Portugal

LAZING ABOUT IN LAGOS

We hit the road to Lagos, Portugal with me in the captain's chair. Much of the drive is quite barren. We arrive into Lagos and after mistakenly pulling into a military base we find our campsite a short walk from the old city walls and a hop, skip and jump from the beach to boot. I think I'm hearing things when the reception tells me the camp is €9! We'd heard the Portugal would be easy on our pockets and it seems it's true. We've pretty much hooked up the power and then Ryan is itching at the bit to get to the beach so we put on our togs and head through the streets. We find the beach by following our noses and it's probably the best beach so far. Big call I know. It's small, has golden sand, turquoise waters and lots of little caves in the rocks that lead through to more and more private beaches. We settle in for the afternoon. Ryan spends some time snorkeling in the clear waters around the rocks into each little bay and walks back through the caves. We see a butt naked man. Not pretty.

After we've had enough sun, sea, sand and snorkeling we walk through town to the supermarket to restock the cupboards.

WHAT'S THE TIME THEN PLEASE?

The next morning we're up before 7am getting ready to hit the road to Lisbon at 8am. The security guy lets us out of the camp and we hit the road. In hindsight, the security guy letting us out of the camp should have been our first clue. Anyway, we get a few corners up the road before we remember that the camp has my passport so we turn around and head back to get it. Reception is still shut so we ask the security guy when it will be opening. There is a language barrier, but the conversation and hand gestures go somewhat like:

What time (pointing to watch) does reception (pointing to reception) open?

8am.

What time is it now (pointing to watch again and gesturing at his watch).

7.15am

Bum, we must have missed something here; maybe last night was daylight savings, it is a Sunday so that's a possible answer. We must have gotten up at 6am! So we sit in the campsite parking lot and wait for reception to open at 8am. 8am comes and goes. Someone else waiting tells us reception opens at 8.30am. 8.30am comes and goes. The security guy leaves. Reception is still shut. Around 9am a guy comes to open up the camp supermarket but not reception. Eventually around 9.30am someone manages to get the supermarket guy to make a call and someone is on their way to open reception. Seems there's been a bit of a communication breakdown over who was manning reception today. Ryan is fair fuming to put it politely.

Eventually just before 10am someone arrives, we grab our passport and finally hit the road to Lisbon. We found our campsite easy enough and it's pretty nice. Each site has a concrete stand, picnic table, rubbish bin, water tap and the pool is even still open! We have hot showers, lunch and do a load of washing for free as there's no one around to pay. We also manage to sort out the time, turns out Portugal is on the same time as London rather than the rest of Europe! Talk about confusing. You know, a sign telling you the time zone is changing at the border wouldn't go astray.

MMM CUSTARD TARTS

Then we catch the bus into town. In town we come across the infamous images of charming old Lisboa. The ceramic tiled buildings, the old yellow trams shuddering up steep hills and lines of washing hung out on street fronts. We traipse through the streets, up, up and up to the castle to find the picture postcard views of the city. We reach the castle and then change our minds and head along to the viewpoint from Lago Das Portas Do Sol. There's a good few people up there, sitting at tables, chatting and drinking a beer in the late afternoon sun. We get beers and sit on the low stone wall and take in the city below us. We reel off the photos as we watch the setting sun from our vantage point. Then after a long day we head down through the low lit streets after its dark and catch the bus back to camp.

We do another cheeky load of free washing the next morning before heading into town. We jump off in Belham and head past the monastery near the waterfront. We stop by the Discovery Monument, built to celebrate the Portuguese discoveries. We carry along the waterfront to the Tower of Belham, a 16th century fortification for the river that splits Lisbon.

We head back along the waterfront to one of the main attractions of Belham. Yesterday on the bus we saw people in a line spilling out onto the pavement and wondered what the fuss was for. Today we're off to find out what all the song and dance is about. The line of eager shoppers is out on the pavement again today. We decide to venture in first to see what wares are on offer here. It's a cute little pastelaire, selling an array of baked goodies. In addition there are glass cabinets all around the room full to bursting with ports, of all brands, all types and all ages. It dawns on us that this is possibly the bakery selling the best custard tarts in the whole of Lisboa, quite a mantle to carry. I scour the cabinets for custard tarts but can't see anything that resembles such a tart. We decide to line up and get some pastry goodness of some sort or other. Its when we reach the front of the line that Ryan spots the custard tarts. They're on a big table behind the counter and they're in their moulds still, fresh and piping hot out of the oven. They must make these little tarts of golden goodness around the clock to keep the punters satisfied. We get some b&e kish (quiche) and three custard tarts. We grab some cold drinks and head just up the street to a park to devour our lunch.

The b&e quiche is heavenly, quite possibly the best we've ever had. Then the custard tarts, still hot to the bite are filo pastry and hot custard goodness. We've even been given little sachets of cinnamon and icing sugar to sprinkle over them. Ah heaven. You would have to roll me out my front door if I lived in Belham.

In case you're ever in Lisboa (and I'd recommend it!) Pasteis de Belem has been baking Pasteis de Belem since 1837 with an ancient recipe which has been kept secret to this day. Get your delicious Portuguese sweet fix there!

Stuffed full of quiche and tarts we decide to walk the 6km to the town centre, through the Belem district and into the Alfama district. Houses completed in ceramic tiles line the streets we walk, all different colours and patterns and quite eye-catching. Halfway through our trek we stumble across a shoe store about to shut for a siesta but we've spotted some jandals so dash inside. Luckily there is a pair in Ryan's size so we hand signal that we'll take a pair. Then we share a bit of a chuckle with the old shoe store lady who indicates towards the shoes Ryan's wearing and waves her hand under her nose. We laugh and nod. We're on the same page - Ryan's feet honk in his shoes so he'd like to put the jandals on straight away. She cuts them apart and hands them over. We pay and thank her. Then her hubby teaches us the Portuguese for thanks 'obrigado'. So with our new word and new jandals we carry on our merry way.

Eventually we arrive into the centre of town and explore the great pedestrian shopping streets. There is street after street pedestrianised (I think I've made that word up!) Tables and chairs under umbrellas are lined up down the middle of the street and shoppers amble about down either side. A parade of students come down the street, yelling and chanting. We find out later that it's the beginning of a new academic year so the new students are subjected to an initiation by the older students. Some things are the same the world over. We spend a bit of time watching the trams amble about the streets before heading to one of the many squares that are links together in the heart of the city to catch our bus back to camp.

Back at camp Ryan dominates the pool by doing bombs and staples into the deep end. Luckily it's only him in the pool!

SUMPTUOUS SINTRA

The next day we catch the train from Lisboa northwest towards the coast, to Sintra, a small little town that used to be the ritzy summer destination of choice for Portugal's kings. We pay for tickets on a hop-on-hop-off bus that does a loop between the three main castles - the Palacio National de Sintra a bizzare Moorish and Gothic construction, the 8th century Moorish castle and the kitsch romantic castle Palacio de Pena. Our favourite is definitely the latter. It sits high above the town of Sintra amongst the bush and is painted all in bright colours. We spend a good couple of hours exploring the castle grounds which include a garden with tree ferns from NZ and the castle rooms. Late afternoon we head back into the village and wait for the train with some iceblocks to cool us down as it's been a scorcher again.

PORT(O)

We eventually find our campsite accidentally a short distance along the coast from Porto. It's pretty dead, with just two other campers there! We're just up from the beach in some tiny coastal town. We have a crazy bus ride through the narrowest streets possible (they really could do with a smaller bus!) and arrive into Porto. We amble about for a bit, admiring the odd but pretty churches, a mix of plain blockwork and patterned ceramic tiles and soaking up the busy main street. After finding our way to the tourist office for a map we head down the steep streets through the old world part of the town to the colourful Riberia district flanking the famous Douro River.

We have a coffee, an argument and then head across the river for a real drink. We head into Sanderman, one of the old (dating from 1790!) port houses right alongside the river. We manage to catch the last tour so pay our €4 and join the group. Forgive me for being unworldly but it turns out that the Port is actually a type of wine. It starts as wine, but then halfway through the fermentation process they chuck in some brandy which stops the last half of the sugars turning to alcohol, leaving a sweet wine. The brandy also gives Port its 20% alcohol kick! We learn more about the tipple that is Port and the port house of Sandeman, inlcuding that Sandeman was started by a Scotsman. Then we get to the good part, the tastings. Geez it packs a punch! It's alright, but may be an acquired taste; let's see if we can acquire a taste for it with more tastings tomorrow!

From Sandeman we hike up to a viewing spot above the river looking across into the old part of town with an Aussie guy who was doing the tastings with us. We take in the sunset and cool bridge and watch as the city slowly lights up after nightfall. Then it's back to camp on another hairy bus ride through the narrowest of streets. There are just centimetres to spare in places!

Halfway through the night a fierce wind whips up and we sleep restlessly until the morning with Betty being shaken about like no man's business. When it finally gets light the wind is still howling so we hustle about camp and up to the bus stop. Today our bus is another delight, decked out in very 70's green seat covers and curtains. Personally I preferred yesterday's orange decor!

In town we've got our priorities straight and after using some of the cheapest internet in Europe (€1 for one hour!) we head straight across the river to the port houses of Vila Nova De Gaia. We head for Croft, said to have free tours and tastings. As per normal, we get lost in the back streets but a friendly port house worker helps out and gets us where we need to be. Croft is even older than Sandeman, 1678 in fact. There's no English tour until later in the day but they line us up with a free tasting of their white port anyway. It's quite nice, well compared to the rocket fuel Sandeman served us up anyway. We head off for some more tastings and a tour at Taylor's. Again we get a couple of complimentary tastings before the tour and one is very good. A sweet red that was almost good enough to be a vintage. We have good taste you see!

Several glasses of port have sapped out will to sightsee, so mid afternoon we call it a day and head back to camp. We sit on the boardwalk down by the sea, watch the sunset and write out the last of our postcards.

Later that night, strike me dead if the same howling wind doesn't strike up again. It's the strangest phenomenon. Starts about midnight and is so fierce that you have trouble sleepiing Betty rocks about but holds steady. We leave early in the morning with the windy wind behind us.