We had booked an excursion for the Porto stop and so after breakfast, we boarded the coach, heading for Palácio de Cristal Gardens or Crystal Palace Gardens.
The gardens were designed in the 19th century by German landscape architect, Émille David. The gardens are situated high up on the river banks, offering visitors wonderful views of the cityscape and the mouth of the Douro as if flows into the Atlantic Ocean. There are peacocks strutting around the lawns and can even be found in the branches of the trees.
We spent a couple of hours at the park and then we headed to Porto city centre. We managed to find a bakery that served Pastel De Nata and Phil had a local port to wash it down with.
After a walk around the city, where we saw the Clerigos Church and Tower, an amazing viewpoint and several souvenir shops (!) we decided it was time for an ice cream and we struck gold, we enjoyed the prettiest ice cream ever!
We then made our way back to the ship for a couple of slices of pizza from the pool deck and Phil decided to go for a swim.
We ate dinner in the main dining restaurant and I chose Crispy Confit Duck Leg Bonbon for starters, Chicken Breast wtih Tikka Masala Sauce and Crepes Suzette for dessert. Phil decided on Pork Rolls, Spanish fricassee of beef and he had the same choice as me for dessert.
After dinner it was time for a game of Landslide in The Tamarind Club. You got points if your answer matched the most popular answer, we didn’t do very well…
After a nightcap of a Baileys for me and a Jamesons for Phil, we headed to our stateroom for a good night’s sleep before visiting the city of Vigo.
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After breakfast at the buffet, we disembarked Ventura and went for a stroll around the streets of Lisbon. The first thing we noticed was the style of buildings, some had pastel facades and the others, which were my favourite, had azulejos tiles on the outside.
We also noticed the trams which were abundant in the streets. They looked old-fashioned but very quaint and we decided we’d like to travel on one, just for the experience.
As we were exploring the city, we came across a fantastic viewpoint which was called Santa Luzia View Point and from there, we could see our ship, Ventura and also the Majestic Princess. This is often dscribed as the best viewpoint and from here, you can see the historic district of Alfama.
A quick trip to the Tourist Information Centre and we had purchased tickets to go on the tram and visit a park just outside of the city. It seemed as though the whole of Lisbon was in a massive traffic jam and for about 20 minutes no cars moved by our bus stop, but eventually the tram arrived.
We travelled through the streets safe in the knowledge that our stop was the last one on the route, but luck wasn’t on our side and it stopped in a busy square and we were told that the tram wasn’t going any further due to roadworks, so we had to leave the tram at this point. We got off, a bit annoyed that we had spent 10 Euros each to travel for about ten minutes!
After a few minutes of walking, we managed to find the main street in Lisbon called Rua Augusta which has lots of shops, restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops. We had a couple of things to eat along this road, the first being a Codfish Cake, even though we weren’t too sure what it was when we ate it.
And we also purchased the tradidional Pastel De Nata in a shop and we had them hot with ice cream – delicious!
We then walked up to King Pedro IV Square with it’s impressive statue of King Pedro himself and some rather spectacular fountains.
A walk back down Rua Augusta took us under the Rua Augusta Arch and into the Praca do Cmercio, which was a huge square.
After exploring the square, we found our way back to Ventura, we didn’t have any lunch as we had eaten in Lisbon.
Leaving Lisbon, we sailed back under the bridge, which is just as exciting the second time!
We ate in the main dining room and then took part in a quickfire quiz challenge in Havana in which I did quite well in the beginning, but faded away halfway through!!
It was onto the the Arena Theatre next for a Headliners Theatre Company production of a musical called Paradise City. It was full of rock music and I have to say, it was very loud!! There were some good songs, even if the acting was a little wooden…
An end of evening coffee in Costa, before we headed back to the cabin and looking forward to a day in Porto.
Day Six is up on YouTube if you would like to watch it. Please consider subscribing, it is totally free and it would really help me to create more travel content.
We managed to get up early today, so that we could see Ventura sail underneath the 25 de Abril Bridge.
25 de Abril Bridge.
It was extremely windy and cold up on the top decks, but we stayed there until she had safely passed under this iconic bridge. You can get some amazing video footage of this, which is, of course, in my vlog of Day Five. Please consider subscribing, it is totally free and it would really help me to create more travel content.
After having eaten breakfast, we got ready to go on an excursion that we had booked through P&O which was to visit some underground caves. The blurb about this had me a little worried as I was reading it, as it stated there were about 200 steps to go down, and I thought, “So, there must be 200 to climb up!!” But thankfully I then read that there was an elevator to take you back up to ground level…
The caves were spectacular, it was mindblowing to hear how they were created. There was lots of steps, but they weren’t too steep and most of the time there was a handrail to hld on to. Obviously it wasn’t suitable for wheelchairs or pushchairs. It took about an hour to walk through as we stopped every so often to listen to our guide explain the geology of everything.
After the tour of the caves, we were taken to a restaurant for lunch. Just a word of warning here, if you struggle to walk up hills this may be a bit of a challenge as the walk was steep and long. But, the coach was at the top of it in the car park, so after your lunch it was there already.
Lunch was vegetable soup to start and then you had the choice of either pork or fish. I chose the pork and Phil had the fish. It was very tasty, especially when it was washed down with as much wine as you wanted. There was also orange juice available. I didn’t bother with dessert, but Phil loves his desserts and so he had pannacotta.
FishPork
We had a little time to have a browse around the souvenir shop and we crossed the road to admire the stunning view.
There are cloakrooms there which you can use before you go down to the caves and also toilets in the restaurant. This is important for me as having a stoma, I need access to a toilet at a moment’s notice sometimes…
We then returned to the coach for our journey home. I’d just like to say that our tour guide was excellent. He sat with us during lunch and explained lots of Portugese customs and advised us where to go when we explored Lisbon the next day.
We had booked The Beach House for dinner which has a cover charge and there is also an additional cost on some of the menu items.
Phil chose Crab Tostadas for his starter and I had Crispy Bacon and Cheese Potato Skins and for mains, Phil had 10oz beef fillet on a lava rack and I had the Beach House Rib Combo. I was far to full for dessert, but Phil had a Banana and Strawberry Daiquiri Sizzler.
The whole meal was superb: the ribs were succulent and juicy, Phil’s steak was perfect and the side dishes were tasty. Our only minor complaint was that there wasn’t enough sauce in the pots, but that was quickly remedied by asking the waiters for some and they very quickly provided more.
We then went to the Arena Theatre where we watched juggler, Jon Udry. Juggling isn’t really our thing, but there was a lot of humour injected into his act and so we quite enjoyed it.
As we were still feeling pretty full, we decided to retire to our cabin, watch a bit of TV and then fall asleep. I think I fell asleep before I had watched any TV!!
Join us next time, when we’ll be exploring the beautiful city of Lisbon!
I am off work at the moment as I am recovering from bowel cancer and my husband booked two weeks off as our son was getting married and he wanted some time off around that. I received an email from Parkdean Resorts saying we could book a four day holiday for £89. I was a bit sceptical but it was true, so we booked to go from Monday to Thursday at St. Minver Holiday Park, Wadebridge, Cornwall, PL27 6RR.
Day One
The journey from Southampton to Wadebridge is roughly four hours, so we booked to stop off at The Jamaica Inn for lunch. This was a bit of a bucket list item for both of us, as every time we drove to Cornwall we threatened to go there, but never actually got there, but because it was my birthday, we decided to go for it.
Picture from Jamaica Inn website
We stopped off at The Jamaican Inn, luckily we had booked as it was very busy.
Our onward journey took us another 45 minutes where we found St. Minver Holiday Park quite easily and after booking in at Reception we found our caravan.
We booked a four berth caravan and when we entered we were pleasantly surprised by it. Sure, it wasn’t the biggest caravan we’d stayed in but it was only for the two of us and we wouldn’t be spending that much time in there, we were more concerned with the facilities the park had to offer and the location of it.
Living roomKitchen area
On looking at the map of the site and the entertainment programme it looked like there was a lot going on. We saw that there was an entertainment hub which housed the pub, showbar, restaurant, arcade and soft play area and the list of activities for the children was quite extensive, including an indoor heated swimming pool, plus bingo, karaoke and even a tribute band for the adults. I was quite impressed that you could order food from your table via their App and even have food delivered to your accommodation.
After unpacking, we decided to visit a beach called Polzeath Beach which is popular with surfers and we could see why when we arrived, the waves were awesome! We took a walk around the town centre, purchased an ice cream and took a wander down on the beach. There were lots of surfing classes and we spent a while watching the surfers ride the waves and some quite spectacular wipe-outs.
As it had been a long day, we drove back to the caravan and as we were both still full from the lunch at Jamaica Inn, we had a cup of tea and went to sleep….
Day Two
Today we had decided to go and visit Padstow which is one of my favourite places in Cornwall, my very favourite being St. Ives. But, instead of driving to Padstow we were going to park at Rock, which was only a couple of miles away and then catch the ferry across the bay to Padstow. This was a good decision as the car park in Padstow is way up on a hill and whilst this is fine in the morning walking down, it’s very tiring after a long day and having to walk up this steep hill, plus after chemotherapy and bowel surgery, I’m still not up to full strength so I’m not sure I would have even made it!
We arrived and parked up and went for a walk along the sea front to take a little look at the place where the celebrities live, people like Gordon Ramsay and Dawn French. We spotted Paul Ainsworth’s restaurant, The Mariners on the sea front and it did look fabulous, somewhere we’d love to go for a special occasion.
We walked back as we could see the ferry was approaching Rock Beach. The ferry only took card payments and it cost £3.00 – Adult Single, £1.50 – Child Single and £3.00 – Bike.
The ferry dropped us off at the harbour and after checking what time the last ferry back to Rock was, we went off to explore.
Padstow is a fishing port and is situated on the west bank of the River Camel. There is a lot of shops to visit, we particularly like the glass art that you can get from Cornwall, plenty of tea rooms, restaurants and of course, pasties. After a cup of coffee and a piece of cake, we took a stroll round and sat on a bench on the harbour just people watching and enjoying the view.
After a delicious meal at Rick Stein’s, we had another wander and stumbled across a craft fayre and never one to walk past one of this, we went in. There were lots of stalls to have a look around and I bought a ceramic heart necklace which was very pretty.
We then caught the ferry back to Rock, thankful that we didn’t have to go up that steep hill back to the carpark and drove back to the caravan site.
We were going to go to the Entertainment Hub but we were very tired and so we just chilled in front of the television watching The Great British Bake Off, munched on a few pork pies that we had brought with us and then departed to the bedroom and I haven’t slept that well for a very long time…
Day Three
On our journey down to St. Minver Caravan Park, we saw a sign for Pencarrow House, it wasn’t a National Trust house but privately owned, so we made a mental note to visit it if we had time over the next couple of days. Well, day three afforded us this chance and so we headed over to it early morning to book a house tour.
Pencarrow HouseLanhydrock House
It’s a standing joke between us that wherever we go somebody always knows hubby and today was no exception. As we walked into the shop a voice said, “Hello Phil, what are you doing here?” The lady who worked behind the counter used to work in one of the buildings he runs as the Catering Manager!
A walk around the gardens and a guided tour of the house and we were on our way to Lanhydrock house, but not before have a bite to eat at a pub we passed along the way.
We had downloaded a free National Trust pass so we used this to gain entry to Lanhydrock House, which was just as well as it was quite expensive at £20 each.
After a look around the House, we would have loved to had spent more time there but we had a meal booked at Bodmin Jail before we went on our ghost walk, we had to move on.
The rain was coming down which added to the eerie feeling about the jail. We arrived fully expecting a meal but was told that even though we booked it online for a time of 16:45, they weren’t open at that time for meals but did open at 17:00 for a set menu. On looking at this menu it was £50 per head, so we decided against it and found a lovely little pub down the road and had a bowl of tomato soup each!
Back to the jail for 18:30 and we booked in for our ghost walk.
The walk around the jail was very interesting, we were told about the different ghosts that haunted the jail, facts about some of the inmates and we got to look inside the jails, which was a bit creepy.
The person who led the tour was very knowledgeable and we were surprised to find out it was his first tour he had ever done, so well done to that man!
It was at Bodmin Jail where the episode of Most Haunted was filmed and Derek Ocorah (a medium) was set up by Ciaran O’Keefe (sceptic) to expose him as a fraud….
After the tour we headed back to the caravan site where we went to the entertainment centre and feasted on a £12.49 pizza and a couple of drinks.
We took a picture of the different menus:
After feeling full after eating the pizza we did a quick tour of the amusement arcade where we won a couple of small teddies and then we headed back to the caravan for our final night before we packed to go home.
Amusement Arcade
Day Four
Phil got up early to go to a bakery we had seen at Rock the day before to buy some pasties and scones for when we got home. Phil is very partial to a cream tea and we hadn’t had time to fit one in this trip, so we bought one to take home with us.
We didn’t stop on the journey home, mainly because we sailed past the services we were going to stop at, so it was nice to have a ready-made tea when we did get back.
My view
We thoroughly enjoyed our time at St. Minver Holiday Park, so much so that we’ve booked five days next year this time staying in a lodge so that our families can come and stay if they want to.
Our lodge for next year
We found the park to be central for where we wanted to visit and there was plenty to do, from playing bingo, karaoke, swimming to walking through the woods.
All-in-all very good value for money!
A journey through the meaning of life and anything else that grabs my attention!
Making My Home A Haven is important to me. Sharing homemaking skills. Recipes and food. Bible Studies. This is a treasure chest of goodies. So take a seat. Have a glass of tea and enjoy. You will learn all about who I am and Our Neck Of The Woods.
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