41:41.616N 8:49.323W

Well today was another gorgeous day and we experienced a world of extremes.

We got up early(!) and washed the saloon covers. We then went on a funicular up to the top of the hill which overlooks Viana. The hill top has a very old church and a rather expensive hotel. For 80c you can either walk or take the lift to the top of church dome. We took the lift and then found there was a staircase to the very top. The final staircase was absolutely tiny and a very tight spiral climb up 20 or stone steps. It even had a traffic light system for peak times – it wasn’t working today so we just had to hope we didn’t meet anyone. We were then on top of the old dome, however it had being extended. Hence we had another very very tight spiral climb to eventually reach the top. The views were naturally stunning.

We decided there were further photo opportunities from the terrace of the hotel. Once there we felt it would be rude to take the photos and leave, so we stopped for a couple of beers.

After taking the funicular back into town (Anne’s legs had gone shaky from being so high, or was it the beer), we found a typical Portuguese restaurant for lunch. We were the only non Portuguese there and the food was amazing (and far too much). Lunch cost the same as the beers in the hotel!

We had planned to sail tomorrow but have decided to spend another day exploring (and we realised it was a Friday and its bad luck to leave port on a Friday).

In keeping with embracing local culture, we came back and had a siesta (the Portuguese don’t have siestas). On our walk round town this evening we found a shop that does wine and port tasting – so we stopped and arranged a wine tasting session for tomorrow evening (after trying a few ports of course).