Finally, we found an Internet cafe’ that has high-speed access. I’ve been posting using dial-up on connections that log out your session, so I’ve had to be brief. Now I’ve got freedom to blab. Lucky you.

We’re now a week deep and really enjoying ourselves. We haven’t yet done anything we wouldn’t recommend although there’s not a lot we would do twice, either. After Porto we rented a car—an Ibiza, fittingly enough—and drove up the coast and inland a bit to a town called Barcelos. From Barcelos, we headed northeast to Geres and spent the last couple days exploring the mountains up there, eventually working our way down to the Douro River, which is directly east of Porto. It’s where they have their vineyards for Portugal’s famous port wines. Then we drove and drove and drove and drove some more until we got to Coimbra, which is about half-way between Porto and Lisbon. We’re going to kick our heels here for a day or two and catch our breath before we make the final push to the Algarve later this week.

The driving has been worthwhile but nerve-wracking. We heard before the trip that northern Portugal is like Washington State—green and prone to rain. The description is fitting enough and the dry, beach-like climate of Porto was quickly replaced by lush greenery and…rain. Not big rain, misty, sorta half-rain…like you find in Seattle. This isn’t a bad thing but it makes the driving a bit more tricky.

The only thing hard about driving here are the one-and-a-half lane winding roads in the mountains that are usually wet, and the other drivers, of which there are plenty. Besides that, it’s a breeze. Portugeuse drivers aren’t shy about tailgaiting and do it with reckless abandon.

Portugal marks the fifth European country I’ve driven in, and this one takes the cake for sheer recklessness. We’ve seen at least a half-dozen accidents and have almost been participants in two. One was in a tiny town near the Spanish border where we were at a stop sign. The cobblestones were wet with a mist that had just started to come down when this dude comes flying around a corner going way too fast and turning way too tightly. He skidded out around the corner a la Mario Kart, then his tires caught traction and he missed us by maybe a foot. Great! The other was less close but more serious. A truck decided it didn’t like being close to the edge up in the mountains (no railing, of course) so he decided half our lane would do nicely. The only problem being that we were occupying our lane. A little jerk on the wheel, a few moments of stunned silence, followed by some choice phrases as we caught our collective breath.

Ironically, our car has been damaged, but by yours truly. We were driving in a town up in the mountains looking for the medieval city center and we found it. Hurrah! But the roads are all one-way so we kept going further and further and the stone walls keep getting closer and closer on each side. It was the driving equivalent of the cartoon where every door you open leads to a slightly smaller door, which leads to a slightly smaller door, etc. Only by the time we had reached the point of no return, we probably had three inches of clearance on either side. I tried to make a corner and didn’t, putting about a foot-long scrape in the passenger-side rear door. (If you look, you can see such scratches in cars all over Europe.) Suddenly, the decision to pay ten more bucks a day in insurance for total coverage (which even covers driver stupidity) seems like a masterstroke of planning.

The pictures of the north will do more justice than words (and we’re taking tons of pics.) Coimbra is a low-key college town that was the capitol of Portugal when the Moors held Lisbon, so there’s some cool medieval stuff to see here. We need day out of the car after putting on some 600-700 km in the past few days, and it’s time to do some laundry. We’ve made friends with a couple friendly dogs and cats and that makes us miss our kiddies, Athena and Heiner. We keep saying we can’t believe we did a six-week trip last time! Maybe we’re just getting old, but we’re homesick for a comfortable bed already and it’s only been a week.

Anyway, hope things are going well stateside. English is definitely not well-understood in the northern region of the country so we’ve been out of the news loop. Although we did get to watch Eurosong the other night which is sort of a European version of American Idol, only much worse.

That’s it for now. Hopefully I’ll check back in a few days. I replied to the last couple comments but the Internet connection must have killed it before it posted. Amy’s done with email so I’m going to go because her eyes are boring holes in the back of my head, but I didn’t get a chance to blog about the market at Barcelos or watching the Arse LOSE the Champions League final in the most satisfactory of ways, while eating pig intenstines at a local bar. More on that later. Love and hugs and kisses to all.