Good Bye Portugal, Hello Spain

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Trudy

Wednesday November 4

We are on the road by 9:30 for Seville, Spain. We didn’t manage to see or do as much as we thought we would in Portugal; the rainy weather and catching a cold put a bit of a damper, no pun intended, on our visit here. Too bad, but it is what it is.We stop in Tavira, Portugal for lunch and find this lovely little garden behind an old monastery. There are trees here from all over the world with identifying tags, including this poinsettia tree.

We walk around after our picnic lunch and discover this old castle with a park in its center. We climb the steps to the top of the old walls, very narrow steps without any railings. We have noticed that Spain and Portugal expect visitors to take care of themselves. There are often no safety rails or fences in quite dangerous places. Back home this would not be the case. Can you see Bob at the very top of the stairs, where he stumbled? The view from the top of the castle walls over the roof tops. Two pictures of the same tree. Can you spot who is hiding in each one?

Tavira has lots of tourist attractions but we notice that there are many empty store fronts and houses for sale. This is something that we have seen repeatedly throughout Spain and Portugal. Their economies are suffering with high unemployment and the villages and towns are losing young people to the bigger cities. We have also noticed how often there are abandoned derelict houses, businesses and factories right beside nicely well maintained buildings.Notice the tree growing out of the window on the second floor of one of the building in this picture for an example. There are lots of ‘fixer uppers’ in Portugal and Spain!Soon we are approaching Seville and our next apartment.
Thursday, November 5

Travel days are kind of hard on me, so I stay home today and rest and Bob goes to check out the tourist sights and figure out the bus system for our outing tomorrow. I spend an hour or so watching a worker climb up inside the leaves of a palm tree and then trim it. It looked like a very difficult, dirty job, but it was very interesting to watch.

Exploring Near Lagos, Portugal

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Trudy

First thing on the agenda this morning is a trip to Lagos to visit an Osteopath. When we arrived there, we realized that we had left our red bag sitting on the road in front of the car back at our apartment. We sent an email to our AIrbnb host who kindly called the cleaning lady at the apartment and located the bag for us. I was very happy, most of the stuff in the bag could have been replaced, but not my travel journal.

Bob waited for me near the beach which had streets with more great cobblestone designs. We both really liked this one.

Next stop is Farol da Ponta da Piedade. This is an area near Lagos that has a lighthouse, which didn’t seem all that special, but it is situated in a pretty spectacular area. We decide we need to climb down this staircase to see what is down there. There are 191 steps down and of course, 191 steps back up!

Here is what we found. A short drive along the road takes us to Camilo Beach, with a view of Portimáo in the distance.

Of course, to get to the beach there are more steps, another 225!

This beach has brightly coloured rock cliffs on all sides, and the really red sand you can see in this picture at the base of the stairs was very slippery and stuck to my shoes like glue! I have no idea why, other than it was washed down from the cliffs and was different than the rest of the sand on the beach. I wonder if it is some sort of clay.Bob notices a tunnel that goes right through the base of one of the cliffs so we walk through it and discover another beach area.

We sit for a while enjoying the view, then we head back through the tunnel, up the 225 stairs, and we are on our way back to Portimáo, which is only about a half hour drive from here.

On the way home I manage to snap a couple photos of some street art. I’ve seen some really interesting stuff, but most of the time we have pased it before I can get a photo. Traffic was a bit backed up so I managed to get these two pictures.

We leave for Seville, Spain in the morning, so we tidy up the apartment and pack most of our stuff tonight. We are hoping for an earlier start tomorrow.

Quiet Times in Portomáo, Portugal

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Trudy

Saturday, October 31, Halloween

Halloween isn’t a big event in Portugal. We see a few kids in costume on their way into a party but that is about it. I am missing my grandkids today but we do manage to connect for a great FaceTime visit and then they send us these great pictures.I am fighting a cold and not feeling very perky at all so I have a pyjama day and Bob goes for a walk along the river in Portimáo. This boat is actually a restaurant.

Sunday, November 1

The quiet day yesterday was nice but it hasn’t helped my cold very much so I decide to stay put again today. I’m taking lots of vitamins, Echinacea and drinking lots of fluids, doing everything I can to get better quickly, but so far no luck. Bob went for a walk again today, he forgot his map and the cell phone but he managed to find his way around and get back to the apartment.

Monday, November 2

Our Airbnb hosts are so nice and they have asked us to go to a local market with them this morning.

We get some fresh fruits and veggies and then we go for coffee and pastries. We have a nice visit and learn a bit more about what it is like to live in Portugal. They are a lovely young couple with two children fairly close in age to our own two grandchildren. I have been using this down time to catch up on our blog and I am very happy to finally be caught up! Now, if I could just get my journal caught up And get rid of this cold all would be well.

A Relaxing Day at the Beach

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Trudy

Friday, October 30

Our Algarve beach of choice today is Praia dos Trés Castelos, which is on the other side of the big rocks at the west end of the beach we visited yesterday. This is our first view of this beach from up near the parking lot.There are lots of stairs to get down to the beach, and of course we will have to walk back up them at the end of the day! We walk to the end of the beach and find a sheltered area near these cliffs. It is quite windy today so a bit of a wind break is nice. We build ourselves a couple of sand beach chairs.

We sit for a couple of hours just watching the waves and the other people on the beach. There are actually people in the water, in bikinis, and I’m sitting here with all my clothes and two sweaters!We have been watching people go through the cave at the bottom of this cliff., so we go explore where it goes.

Turns out it is a pathway to the beach we were on yesterday. We climb some nearby stairs to get a view of both beaches from the top…and then we climb these stairs back down to the beach to walk back towards our car park.

Bob checks out the incoming tide, which does manage to get him a wee bit wet.This little boy ran back and forth repeatedly as the waves rolled onto the shore. He was having such fun!

We sit for at least an hour just watching the tide come in, and two kids playing in the surf with their sand castle, but it is getting cold so we decide to leave. One last picture as we climb the big flight of stairs back to our car. I forgot my camera at the apartment today so had to use the camera on the cell phone.

The walkway back to the car here is cobbled as well. I really like these walkways and streets.

Praia de Rocha (Rock Beach) Portimâo, Portugal

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Trudy

Wednesday, October 28

Travel days are a bit tough for me so I have a quiet morning at our apartment and Bob goes exploring, He returns to tell me that the beach here is amazing. We decide we will go explore it tomorrow. This is the view from our apartment balconey today.

Thursdsay, October 29

Today we drive to the Praia de Roche Beach as it is at least a half hour walk and I don’t feel up to that today.

There is a long cement pier at the far end of the beach so we make our way there and walk out to the end of it where there is a little lighthouse.The view of the beach area with all the buildings behind it is very pretty when the sun shines.

These colours and shapes of these condos remind of us Hurghada in Egypt.

The waves are crashing against the pier and we do get a little bit wet.On the way back we watch a few fishermen. One of them caught a flat fish but he wasn’t too talkative and pretty much ignored us so we didn’t learn much. This is the first person we have encountered who hasn’t been very friendly. The fishermen here are using the very long poles we have seen elsewhere.

A few minutes later Bob spots this fishing boat returning along with its many friends! It was hilarious, all the noise and so many gulls all trying to get something to eat. We had quite a few laughs watching this boat go by, with its parade of very noisy gulls.There were lots of these little fish in the water, some of them were over a foot long, but no one seemed the least bit interested in them. There must be someone out there who knows what they are and why no one was fishing them?I thought it was quite cool today, but this little guy was having so much fun running in and out of the waves that he didn’t seem bothered by the cold water at all! Europeans seem much more accepting of children running about without bathing suits which I think is great. It is getting to be late afternoon and the sun is sinking so we head back to our apartment, after stopping at the grocery store to stock up for the week.

We seem to spend a lot of time in the grocery stores, but both of us find it quite interesting. Of course most of the brands are different, the writing is usually all in Portuguese or Spanish and we see things we have never seen in the food stores before. One thing I find quite surprising is the lack of choice in fresh fruits and vegetables. It is definitely a case of what is available in season and there doesn’t seem to be very many imported fruits and vegetables. Often the bins aren’t refrigerated either, so the quality of the fresh produce is not as good as back home. Peppers are often wrinkly, there are usually only red peppers, occasionally some green, but rarely yellow or orange peppers, and when I have found them they are crazy expensive and not very fresh. The other thing we have discovered is that you don’t want to go the last hour or so in the evening because everything is very picked over, and many of the fruits and vegetables bins are completely empty. One item that is very hard to find is herbal teas. There are very few choices but some of them just aren’t very appealing. I’m still looking for plain old mint tea!

Lisbon to the Algarves in Southern Portugal

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Trudy

Monday, October 26

Finding an osteopath when we are on holidays is always a bit of a challenge. I locate one not far from us and go for a treatment this morning. Afterwards I have a quiet time at our apartment and Bob goes into Lisbon. He went for a ferry ride to the other side of the river in Lisbon and back again on a boat like the one in the picture.Then he takes the famous, crowded #28 tram ride to the Castle San Jorge which is high on a hill over the old city.

On the way home he stops for some groceries and then manges to get on an express train which tales him right past his stop. After missing the next two trains, due to some confusion over which one he should be taking, he finally arrives home wet, cold, and an hour late.

Tuesday October 27

We set the alarm and get up early because I want to go watch the the training session at the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art. These Lusitano horses have been used for equestrian art and bullfighting for centuries but were at risk of dying out. The stud farm was revitalized in 1942 to revive the breeding and training of these beautiful horses. We watched the training session for about an hour and a half. I was entranced and wished that we could have seen one of their performances, but the timing for that didn’t work out.

There are up to nine horses in the ring at a time, and the riders change horses over the hour and a half.They were teaching this horse to do the Capriole, where the horse rises into the air and forcefully stretches out his back legs. It was very impressive.

Now we are on our way to the Algarves where we have our next apartment in a town called Portimâo. We drive under this old looking bridge but have no information about it. Then we drive over the 13 kilometer long Vasco de Gama bridge as we leave Lisbon. It is probably one of the longest bridge we have travelled on.One of my ‘driving ‘pictures of a garden right beside the main road just after we get off the bridge. One of the interesting things about both Spain and Portugal is the mixed use of land. It is common to see houses right next to apartments, industrial or commercial areas, and derelict buildings next to very well kept ones. I find it rather fascinating, but I don’t think I would like to live somewhere with this sort of planning, or maybe it is no planning?We are soon driving on roads that travel through farms of cork trees. These trees have their cork harvested once they are 25 years old. The cork is stripped from the trunks every nine years and the trees can live up to 300 years! Over half of the world’s cork production comes from Portugal and Spain.

Here’s a close up of the cork and the stripped trunk. Quite fascinating.The roads here are very pretty and we enjoy the drive, stopping near here for our lunch.

We meet our host, and his two children, at our Portimâo Airbnb apartment at 6:00. It doesn’t take us long to decide to extend our stay here from four nights to a full week. It is a lovely apartment on the 11th floor of a new apartment building and the price is certainly right, only $35 Canadian a night!

Sintra, Portugal, Day 2

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Trudy

Sunday, October 25

Our second day in Sintra starts out rainy but it is supposed to clear up by early afternoon. We catch the bus near the palace we visited yesterday and head up the steepest, narrowest road we have probably ever been on. The bus had to stop and back up three times to navigate the hairpin turns. We were standing in the front of the bus so had a view of the road ahead, which, by the way, soon lost the center line and became a one way road as it was too narrow for traffic in both directions.

A pretty little fountain on the walk through the park on the way to the Palace of Pena It was very misty so we couldn’t see very far but it was pretty.Soon we get our first glimpse of the Palace of Pena. This palace was one of the last residences of the Portuguese Royal Family. It is a fairy tale castle with Moorish and Manueline influences and is one of the finest example of Romantic Era architecture in Portugal. This link has more information about the palace and the park that surrounds it if you are interested. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pena_National_Palace#

We enter through this grand gate.

The next gateway is just as spectacular. Love it!The Cloister is part of the original 16th century Monastery that was built into the present Palace. It is decorated with Hispanic-Arabic tiles from 1520. The dining room has a sculpted ceiling and tiled walls…and here is one of the first bathrooms in the Palace.

I am in the bedroom of King Ferdinand II. and both of us in the Billiard room. The kitchen is huge and has the original pots, pans and ovens. Next we explore the outside of the Palace. The weather hasn’t improved all that much but we decide to hike up to the Cruz Alta, where there is a carved stone cross. This is the highest point in the Sintra Hills.The walk up to the cross was lovely. The park around the castle covers 85 hectares with several historic gardens and many buildings and grottos. On the way down from the cross we take this little crooked very winding path which eventually takes us to the Valley of the Lakes but not without some detours along the way.

The view from one of the paths. That village way in the distance actually had sunshine. The Valley of the Lakes has a castle tower for a duck house. We didn’t see many ducks, but we did see this beautiful black swan. The leaves are falling and they are huge!

We still want to see the Moorish Castle so we hike over there and have about an hour and a half before it closes. This castle was built between the 8th and 9th century by the Moors to defend the local territory and the Maritime access to Lisbon. There was a bit of blue sky but it quickly disappears, along with the supposedly fantastic views from the walls and towers. On a clear day it is possible to see the Atlantic Ocean, but we are barely able to see the castle!

In some places along the castle walls the walkways are not much more than 18″ wide, and there are no railings! We finally admit defeat even though we have only seen a very small part of this ancient castle. We are cold and wet and can’t see much of anything so we decide to hurry back to the bus stop and try to catch an earlier bus and train home. We get there just in time and we manage to get a seat for the ride, which takes us all the way to the train station. I am happy not to walk that long curving road from the station up to the Sintra Palace where we caught the bus this morning.The Sintra Station is the only train station we have seen that isn’t coverd in graffiti. It has been a good day, but also a long cold, wet day and I am glad to be heading home.

Sintra, Portugal

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Trudy

Saturday, October 24

Today we visit Sintra, a beautiful town in the foothills of Portugal’s Sintra Mountains, near Lisbon. It is about a half hour car and train ride for us from our Caxias apartment. The Sintra National Palace is easily identified by its large twin chimneys.It is about a half hour walk from the train station to the palace, in the drizzling rain. I stop to visit with this cute little fellow. There are numerous statues all along the curving uphill walk to the palace.

The palace is spectacular and one of its main features are the ceilings. They are all ornately decorated. This is the ceiling of the Swan Room, decorated with 27′ swans in different poses.

The Magpie Room celebrates one of my favourite birds. It dates back to the 15th Century and it has136 magpies, each holding the king’s banner in its beak and a white rose in its claws.

Bob liked the Galley Room whose domed ceiling is covered with 17th and 18th century seascapes and vessels of the naval powers of the time, the Ottomans, Dutch, and Portuguese.

The Blazons Hall ceiling has the Portuguese Royal Arms, the coats of arms of the eight children of King Manuel I and the coats of arms of the 72 most influential families of the kingdom. The walls are covered with beautiful blue and white tiled scenes. It is a stunning room.

We spent about two hours in the palace and then found a quiet little reading room where we had a rest and ate our lunch. It was raining so we weren’t in a rush to get back outside, but eventually we explore some of the streets and shops before our walk to the train.

Some of the shops are very small, like this one, which was only about four feet wide… and the streets are very narrow.

Back at the train station parking lot I notice this wall of street art/graffiti. It is much nicer than most of the graffiti we have seen and we have seen a lot of it. Unfortunately most of it is pretty ugly and it is often defacing private property.These morning glory vines are growing on a wall near our Caxias apartment. The ones we plant at home never grow anywhere near as wonderfully as these.

Cascais and the Casino

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Trudy

Friday October 23

We drove to Cascais today, a town about a half hour west of where we are staying near Lisbon. We walked along the pedestrian streets and visited a few shops, but no purchases. Everything I like is either too expensive or too big or fragile to get home. The cobblestone street was a bit disorienting as it created a bit of an optical illusion.There were some people on the beach making sand sculptures to earn a bit of money.We walked down along the docks past the fishing boat area and then through the Cascais Marina, which were both in the shadow of ancient fortress walls.
The view from the Marina back towards town.We passed this interesting house, or maybe a small castle? on our walk towards the Boca de Inferno.Boca de Inferno, or Hell’s Mouth, is an interesting cliff formation about a forty minute walk from Cascais.The pounding of the Atlantic Ocean on the cliffs chiseled out a small cave, which then collapsed. There is a walkway so it is visible from both sides. Bob wanted me to take this picture, he said it reminded him of a jigsaw puzzle.The fortress walls I mentioned earlier now house a hotel and a bunch of artist studios, which unfortunately were all closed, but this quaint little bookstore was open.It was full of interesting things, including this unique piece of furniture, made of all sorts of recycled bits of wood. My nephew in Portland has started woodworking and has buit some beautiful pieces. I thought he might like to see this.

The courtyard also had a few different sculptures, including these giant binoculars.

We walk back above the dock with all the fishing paraphernalia that we walked by earlier.We found a nice bit of beach and spent an hour or so just relaxing, watching the waves and the people.On the way home we stop at a Casino in Estoril. It is supposed to be the biggest Casino in Europe, but we are only able to find half a floor of slot machines on the main floor, and the gaming tables are closed. Our casinos at home seem bigger than this one…We spent a couple of hours, won some and lost some and in the end it cost us 10€.

Caxias, Portugal

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Trudy

Tuesday, October 21

Caxias is a community about a fifteen minute train ride on the coast west of Lisbon. It is our home base for the next week. Bob went exploring the neighbourhood this morning while I had some quiet time after our travel day yesterday. Later in the afternoon we went for a walk along the ocean, which is just a couple blocks from our apartment.

I was looking for treasures and I found a few intersting shells, but the most interesting thing was all the jelly fish on the beach. They were huge, between 12″ to 18″ across and there were a lot of them washed ashore by the waves. No way I was going into the water here, even if it had been warmer.

There were several large military looking vessels as well as quite a few other boats. I enjoy being by the ocean but I have to admit I am quite happy being on the beach watching the water. I really don’t have much of an urge to actually go into the water, or even on the water. Boating is OK but it is certainly not one of my favourite things.

We spend quite a bit of time watching this fellow get ready to fish. He was putting sand in his white bucket and then mashing it around with a big metal tool. We were trying to figure out what you doing, and then when he was ready to fish he threw some of this sand into the water. We think he must have been mashing up some bait with the sand and that he was using it to attract other fish. He seemed to be a very patient, methodical sort of fellow.We enjoyed our time on the beach, watching the water and the other people on the beach, then we headed home for a nice supper.

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Tag Archives: Portugal

Good Bye Portugal, Hello Spain

Exploring Near Lagos, Portugal

Quiet Times in Portomáo, Portugal

A Relaxing Day at the Beach

Praia de Rocha (Rock Beach) Portimâo, Portugal

Lisbon to the Algarves in Southern Portugal

Sintra, Portugal, Day 2

Sintra, Portugal

Cascais and the Casino

Caxias, Portugal