Porto

So we thought we would have a relaxing day. Morning swim and a 2 hours train-ride to Porto and another dip in the pool in our hotel. All went to smoke when it appeared at the train station that it is not only not allowed to take bikes in the IC train but there is a strike. So we had the choice to take four regional trains - meaning 8!!! times taking on and off the bikes the trolley and the kids to and from the train, or to lose our 68 € hotel booking in Porto. Since the ride to the station in Santarem was a serious downhill ride - there was literally no way back. Actually the trip went very well, we had quite much fun you will see from our pics in Flickr. The kids fell asleep just before taking off the last train at 8 pm, so they did not have to witness the police taking away 2 surf-kids from the train for free-riding. It locked all passengers up on the train for a good 20 minutes, so we were in the right mood to get out and realise that we cannot get out of the station without massive exercise because the lift was too small and the stairs down and up the underground were too deep. So we had to chase some local muscles to carry everything down and up to face a 5 km ride to our hotel starting with a hill. Now i will not detail our ride just mention the main highlights: we had a walking navi on the phone which i had to hold in my left hand while steering with the right - i am no good at such tricks - and riding on cobble stone roads against traffic, as driving aspects were irrelevant for a walking navi. Second highlight: we went to the wrong hotel after an hour of such ride, but luckily the correct hotel was on the same road another half an hour ride away, so at least i had no further worries that the phone dies on me before we find the place. For a change i was holding a paper map :) at 9.30 kids are in bed without any complains and now we will have a Cairpirinha in our bathroom :)

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