I was already very close to the northern tip of Portugal and crossed the border into Spain just when the weather started to change making me concerned about finding a good spot to put up my tent.

The joy about the smooth roads and less aggressive drivers however made up for the bad weather.

I took me about two hours to find a spot but it was a good one. At least so I thought.

Just when I had crawled into my comfy tent the rain started to fall. It was a strong downpour and it lasted throughout the whole night but I felt perfectly safe in my tent. After all it has a hydrostatic head of 5000mm (which should be enough for any rainy condition in Europe).

The next morning however I had learned a valuable lesson.

My tent was dry everywhere except for the floor. I hadn’t tucked in the outer edges of the ground cover on which I always set up my tent. I just didn’t think it would really rain when I set it up so I didn’t bother tucking in the edges. But now the water that dripped down from the tents walls right onto the floor cover collected in the middle beneath the floor of the tent. This much water is too much for any average tent. Luckily it got wet only where I had placed my sleeping mat on so none of my belongings got wet and I only noticed what had happened when I removed the rubber mat to pack my things in the morning.

The main problem resulting from this situation was that I didn’t want to pack a wet tent. I didn’t want any mold on it when I had the next chance to unpack everything again.

Luckily the plastic floor cover was rubbery enough so that the water just dripped of when I lifted it.

The tent however needed to dry. Once more the geodesic design of the tent came in handy. I could just pick it up and put it on it’s back like a lazy cat in the sun.

It rested there for an hour before I decided it was enough and we had to move on. It didn’t want to go and begged for just ten more minutes like they do but I started tearing it apart anyway. It was not a pretty sight..

My cruelty against my tent apparently hadn’t gone unnoticed as I was greeted by soldiers in full gear with their machine guns out when I returned from the forest.

It probably was just a training exercise but they didn’t make an effort to explain their presence. Instead they directed me opposite the direction I wanted to go but somehow I was not in the mood to argue with them.

My next stop was going to be Santiago de Compostela. A famous pilgrimage city.

 

I had already lost half of the day and still had a few hours of driving ahead of me.

The night was surprisingly comfortable. The temperature was just right. I didn’t even need my warm sleeping bag.

There was some condensation below my tent but the inside didn’t get wet.

I often don’t eat any breakfast at all but this time it consisted of half a kilo of strawberries.

Today my goal was Coimbra. The only reason really why I wanted to visit Coimbra were these guys: Bastiano Joao & Antonio Coimbra de la Coronilla y Azevedo.

If you don’t know these two it’s still not a bad idea to pay Coimbra a visit as it also happens to be a beautiful university city.

Many bridges connect the two sides of the city.

A castle wall like from a fairy tail.

Of course there were also many churches.

One of the many universities on the hill …

… can be visited while people are studying.

Many roads were still made of cobble stones which is great but it made driving uncomfortable. They were slippery as ice. Going downhill was a challenge especially on two wheels.

I left the city in the late afternoon once again not knowing where I would sleep that night.