Viana and further south

We were surprised by Viana do Castelo, it is a very nice town. We stayed a couple of days while we mulled over future plans given the appalling news coming from the Caribean. We had established that our friends dave and Carol were safe 300 miles south of the tracks of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma Katia and now Jose, being at anchor in Grenada. Our plans however would have put us smack in the path of destruction and we  (well, me in particular ) was wwondering if I really wanted to put my wifw and boat at risk especially when there was som much to see and do in Europe.

We agreed to ponder the alternatives and risks and decide when we got as far south as Lisbon.
In the meantime we explored a few more of the beautiful churches to be found in Viana do Castelo.

We are used to the fabulous carved alterpieces to be found but this one in the Malheiras chapel (18th Century) is outstanding, the depth of detail is astonishing.
A smaller church is the church of our Lady of the Agony, which also doubles, or did, as a lighthouse or leading light.

The light can be seen poking up behind the belltower.

Almost French in feel it has a lovely fresco ceiling, However I believe the main stylistic influence is in fact Brazilian. It is a stop on yet another way of St james (the Portugese )
At this point I lost Lynne as she wandered off to find a toilet, during the next hour while I worried and waited for her to return I discovered a small chapel attached to the church but obviously separate both in feel and style.

 It was dedicted to Saint Roche, so I had a quiet word about my knee (patron Saint of bad knees ) obviously I was not the only supplicant as a small cabinet adjacent to the alter was full of wax body parts.

Once I had been reunited with Lynne we wandered back to Dark Tarn and prepared to head further south the following day. An early start saw us setting off in a thick sea fret as we cleared a couple of miles from shore it became a proper fog bank obscuring the land whilst we were in bright sunshine out to seaward.
It was about 15 miles to Povoa de Varsim and when we arrived at the harbour and marina we stopped on the holding pontoon for a couple of hours before the office opened after lunch.

It gave us the opportunity to have lunch, and have a quick look at the marina which seemed to have lots of space, it was also connected to Porto by the Metro so having read in the pilot that our next potential port of call Leixoes (pronounced " Layshoinsh" )  which was just north of Porto was usually crowded we decided that we would stay and look around.

Povoa de Varsim is very much a holiday town with a large sweeping beach with a great many high rise (and very ugly )concrete tower blocks. however has a pleasant if slightly scruffy older town. We continue to struggle with Portugese pronunciation but find a lot of people, particularly young people who watch a lot of English language movies and TV have a good grasp of English.
We found our way to the Metro station (just over an hour into Porto) and discovered the travel cards we still had from Christmas were now superseded. we decided to visit Porto tomorrow and sail directly to Ria de Aviero later in the week.