We arrive late afternoon at Vila Viçosa. We have two possible stopovers – one is at the fire station for a couple of euros a night, but there are no other campers here and we generally like safety in numbers so we move further into town to a large car-park where there are two or three other campers and our app tells us that we can stop for free – perfect.
We are here to see the Ducal Palace of Vila Viçosa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducal_Palace_of_Vila_Vicosa) and a quick wander into town informs us that it’s shut until the Tuesday PM. The rest of Monday we do a lap of the town including a lap of the castle walls. Like other walled towns and castles, the Portuguese basically say here are the walls – help yourself. Don’t fall off! The walls are sheer on the inside, about 4 feet wide and drop in some places thirty feet. These walls seem to be trodden rarely (which is odd because they are wonderful) because they are also mossy. We make our way around the castle walls which includes a lap of the cemetery.
The next day we visit the Palace but it’s a boring blog post because we are not allowed to take photos inside the Palace! The tour is guided and it’s a nice small group.
After the Palace, it’s towards Elvas, which is the last planned stop in Portugal…
