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We thought we would add a postscript to our blog, updating our readers (nearly 10,000 and rising) on how we have coped with returning to life in Manchester.

This is the last post on our blog and so we would like to take this opportunity to thank a few people.

We have enjoyed keeping the blog and we are sure we will refer to it in the future. We are very grateful to everyone who has visited the blog over the past 12 months, almost 6,000 hits in four months is impressive and helps us feel in contact with other people. As well as old friends, we have made new contacts via our blog and now have a list of other travellers blog’s to follow from Salford with envy.

We really appreciate the time taken by everyone who has emailed us over the past 12 months or got in touch via the blog. We have always enjoyed hearing your news and have tried to reply to all of you.

Although the ideas on the blog come from both of us, it is Carol who puts the words together. Anthony took on the duty of finding song lyrics for the post; not always an easy task when faced with a post about an obscure topic such as dinosaur footprints or the umpteenth post about walking or cycling; he rose to the challenge and has enjoyed being creative. We hope you have managed to guess some of the lyrics and enjoyed looking up the ones you don’t know on the list of answers.

Last, but by no means least, we want to thank Matthew and Rachel. Without their help and support the trip would have been much more problematic; they gave a home to our elderly and blind cat, posted us books and essential equipment, used up most of their holidays coming to visit us, looked after the flat and opened our small paper mountain of mail and purchased various concert tickets for us to help make our return something we can look forward to.

You may be wondering, how we are feeling as the trip comes to an end. The post title says it all really; the trip has given us a sense of what Europe is, how we fit in to it and how much more of it there is to explore. Most importantly, the trip has made us realise how much fun we get from living together in the van, hitting the road and exploring new places; we will certainly miss being as free as a bird (no apologies for using this lyric twice)

Our longest day travelling was also reduced to a 22 hours day; On Sunday we lost two hours, one due to the change to summertime and the other because we moved from Portugal back in to Spain. We prefer not to use motorways and will often meander on minor roads for 100kms or so between campsites. However, due to a lack of open campsites we decided to travel the 400kms from Chaves in north-east Portugal to Candas, near Gijon in Asturia on the north Spanish coast in one day, along excellent, quiet motorways.

Somewhat disorientated about the time of day, we drove through a wild and empty Spain; big mountains with snow, kites flying overhead, huge plains of cereal fields and few signs of habitations. It was palm Sunday and at occasional small churches by the road we saw congregations with bunches of greenery in their hands.

We arrived in Candas, near Gijon, a prosperous part of Spain, with a campsite pleasingly set on a rocky promontory. Inland from the coast are small farms and out walking we saw people tending their small-holdings in the sunshine and photographed many of the wooden granaries on stilts, characteristic of the area. Almost back at the campsite a motorhome stopped to offer us a lift; it was Theresa and Mike, our occasional travelling companions from Australia. We spent the evening drinking Portuguese wine and liqueurs and reminiscing about our favourite places in Portugal.

We sail from Spain on Easter Sunday and the chocolate goodies in the shops tell us the Easter weekend is getting closer. Our plans are to head east from Candas, along the coast, taking in the cave paintings at Cuevas del Castillo, near Puente Viesgo and some Rioja wine tasting before catching the boat in Bilbao.

We feel a little gloomy to be leaving Portugal; we have enjoyed our six weeks exploring this country on the edge of Europe. We bought our last Pastel de Nata, the extremely tasty Portuguese custard tarts, got lost in the last Portuguese town devoid of signs and stayed at our last cheap Portuguese campsite.

At home it is fairly easy to be vegan-ish, but travelling in Europe we have indulged in dairy products on a number of occasions. Our blog readers may have noticed; (and comments have been made) we are food-obsessed vegetarians and so we often feel we miss out on getting a real taste for a country; in Portugal we have missed out on the delights of Salt Cod and the many smoked meats, so to also not get a chance to at least try the many different cheeses and the fantastic Portuguese cakes, including Pastel de Nata, is more than we can manage. We will revert to our old regime when we return.

Our last sight-seeing trip in Portugal was to Citania de Briteiros, south of Braga; a Celtic hill town settled between 1,000 BC and 1,000 AD. This sizeable archaeological site is an early prototype of the walled hill town and walking around its cobbled streets you get a clear sense of how the place was lived in. As well as many houses and a series of enclosing walls, Citania de Briteiros has a pre-Roman bath house and a large building which experts think is where the men of the village gathered to chat and make decisions; just as we see them gathered today putting the world to rights in the village cafes.

As we have mentioned previously, Anthony’s ex-colleagues at the University of Central Lancashire kindly gave him a wad of euros as a leaving gift which we have been spending over the past 11 months; treating ourselves to a meal out every month or so. In Porto, we had our ninth and last meal out on the staff and it was a memorable one.

Porto is a magnificent city; set on the sunny, south facing steep banks of the River Douro, it cannot help but be picturesque. On the cooler, north facing bank is a separate city, Vila Nova de Gaia; joined by some spectacular bridges, the two have a Newcastle: Gateshead relationship. Vila Nova de Gaia is the city where all the Port wine is produced by one of the many caves or cellars; Porto just got the name.

Porto is the more picturesque of the two cities, with tall, colourful houses around narrow cobbled streets; it is best seen from Vila Nova de Gaia, or from a boat cruise on the Douro. We chose Taylor’s for our Port wine tour and tasting as it has impressive views over the river to Porto. We arrived at lunch time and having walked up the steep hill, we were pleased to find that the restaurant menu had not just vegetarian options, but vegan main meals. The Taylor’s Restaurant is very posh; silver service from attentive waiting staff, heavy white fabric napkins and a panoramic view. It is, of course, accustomed to tourists and they didn’t bat an eye-lid at two scruffy travellers, although all the other guests were in very smart attire. We had an excellent meal and toasted the University staff with an aperitif glass of dry, white Port, called Chip Dry.

Back at the camp site we watched other campers returning from their own trips to taste the local nectar; laden with bags from Cockburn, Croft, Sandeman and others.