What a great day to come into the final country of my trip. Crossing the bridge across the Minho I was admiring the Portuguese castle guarding the other side. I could admire it even more on the 'new' side as the cobble-stoned road was very rough, and not wanting to break a spoke...

Shortly after crossing over, I could see the change in the architecture, and of course, the signs were in Portuguese. This is Portugal after all. I followed the Minho out to the Atlantic where the bright blue Atlantic was crashing as white as snow on the black rocks of the coast. Spell-binding. I think I could see Labrador.

Further along the winds and road were in my favour. Plus, with a spell of traffic that was about 50 vehicles long, there was a wind-tunnel effect in my favour. I had the bike in its top gear and was pedalling as fast as I could - I must have been cruising at 40-50 km/h. It was beautiful. It made my arrival into town all the quicker, of course.

I came right to the Old Town where the incredibly friendly and helpful tourist office pointed me to my hotel. This hotel is amazing. What a change after last night. Wood everywhere again, but all kinds of extra hotel goodies that I have forgotten even existed - hair dryer, electric heaters, full-size tub and a TV with BBC, CNN and an english sports channel. The same channels I was getting everywhere but Spain, actually. I guess they do their own thing with TV, too.

Not wanting to waste such a beautiful day, I got ready and headed out to explore the Old Town. The first stop was... a bookstore. Which had english books. It did not have LP, so I'll have to check in Braga or Oporto, but at least I was able to pick up a Ludlum book. I won't have to resort to clothing labels anymore!

It was when I stopped in a cafe to get a few pastries that I looked up at the clock to see that their clock had fallen behind an hour. Ya right. Portugal IS an hour earlier than Spain-France-Italy-Germany. I thought so - so much for that website that I consulted the other day! This is great - what it means is that I don't have to wait til noon for the sun to come up. So after I have my included breakfast in the morning, I will be heading out into non-night-time.

So kind of neat, eh? From the Asian side of the Bosporus and the Black Sea. To the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. To the Strait of Gibraltar. And finally to the Atlantic. I'll bet that know-it-alls with sissy bikes couldn't do it. They'd try to hit the locals, or something.

The rest of the day will be spent exploring more of the nooks and crannies of this former little old fishing village and then savouring some of the fine Portuguese snacks. Maybe fish? Maybe clams? Maybe garlic? Maybe pork? Not sure. Maybe delicious? Certainly yes. And let's hope the wind dies down by tomorrow morning.

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