Since we wanted to make our trip dependent on weather and waves, we decided not to continue in direction Lisboa. The weather forecast said that the next days from Lisboa on the whole northern part of Portugal would have rainy days. So we decided to leave the coastline to explore Portugals inland. But before we hit the road to cross the country we would like to visit the countless and endless sandy roads next to Sines. What a playground!!! Both of us had a lot of fun. As we got the sand ledders just before our trip started, we really would like to try them out, but „Lenny The Overlander“ didn’t allow it. We drove through the deepest sand if nothing happened. Even I drove through the most difficults tracks. Unfortunately we didn’t get stuck. Maybe it was because in the beginning we let some air out of the tires.

After we had a funny time on the sand trails we drove from the west coast to the east across the country to the Portuguese-Spanish border. The border exists only by the river Guardiana. Near the town of Elvas is an old bridge called "Ponte De Ayuda", which was our destination for this day.

The bridge is located in a rural environment, isolated by vegetation and a small chapel next to it. Although nowadays the bridge lies in ruins, you still can guess that it was supported by 19 arches, since on both banks some round arches are still preserved. The bridge, can be visited from Portugal as well as from Spain, was built in 1510 and it took place of several war battles between Portugal and Spain. What tragic and also beautiful stories have taken place here...???? Sometime, in such places, you can still feel the mood and the spirit of its history. What was also the case on this evening.

After a quiet night we had a wonderful morning walk at the banks with our dog Lotta. She was so happy and playful that we were super glad she was doing very well. We knew it also could have turned out differently. Because the daily change of locations could have caused her a lot of stress. What was luckily not the case, because she seemed really happy as you can see on the photos.

We used to have a slow morning with an extended breakfast and our daily procedure with packing the roof tent, cleaning up the dishes and stowing everything with no rush. You wouldn’t think it but it takes us always some time, so that we left this beautiful place at noon. We wanted to continue our trip southwards because of the bad weather front which stuck northwards and since we started to be interested in those old, historical castles, which were found in almost every village, we wanted to make a stop in an ancient place with a well-preserved castle. During our drive the day before we already noticed that this border region must have a lot of history and our interest was awakened. We couldn’t avoid to have a closer look to learn more about its history, so we did a little research and we found the little historic town Terena which was on our Route and we would like to visit.

The Castle of Terena is a castle in the civil parish of Terena in the municipality of Alandroal in the Portuguese subregion of Alentejo Central. Since 1946, it has been listed as a National monument. The origins of the castle are found in the period of the early Middle Ages, specifically in the 13th century, a period in which the high Guadiana was a frontier territory with Castile. The earliest registers indicated that a foral was passed by royal knight Gil Martins and his wife, D. Maria João in 1262.It is simply fascinating what has already happened behind these walls. ⠀⠀⠀

Terena is a very pretty village located on a hill. We were lucky that we could even enter the castle and walk behind the large walls to the courtyard. We had actually read before that the gate may be locked because there is a flock of sheep grazing inside. In the end, we even climbed the thick castle walls and had a great view of the whole valley. Afterwards, we strolled through the obblestone streets with beautiful ancient, small houses, almost all leading to the castle. It’s a very well-kept little village, which has also some historical vacation accommodations.

From the castle, we went further south where the border river Guadiana turns into Lake Alqueva, with more than 250 km2 as the largest reservoir in Portugal and Western Europe. After a bit of searching, we found a lonely and beautiful spot on a small hill overlooking the lake where we spent the rest of the afternoon and Lotta could let off steam. It looked like we had done everything right and the bad weather continued to stay on the coast and we were spared inland and had the most beautiful sunshine.

As we wasn’t sure if the bad weather will reach us we wanted to wait until the latest to set up the tent.

It's so good to have the assurance of being able to sleep inside the Land Cruiser as well. This was definitely one of our best ideas of the conversion.

During the beautiful sundowner we started to prepare the dinner and afterwards we could set up the tent to sleep in.