hotel in Covilha, where we were situated on the 12th floor with a fantastic view ! We woke up and looked out the window and we were surrounded by mountains and scenery and it was really gorgeous.

Covilha is based in the Centro region.The city of Covilhã towers between 450 and 800 metres above the sea level.

After breakfast we planned to head through the mountains toward Oporto. We found ourselves stopping every 10minutes in awe and wonder of this incredible landscape that seemed
to change at every twist and turn. We had incredible views over the mountains one minute and the next we were high above the clouds with nothing to see but massive white fluffy clouds.

We stopped for a while at Torres, which is the highest peak in Portugal. A tower was built in the early 19th century in order to extend the mountain to 2000m above sea level.

After a long day of driving we finally arrived in Esphino where we were based for the next couple of nights.

The seaside town of Espinho was once a small fish-canning village and is ideally situated 20 km south of Oporto but we arrived and drove through this town that looked rather dodgey and all I really wanted to do was drive away again and find somewhere else to stay. However, once we found our hotel, situated right on the beach front with a view over the ocean that was absolutely breath taking we were fixed. Our hotel room was perfect, the view was perfect and the location was perfect. We couldn’t have asked for anymore.We unpacked and headed for the golden sandy beach front. 20 steps found us on the sand so we were thrilled and had found our haven.

Later that evening we strolled along the esplanade looking for somewhere to have dinner and wound up having the most incredible meal at our hotel.