portugal, northern spain & home
April 2011: We crossed the border into Portugal & almost immediately everything was cleaner & greener! Spring was in full swing & the weather was mostly warm & sunny. The amount of insects about was amazing apart from when they got in the van & wanted to sleep with us! On our first day in Portugal I saw this beautiful butterfly. We visited the city of Marvao, set upon a hill & surrounded by the old city walls it is a lovely old town with narrow cobbled streets. We found a nice park up nearby in the grounds of a ruined farm. The ruin stood on a hill & at the bottom was a lake called Barragem de Apartadura. It was a lovely area & was had some nice walks as well as some lazy sunny days. Again there was plenty of wildlife around like this little frog. We also found that Portugal has many ancient sites including the clapper bridge pictured below & lots of Dolmens. Southern Portugal was full of storks, we had seen a few r...