Grumpy Old Men On Bikes

‎This stretch of coast isn't particularly affluent and the hotels we have booked for the trip are all pretty keen (bordering desperate) for our business. So when I arrived to stay in the Esphino hotel that we are using in May I was greeted like royalty. After much fawning and hand shaking I was shown up to an executive sea-view room rather than the cheap broom cupboard I had booked and this is the view. As you can see, the rain has buggered off. I have spent the day tying to find a route past Porto that is pleasant for cycling and I think I have ‎mostly succeeded......apart from a 5km stretch of cobbles which is going to go down like a lead balloon.  We sneak through the city on the coast road and go through some incredible parts of the old quarter and I hope this will be compensation for those who have lost their fillings (and possibly testicles) over the cobbles. A few more miles of seafront tomorrow morning and home in time for tea!

‎Oh yes, they have had a very clever idea in Barcelos. They have a magnificent central square - cobbles with a big fountain in the middle and surrounded on all sides ‎by historic buildings. Such a splendid tourist attraction poses the problem of where to put the cars of all the tourists who will wan to come and see it. Those clever Portuguese came up with a very simple solution...put them IN THE SQUARE! Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

‎It's a funny old world. Today, in cold miserable London, they are forecasting sun and highs of 19c.....in Portugal, some 1500 miles further south, it is 13c and persisting down. This had better change within a month or I will have 20 very unhappy punters on my hands. For those of you who assumed that I had just died in Florida, I'm afraid not! We ended our trip with a long ride followed by a splendid BBQ and then a last day mostly doing nothing (rain was forecast but in the end there were just a few spots)‎. Returning to blighty was a shock and the knees had to be put away for a week or so! I have now 'popped' to Portugal to check the redesign of a day on our Portuguese end to end;  tough work but someone has to do it. No techno-planes or 100 channel in-flight entertainment this time, just good old Sleazy Jet. Two hours of playing sardines ‎and a drink that, in the third world, would buy the brewery!   I am in Barcelos - a largish town north of Porto with