Sines in sight

Leaving towards Portugal in the morning was quiet rewarding. We slept way up the in hotel Roma and we had breakfast and otherwise just enjoyed the fact that the sun was stong from the morning. The summer this year in both Brussels and Copenhagen had been hopeless if you like sunshine like we both do.

We got rapidly on the freeway and  the traffic was very calm. The motorway from Madrid towards Lissaboa on a sunday morning is very sparse - once in a while you have the local sunday trip that you have to pass. The landscape in this reagion is very beautiful - and having driven there before always had me looking forward to come back. You can be very alone in this region.

Passing the border to Portugal made us feel really good our favorite part of Portugal was now in sight less than 160 km from the border.

Our ain this time was actually to find a hotel in Sines city, so we started there. We had not booked anything on this trip, and this offcause gives you a lot of freedom but also some risks. Our experience though in this area didn't make us nervous - yet. We went in to the fisrt Hotel in Sines which had 4 stars - but we quickly went out again since their proposal was 150 € pr. night - which in this area is rather steep. We found a couple of other residencials and hotels but they didn't have anything that fitted us. Either the rooms were too sleezy or we could not stay for more than one or two nights. Therefor we drove to Santo Andre.

In Santo Andre we only could identify two hotes but they were both full - really nice but full. We therefore went to Santiago do Cacem where we also stayed in 2006. I really like this calm little city only 13km from Sines and the same disatnce from the coast. The hotel we stayed at last year was full - it turned out that the week had a bank holiday - and almost all Portugease had taken that week off. We tried the other hotel in the cite and had luck. Actually a lot of it because it was a very nice hotel.

We checked in and took a quick shower and went in ti Sines to get some food at the Habour Restaurant there.