Tuesday, August 31

Today we planned to visit Viana do Castelo, a small city that a local jeweller had told us we simply should not miss. We called for a Bolt and waited.

The driver who came had a Renault Zoe, a neat electric car. So neat in fact that the battery needed recharging halfway through the journey. We therefore had an unscheduled thirty minute stop at a shopping mall somewhere in the countryside. After this we had just enough electricity to get to our intended destination.

We get out in the ”historic centre” and walk down a pedestrianised street to find ourselves outside the railway station. We explore and then walk down the windy main street.

We stop for a 20cl beer and a tosta mista at the Café Concha and then take a left turn into a maze of little streets that eventually lead to a plaza. In the centre stands a sculpture of a man and a woman that we will see duplicated at various points including the shoreline. I photograph various people photographing the sculpture.

At 18:00 we will return to the train station to wait for a train to take us home. We will find a perfectly preserved station bar that makes me feel as though I have arrived at a village station in Wales fifty years ago.

Even the people there will look the part.