Our first border crossing !

We successfully negotiated the next stage of our journey along the A11 and arrived in Zamora (Spain) early Thursday evening 3rd Feb. We managed to find good WARM accomodation in the centre of the town, where you might expect parking would be an issue - truth be told it was!! We ate and drank our fill and nearly slept well, just to say that staying in town centre does bring it's own issues NOISE and lots of it. 

I'd like to say we woke refreshed and ready to face the next day but we were still half asleep, however scraping the ice off the bike soon brought us round. We left Zamora early Friday morning the 4th Feb bound for the border of Portugal as we headed excitedly towards Bragancia and the border crossing, the temperature soon rose above 12 degrees and the sky was blue, it was indeed a lovely morning. The journey was quite uneventful (there was no border control -how disappointing). However, we were stopped by the police close to Bragancia, being expert interpreters we quickly realised that we'd done nout wrong, in fact they were stopping all the traffic due to rock blasting and in typical Portugese style we hung around for some time, but hey we were not rushing anywhere.
Bragancia is quite a large historical town with its own university, and a castle to boot; We found excellent accomodation in the centre (but this time without the parking problems or the noise) after which We decided to climb the hill to the castle and scale the castle walls, we spent an enjoyable couple of hours, and a pleasent evening with dinner washed down with vinho.

Up early and after a good breakfast, we decided to take the scenic road to our next destination - Chaves. I have to say as a bike rider the roads were fantastic, twisty and winding, up and down mountains brilliant to ride (obviously I'm speaking for myself I have'nt asked Ann what she thought). Once again the weather was glorious, at one point the temperature got up to 14 degrees. We passed some interesing sites- farming at its best!!!!!

These are a couple of pictures of what it was like along the way. We arrived in ChavesSaturday 5th in good time, and found great accomodation. Till next time.........     By the way thanks to all for your comments it really is great to hear from you. Oh and a special thanks to Julie (Moore) for the return ticket for Ann she's on her way - NOT.

Keith get youself sorted, for some reason your comments are not being posted- they make us larf and need to be posted, ask Avril how to do it!! hehehehehee