After leaving Lisbon we headed North, hoping to find some accommodation on the coast - yes, in the middle of high season, in Spain - talk about optimistic. We headed for Lourinha, where Kate (our GPS) had another hissy fit and drove us around in circles a couple of times. Trev was driving and was getting a little tired, so we gave up on Lourinha and headed for Peniche, a beautiful rocky outcrop on the Atlantic Ocean.
Again, it was very busy, so we headed just out of the main town towards a camping area that also had cabins. We found they were sold out - no accommodation at all. The young girl on reception was helpful, gave us a map and circled a couple of hotels that we could try. Off we went, found the first hotel, which was looking hopeful, they were in the middle of checking a family in. Unfortunately, that family took the last three rooms - oh no! The young man on reception was helpful and checked out what was available in the area - the answer was 'nothing'. Things are not looking good, we might all be sleeping in the car. He then recommended a small 2-star hotel in Serra del Rei, about 15 minutes out of town. We tried to punch it into our GPS, but Trev couldn't remember how to spell it, and no-one had written it down. So we were winging it.
Kate again had problems getting us out of town, but at last we escaped and got onto a road to 'somewhere else'. It was getting close to 5.00pm with no accommodation, so the pressure was on. We wound our way through yet another little village when Trev spotted a church next to a hotel sign saying 'Mar Azul' - yes, we had found it. All we had to do now was actually get a couple of rooms. The lovely lady on reception said 'yes, we have only two rooms left, one is a double, one is a triple', so we yelled 'Yes, we'll take them' - finally, we had somewhere to stay after a very long, very frustrating day. The rooms were basic, but clean and we were happy to have them. Next problem was finding food for the evening. Nothing seemed to be open in the village apart from the Pizza shop directly downstairs, so we opted for that. We tried to order and were told 'no food', despite the fact that people were eating around us. We tried again, and the manager changed his mind and said he would get food for us. Then one of the staff had an argument with him and we were told no, nothing for at least an hour and a half. Very confusing - we left and looked around for something else. We ended up a little way down the road having a toasted sandwich and a beer/wine. On the way back to our room we saw the pizza shop all set up with a big group of people eating - obviously they had a big booking and could not accommodate us as well - we just can't get this eating business right.
Back at the hotel we booked our next 2 nights accommodation at Linhares de Ribeira in the Serre del Estrela mountains.
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