Portugal Highs and Lows

We left Porto this morning in our rental car headed for the Douro Valley to see some of the majestic wine country views in the mountainous region east of the city. After winding our way up and down through tunnels and twisting back roads for about 1.5 hours, we got to a well-known park/look-out and were rewarded with the incredible sight of terraced vineyards leading from the banks of the Douro River right up the side of steep green mountains.


We planned to spend the afternoon in Coimbra (where we are staying tonight), so it was just a short visit and no wine tastings for us. We turned south and made our way to the highway only to be stopped dead by a car accident that had closed down both sides of the road. Just under an hour later, traffic stated moving again and an engine light on our peppy brand new VW Polo came on confirming what we could already tell was a problem with the car's engine. We had no idea what was wrong but got off the highway as soon as we could and only then realized we were basically in the middle of nowhere and more than an hour away from any major city as well as from any rental car office. Thus began an hours-long slog to contact the rental company (mixed results with semi-English speakers), wait for a taxi (no English) and tow driver (no English) and then be driven by the taxi 1.5 hours to our Coimbra hotel. The taxi and tow guys were both super nice and between hand gestures and a translator app (thank f-ing god we had a cell signal where we were or we'd probably be sleeping in the car tonight) we made it!

Jen helped ease the stress by taking photos of everyone

Things could have been a lot worse... but now we'll need to take the train back to Lisbon tomorrow and will not have time to get to the Roman ruins a few towns away that were one of the main reasons we decided to stay in Coimbra. We're going to make the best of it and spend the morning seeing this town with it's university that is one of the oldest in the world (est. 1290, take that Harvard)! 

When life gives you lemons, drink beer in a college town!




   

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