After making it clear that Skye’s interior meant that anyone joining us would have to camp, I should have guessed that would make it far too tempting for my son who has spent time camping in Canada, Spain and the UK over the past year. “Camping lad” arrived straight from an interview at Heathrow, so can be excused the footwear option for our first night on the beach where we had the inevitable BBQ and sent some positive vibes out to hope that his interview performance would be enough to ensure a job offer…..so hard for today’s graduates. However, what better way to try and put any thought of ‘real life’ aside than by taking to the unexplored beauty of Northern Portugal? And, as for the outcome of the interview? All will be revealed…..

First stop: Esposende (‘ish-po-shenda”…..I’ve spent a bit of time here and still can’t pronounce it!). This little town has it all – an estuary for kite-surfing (one afternoon’s strenuous activity), a gorgeous cycle track, hiking with windmills, roman ruins and, of course, endless beaches lined by well-maintained boardwalks.

We would have stayed there longer, but the town’s one downside is the sea fog that occasionally rolls in for the entire day. But the beauty of the campervan is that you can chase the sun, so we drove inland to Barcelos and were rewarded by a glorious afternoon on the “beach” in the river and even found our very own ‘spa’. This old Roman settlement is most notable for it’s brightly-painted clay cockerel – whose crowing, according to legend, miraculously intervened to save a man from the gallows. There is more, as the rooster was already roasted and the man was actually already hanged, being saved by a badly made knot – but I suppose it wouldn’t be a folk tale if it didn’t have such stretches of imagination and the Rooster of Barcelos is now a common symbol of Portugal. We explored this old medieval city by bike in the evening light, checking out the roosters and tombs.

Our transport the following day was partly in the form of a paddleboard, although I will admit to doing very little paddling, as Senhor Skye paddled me down the river for a picnic lunch and Camperlad did the honours on the way back – Senhora Skye could get used to this!

The beach we found that evening simply refused to let us go the following day, with its huge sand dunes, surf and flat hard sand that provided a makeshift tennis court (ingeniously improved upon by the guys pinching the windbreak to improvise as a net!). However, we knew that the old town of Viana do Castelo was midst festival week, so we finally tore ourselves away to spend the evening in what is known as one of the most beautiful cities in northern Portugal. Nestled beneath the Santa Luzia monastery and lying beside the sea and on the mouth of the Rio Lima, with narrow cobbled streets and beautiful open squares, this city is a total must. Experiencing it during Fiesta was extra special, as we were entertained by the folk dancers in their traditional costumes, dancing an “interesting” blend of flamenco, Arabian and……what appeared to be Morris dancing!

Festival season in the Iberian peninsula meant that we couldn’t miss a detour to Santiago de Compostela, the goal of all those pilgrims we had observed plodding northwards with large packs and a scallop shell on their backs. Having blogged about this before, I won’t wax lyrical about this unique city (please read this if you’d like to discover more), although it seemed even better second time around. And, yet again, there was a band playing just beside the sacred cathedral and another one in the park – the latter being a popular Eurovision entry and some sort of cross between Little Mix and traditional singing (wailing?!); surprisingly catchy and certainly very popular with the locals. Enroute from one musical experience to the other, we were treated to a superb fireworks display; having a backdrop of this extraordinary Cathedral would always ensure a spectacular show, but this one was replicated in four areas of the city, so was truly memorable.

Driving back south, we spent the day at Rio de Barosa, hiking upstream, basking on rocks, enjoying a shoulder massage under the waterfalls and picnicing beneath the trees…….all the while laughing at the antics of people sliding down smooth rocks into the natural rock pools as if they were at a water park

After our brief foray into Spain, it was back to Portugal, nightstopping by the Rio Minho after a brief scamper around the huge fort of Valença. Camping lad was staggered by two things; the sheer size of this fort and (surprisingly, despite his pretty extensive travelling exploits) by the fact that a simple river was all that divided one country from the next. I suppose that we all take country borders as fact, but it was interesting to see it through his eyes. Of course, there was only one way to begin the following day…….by swimming across to Spain, of course – followed by a huge fry-up whilst mulling over borders and how they come about!

Waterfalls had definitely been on the agenda for this trip, so we indulged for two days; basing ourselves in Montaria, we camped deep in the Forest, hiked along streams leading to series of clear, cool pools and swam in the alluring water. If anyone needs a reason to explore NW Portugal, this place is definitely it; cool, calm, outstanding beauty that has not yet been “found” by the masses. Heaven!

Driving along this river the following day, ending up as far to the northwest of Portugal as possible, we reached a beach that is, even by Portuguese standards, extraordinary. A staggeringly vast sweep of endless sand that rounds the north-west tip of Portugal and heads back around into the Rio Minho. Walking for a couple of miles along this beach, we saw what looked like an ideal camping spot – however, after then seeing several barely clad men, we realised that this would be a spot for “camp lad”, not our camping lad, so made a quick exit! 😱🫢😂

We opted instead for a huge empty beach just further south and, with the place to ourselves, had an enormous driftwood fire after the sun went down on our beach BBQ (and, after Portugal’s terrible wild fires this summer, we made sure that there wasn’t a tree in sight!).

Our final stop was Porto which we’re beginning to know quite well; it’s a city full of history with a charming, lively atmosphere and beautiful buildings, all set upon the backdrop of the stunning Rio Douro. We finished our sightseeing at a restaurant just next to the river where ‘Interview boy’ bought us a port tasting “taster” to say thank you for his 10 days in (well, camping beside!) Skye. As you can see by the size of the glasses, this was hardly a tasting session – clearly Port is in plentiful supply in……Porto!!

Our roadtrip has been amazing in every way; incredible beaches, waterfalls, fiestas, cities and rivers – but also special time with the two favourite men in my life. In addition, it had the desired effect of putting the interview out of our minds for the duration. However, what was the outcome? If you could please forgive me for a moment whilst I indulge in some maternal pride ☺️

I’m thrilled to report a positive outcome!

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

It’s so wonderful to know that all his rigorous studying of Aerospace Engineering at University, along with hard work in interview preparation has all paid off and he has landed the Graduate scheme of his dreams with…….Virgin Atlantic, my employer for the past 3 decades! One day soon, I am very much looking forward to seeing this special engineer on my Airbus Flight Deck, but in the meantime, I’m very happy to continue to share an occasional chance encounter when we’re both at The Virgin HQ.

Welcome to the Virgin family, George!!