PORTUGAL - Part 2- Mar. 1, 2012

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PORTUGAL – Part 2
March 1, 2012


Portugal also is home to some of the biggest birds you’ll see anywhere. These black and white storks love to make a nest the size of a small car it seems atop the highest man-made object around. No natural stuff for them other than the twigs used for the nests themselves. Preferences include chimney tops (helps keep the house warm by not letting warm smoke escape) and metal power towers. The towers usually have up to four levels sometimes with a nest on each level making the thing look like a place which might be called Bird Do-Do View Condo Estates (electricity included).

This country is following Spain as a large olive producer though not with the same height of quality reputation. Wines and of course port further north are well known.

We joined two camping associations. One, Orbitur, is for campgrounds only in Portugal while the other, ACSI, is internationally recognized and covers most of Europe with excellent information and discounts. The ACSI can be joined in any country but in our case we got it via our Dutch friends who are still travelling with us. Though the books came from Holland and are in Dutch, we can figure them out with a little help from Willemien.

Right now we’re enjoying walking the beach here while we stay put for a few days waiting for our ACSI books and parts for Frans’ broken (again) bike rack.

Prices of food and gasoline here seem higher than Spain. We are in the Algarve though which is a big tourist area so we’ll have to see as we go further north.

One of the things to watch out for in campgrounds with electricity is the number of amps in the system. They can be a reasonable level (say 15 amps) of low (6 amps). This means you need to watch how many electrical appliances are running at the same time. You run too many totalling over the systems power level and it blows leaving you to find the circuit breaker (good luck) or go to the campground office to ask them to send someone good luck) or cook your meal with a magnifying glass at night (good luck again!). We’ve had to do all three and so now we’re much more aware of how much juice we’re pulling.

And on Feb. 15, 2012 we celebrated Willimien’s birthday. We took her and Frans out for lunch along the sandy beach of the Atlantic. Food sucked but company was great.

The next day we headed north and stopped just south of Lisbon in Sebutal. Getting here we took the autoroute, Frans’ preferred travelling method though not ours. It would be our last. The approximate 225 km cost us 33 euros (about $45)!! We were the only two campers in the campground outside the town though it was almost completely filled with permanent camper units, all empty save one or two, quite common in Europe. Following Sebutal, Portugal’s third largest port we continued north, though not on the expensive motorways, toward Nazare, a town of 16000 people and renown for its narrow streets and women wearing multi (some say seven…but I wasn’t permitted to count them) layers of slips making for a very fluffy Mary Poppins look.

While we were there Carnaval took place over four days. It is a large religious holiday and festival involving bands, noise, costumes, food stands and a look and feel somewhere between Halloween and New Year’s Day. Most of this in Nazare takes place on a street along one of the most beautiful beaches in Europe making the setting perfect.

Back into road cycling with continued great sunny warm weather and a quiet road near the beaches which the locals tells us see waves up to 30 meters (100 ft) high!!! Apparently last night some big ones came in which explained the thunderous crashing noises we were hearing in the night. It might also have been the gods angry over my method of bringing wine to camp on my mountain bike! (Thought I had made up for it with bread in the rear bottle holder…guess not.)

Portugal is known for an air-dried fish (smells like hell and tastes worse!). Lots are produced in Nazare. The heads are left on to give them an artsy look (though not flavour).

As in most places it is common courtesy to ask permission to take someone’s picture. In some countries, Morocco for example, it is rarely given. In some countries, such as some places in Africa, tourists have been killed for taking a photo of someone without their permission…they believe their soul has been taken. Fortunately here in Portugal people are more open.

Then…ah, then…on to Porto…one of the places I’ve wanted to get to since that first sip of port wine. A simple drive to a campground on the west side of the country to where the waves pound the sandy wide beaches with a vengeance. During high tide, they sound like an angry train coming through.

The next day we took a local bus for the 45 minute ride into Porto. (The bus ride was an adventure all its own. The full length machine was driven at breakneck speed by a grumpy driver down, around and up what most people would think of as wide lanes. At times we had to come to an almost complete stop to ensure the bus’ side motion didn’t scrape the stone walls. At one point and with no apparent interest about traffic behind him, the driver stopped to let out a woman passenger who went into a shoe repair store, dropped off her shoes to be fixed, and got back on the bus!)

Porto is a subtle and beautiful 900 year old city with a magical old section along the famous Douro River. The old town has many buildings with the traditional tiles, some telling a story. Many of the roofs are orange clay tiles and give the place a joyful look. While visiting this area we were approached by a man offering his tour guiding services. He asked where I was from. When he realized it was Canada, he said he had relatives in Prince George, BC. He had me convinced when he said he also had relatives in Armstrong, BC just down the road from where my mother lives. I mentioned Dawn and I had lived in a town just south of Armstrong to which he quickly replied, “Oh, Vernon. Yes, I’ve been there.” It really is a small world.

The river itself is deep and wide and has a similar appearance to the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. The river has cut a deep valley so that the traffic bridges are incredibly high and long. The old town is very historical and made famous for its production and export of port wine around the world but originally to England. The Portuguese wine was fortified with spirits for the voyage north by schooner. The fortified wine, now called port, helped to establish a number of “houses”, or port businesses, owned at one time solely by the British. The English names have continued but the ownership has changed. Large areas of warehouses where the port ages sit on the south side of the Douro River in the middle of the city. A number of the larger port brands are located here and have tours and sampling. We sampled…we bought!

At the end of February we left Porto along the grand Duoro River. Soon we followed our Dutch friends unto a new highway not yet on our GPS. No choice but to continue. Part way on we were forced to get a ticket which we would later use to pay the toll for the distance we had travelled on the road. Some twenty kilometers later we wanted to exit which meant going through a pay booth. Process = put ticket in the machine + insert money + receive change = exit. Everything went well…oh, except the part where we get our change and are released from highway prison. Push every button…no good. Eventually the machine started to talk…it was a live person! Speaking to us in English! He soon announced the problem…the machine was broken. No kidding!?! We would need to stay in the van outside of the vision of the motion detectors and give him our mailing address. What?? Why? So they could send us a cheque to replace the money we had inserted into the now broken machine. Can’t you have one of the other machines give us our money back? Nope! Not in the procedures. Eventually a highway representative came. Good…he would give us our money and we would be on our way. Nope! He was there to read our mailing address off an official document to the machine’s voice (something we could have done of course). But could he not simply give us our cash back? Nope? Not in the procedures. I asked if they could send the Portuguese army to release us. Nope! Not in the procedures. We all laughed at that point. Finally released we went on our delayed way anxiously awaiting our refund by cheque which no doubt will not be accepted by a French bank. Probably not in the procedures. Stay tuned.

February 29, leap year’s extra day, and we left Portugal for northwestern Spain. It was also the day when we left our Dutch friends “Smile and the Gang”. We headed north while they would head east not having to get to Holland for another two months. We spent the better part of six weeks together in Spain, Morocco and Portugal all the while having a great time and making each other laugh. We plan to link up with them again.