About ½ Way Through This Initial Journey

 

Last night the plan had been to get takeaway.  When we went out for our midday walkies, we discovered the takeaway joint was at the edge of the regular restaurant district.  Scratched that idea.  If one is going to walk all the way down to the restaurants, one is going to eat at said dining establishments.

 

Instead, Francie walked down to the local Pingo Doce and got some clams, clams for a clam stew.  There was a salad with buffalo mozzarella, some chips and homemade salsa and some tinto.  The wine was from the Douro valley and was quite tasty. To finish all off a little while after the dishes were cleared, there was an 18-year-old scotch whiskey and some gelado. 

 

Our fellow travelers asked if we were ever going camping again.  I laughed and said, “This my friend is camping in my dotage.”  We are cooking new meals based on available ingredients.  We are hiking at least five miles a day. We are on the alert for wild animals (big assed dogs behind fences here as opposed to bears rooting through garbage bins in the northern woods). We are traveling in unknown terrain.  The beds might be a tad more comfortable than a bed roll, but we are essentially doing what we did camping. We are sharing each other’s company and discovering new things together.

 

Today is our 45^th day in Europe.  We are just a tad past the halfway point in this journey. I am dropping into the rhythms of this place, casual morning, long lunch, slow afternoon and joyous evenings.  I probably will have to immerse myself in football and pick a team to root for when I am in the bars. I really don’t want this to end.

Last Day in Olhao

 

Last night I tried a couple of times to record a video post showing myself and the almost full moon as I talked about how much I enjoyed Olhao.  Never really captured what I wanted to say or the look I was going for. So here goes as I try and put it into words.  My espresso at my left hand.

 

Olhao is mostly a working seaport with some gorgeous beaches attached. And yes, there is a row of restaurants that stretches on for more than a kilometer. But really it is nobody first choice for a waterfront holiday.  I mean there is the intense swamp/fish smell that comes from the fish processing plant every couple of days when the wind blows into town. Also, there are the coffee shops/bars filled with grizzled old men sipping Superbock beer, lingering for hours at a table set out in the middle of a sidewalk. And even the new condos have issues notably the stucco siding falling off into the street and onto the sidewalk below.  And there are the ruined buildings.

 

But…

 

I have lived in seaside towns before and the fish smell it kind of comes with the salt air and the sea view.  The old men are just that old men, strange only because I am a stranger in this town a place which has existed with grizzled old men for many, many centuries. While it might be easy to view my photos of old houses as disaster porn, the key thing is that they are old and they are still in use.  This place has cycles of life, cycles of use and reuse older than the nation from whence I have come.

 

And…

 

The pace of this town is a pace I like.  Morning is filled with activity.  Then comes a long lunch.  Then real life slows for a time only to awaken again in late afternoon and continuing on until 10 PM or so.

 

Olhao is working class.  I come from blue collar beginnings so the humble side of this town is not a shock or a deterrent. Olhao is on the water and I spent the most formative years of my life at the edge of the ocean. Ohlao has a good spirit of life and at this stage in my life I appreciate that life-force.

The Promised Dedicated Work Station

I have not created a blog post in a bit.  At current we are halfway through our Portuguese adventure. We have now arrived in Lagos, Portugal after leaving Olhao.  Train ride took about 2 ¾ hours.  Cab took about half an hour to get to the station and a half an hour to get to the place due to Google maps discombobulation.  Downhill the train station is about 20 minutes away.  Uphill, well I don’t even want to contemplate that.

 

Truth be told I really, really loved Olhao.  It was a working seaport with tourist beaches and restaurants appended to it. Must be my blue color upbringing, I don’t mind the smell of fish and brine.  I don’t mind old men in wife beater t-shirts drinking beer at noon.  And I do like unpretentious dives with good pastries.

 

But Lagos.  Wow.  The place we rented is very, very nice.  A pool.  A marble staircase.  Four bedrooms two with their own baths.  A veranda.  Loads of plants including lime trees and rosemary everywhere. When I got up this morning the sun was starting to explode across the eastern sky above the ocean.  The temperature today will reach 80F but this morning it is 60.  Slept with the windows open last night and slept well.

 

Right now, I believe I am working from the dedicated work space.  Uh, I think I could work from this dedicated work space from now until the cows come home. In a day or two some friends will join us to share the space. Hanging out in an alabaster neighborhood drinking gin and tonics will probably be as nice as nice can be. More soon.

 

On a Spring Day Long Ago/On a Fall Day in a Fallen Roman Province

Scrawny and lanky a young man sits in a bright cheerful classroom in the “New High School.”  He gazes out into the courtyard, a design element the teachers and administrators weren’t quite sure how to use yet. He daydreams but not for long for his harsh, scary old Latin teacher had only 13 students and he could be called to answer a question at any time.

 

Today Ms. Audrey Cooper was talking about the layout of the tradition Roman villa. These history bits were more interesting to him than the ablative and male versus female nouns. He disconnected from his fantasy of being a rock star swaggering like Roger Daltrey at Woodstock and focused on tile roofs, a fountain in the center of the atrium and the marvelous mosaics the artisans would set out on the floors of these patrician estates.

 

Ms. Audrey with her pasty white powdered face took a piece of chalk and in precise letters wrote the word “viae” on the chalkboard. Viae was the plural of via the Latin word for road. She talked about how good roads were important for commerce in the empire.  Good roads, and these were good roads elevated and with drainage ditches on the sides, could allow the Roman legions move quickly through the countryside. Her love of all things Roman was clear as she happily, almost giddily, told the class these roads were engineered to last and some were still visible today. Looking up and to the side gazing at a map of the Empire she intoned some are still in use in rural areas.

 

From rock star to Roman centurion, the young man’s fantasies shifted in a nanosecond.  Instead of being onstage in bell bottoms and sandals singing in a gravelly voice about stopping the war he was marching with troops in a leather skirt and sandals out into the hinterlands of great Roman empire at the behest of Octavius.  Now mind you both of these fantasies had similar components, semi-nude women, modern groupies or roman house keepers.  Hey at 15 years old what more could you expect from the mind of a male child of the seventies?

 

From April 1971 to September 2021 the fifty years flew by.  Ms. Cooper, God rest her soul (and I say that with sincerity), is long dead. The new high school is so very far from new.  The fifteen-year-old horndog with the attention span of a gnat is now a 65-year-old man, retired from a lifetime of work and afflicted with the maladies that come with advancing years. 

 

But here I stand on the grounds of a Roman villa with a docent explaining how when it was “discovered” in the 1700s this villa was large enough to be thought to be a whole village. One archeologist showed however that it was the home of very rich and very powerful patrician.  The temple to animalistic deities was build late in the site’s history because these were holdouts from the Roman empire’s conversion to Christianity.  The docent leads me into a sizeable house to show me how a 16^th farmer used the ruins as the foundation of his house burying the entryway into the Roman dwelling beneath the living quarters of his traditional Iberian Peninsula home.

 

And then after we leave the house and step outside on the path back to the interpretive center, he casually throws out that this was a Roman road that led about 15 km to Faro and then from Faro on the Portuguese coast up to Spain. I ask him if the stones are the original stones from the start of time in CE.  He tells me some but not all and he laughs saying if you look with even a little bit of care you can tell.  And I did.  And I could. And suddenly I was a centurion dressed in leather again heading out for a return to the seven hills of Rome.  I will not address the question of whether my imagination conjured up tanned women in various states of undress.  It is irrelevant.  But I can tell you every second I paid attention in Latin I, II & III came flooding back to me.

 

And God bless the memory of Audrey Cooper and the love of classical history she instilled those of us who dared take her classes. Without her I wouldn't have taken an Uber out to the countryside with my youngest son to gaze upon the wonders of a great fallen empire.

Plans Change, Plans Evolve

Having read all the guide books our plan had been to head to Tavira next week to wander around and explore that part of the Algarve.  In that we had some open time late last week we took the train to Tavira to check out the location of our Airbnb and the town in general.  Well, we were not impressed.

To begin with Tavira was packed, filled with tourists who just seem incapable of wearing masks.  We are not talking about under the noise misuse.  We are taking masks nowhere to be seen.  Second, the street of the town had people shoulder to shoulder, just totally packed with tourists.  In the older part of the town, the quaint narrow streets, the throngs were an oozing compressed mass akin to molasses flowing through a narrow funnel.  Having been in Olhao which is a beach town for a week, where people are widely dispersed, this congestion just felt damn uncomfortable.  Finally, there was the price factor.  Everywhere the markup was higher that Lisboa, Faro, and Olhao. If you go to a pastry shop here in Olhao or Lisboa, a pastry and an expresso are between a euro and a euro thirty.  In Tavira the base price was running about three euros. The mask-less, crowded price gouging proved too much.  We cancelled the Airbnb.

On Saturday we got on the train to Lagos.  While we were tempted to check out Albufeira we passed on stopping there because the Portuguese government reports have indicated it was the country’s Covid-19 hotspot.  The train which was supposed to take just under two hours died requiring a new train to come and pick us up.  Passage was thus three and a quarter hours with an hour to wander around an unmanned train station on a warm day.  

Lagos itself is large and developed.  It has everything from 80 different boat tours to a fun fair with a Ferris wheel. It has modern condos but also an old walled city of sorts with narrow uncrowded streets. Because it is the end of the season the crowds are just not there.  It was 80F during the day and the sky was clear.  Still, all the vendors were bemoaning the cooling weather and how all the fun was leaving town.  Hell, I am from Michigan by way of New Jersey, I decided I can handle being in a tourist ghost town for two weeks where the lowest daily temperature is going to be 79F and the lowest nightly temperature will be 62F.  

Took forever on the Airbnb site to find a spot in Lagos.  So many little nuances you have to be aware of like the use of the word cozy. Cozy is normally code for damn small.  I note a variation of this has begun to creep into the entries, cozy spacious.  Huh?  What the hell does that mean, you get a hand knitted afghan to use in your sleeping tube? You also have to beware of listing that don’t show an exterior view.  Those are the ones next to a tattoo parlor and above the methadone clinic. If there is the reference to “the full ambience of a seaside town” you can count on the smell of the fish processing plant being an ongoing part of your experience.  Five minutes from the city center must be researched carefully.  Is that by walking, by car or by jetpack?  

Anyway, I found a four bedroom place an easy walk from the city center.  It costs more than I wanted but it hit all the check boxes.  Close to town.  Modern appliances.  Good reviews.  I will keep you informed on how this goes.

Rain and More

14 September 2021

 

One month since this trip began.  Clearly, time does fly.  I am comfortable living the way we are bouncing from city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood.  Each locale is different and the patterns of the people in each place differ, but all in all they are good and genuine folks.  One could get used to this. Once you have arrived in a spot it takes a day or two to get the lay of the land.  But quickly the foreign becomes familiar as you learn where the bus stops and the metro stops are. And then you can set about to get to know the heart of the place.

 

At this point I know I like the suburbs of Porto.  However, Porto itself is not my kind of town except for maybe the Foz.  Too many hills, too old and too much focus on the tourist side of things.  I really liked Braga and Povoa do Vazim, the ancient city and the beach town. I think I could live in either one of them. I also right at this moment like Olhao.  The ocean beach vibe of this commercial fishing town just suits me, and I haven’t even been to the beaches yet.  With this weather that will not be today, see below.

 

Hell-atious

 

The Ministry of the Sea and the Air has afforded that the weather will be unsettled for the next couple of days and that “disruptions” may occur. At about 5 AM the wind kicked up and the sky let loose and the lightening put on a display that was spectacular.  The clouds were low, so individual strikes were not readily discernable.  However, with each blast of electricity the sky’s color went from pitch black to blindingly white.  And it happened again and again.  The weird part was that the strikes had to be at some great distance because there was nary a roll of thunder to be heard.

 

As I write this the weather has settled into a pattern of what I call beach rain.  This morning’s skies are behaving in a manner not that different from those I experienced on the Jersey shore.  One moment the clouds open up and a deluge fills the streets creating lakes in low spots on the road.  Fifteen minutes later the rain has stopped the water is disappeared from the byways and there are large swatches of blue with some occasional sun above.  Rinse and repeat. Today will not be a day of major exploring. Writing, plotting and planning will be one the agenda.

 

Beloved Dogs and Feral Cats

 

People in Portugal love their dogs.  I don’t know how to explain it.  The dogs go everywhere with their owners, restaurants, cafes, in the car or walking along the docks.  A man will be sipping an espresso at the café and a larger dog will be there spread across his feet. And nobody bats an eyelid.

 

Most of the dogs are relatively small.  But they are so well behaved.  They don’t run into the street.  They don’t bother other people.  I have seen a couple of larger dogs that I just loved.  The owners tell me that the big shaggy breed of off-white canines is a breed that comes in from the Azores.  I am not a dog person but I would consider owning one of these.

 

Cats on the other hand seem to be everywhere and they don’t seem to be owned by anyone.  Felines walk about the community with impunity.  As you might expect they are found in large numbers by the fish market and near the waste bins of grocery stores.  Some cats clearly are well cared for but given the numbers one sees the feral population must be quite high. Saw one cat with a collar all of yesterday.  He appeared to be a Manx Siamese mix. Stubby tail and Siamese points and soft, soft fur. 

 

Faro

 

Took the train to Faro yesterday.  Faro is the biggest town in the area.  It has regional bus service, a train station and an international airport.  Faro has been around for a long time, the Romans used to evaporate seawater there to collect the salt.  Faro also has a castle with a Moorish door from the 1100s.  We wandered the alleys inside of the castle.  However, one of us dropped his phone.  Frantic searching ensued.  To my surprise we found the phone.  All the credit cards and cash were still in the case.  After the fright of that potential loss, one which would have been disastrous, we needed to decompress.  

 

We went for a meal.  At the time it seemed kind of expensive.  However, the food, wine and gingina gelato all were wonderful. The meal struck the right balance between delight and comfort.  And best of all I had the credit card to pay for it.

Storks

 And did I mention the storks.  Two of them have a next out behind the apartment.  It is so very cool to watch them.  Their gigantic nests are just amazing.

 

 

 

 

Dead People, Trains and the Hat

 

So much of this country’s attractions are focused on dead people.  Yesterday I took a train up to Guimaraes and hit some of the important spots.  Guimaraes is constantly wrangling with Braga as to which should be considered the “birthplace” of Portugal.  Guimaraes is where the battle was, Braga is the city who provided the troops.  The two towns are about 10 miles apart. To our “modern” minds this distance is nothing.  To soldiers and knights from 1,000 years again, ten miles was a much, much longer trip.  The debate really sounds like a philosophical question to me, it is not totally removed from Theseus’s ship.

 

Two of the big attractions in Guimaraes are the castle and the ducal palace.  The palace is large and very Arthurian.  I am told Salazar the dictator expanded the palace and used it as a residence during his years in power.  The castle got tweaked and refurbished during that period but it did not get the expansion the palace did.  Walked through the palace.  Room after room of heavy dark furniture, fireplaces and what appear to be Flemish tapestries.  And Jesus did I mention the uphill climb to these places.  Ugh.  Fat American whine.

 

Anyway, both sites are impressive but located between them is a small chapel from the early 1200s.  It is here the first king of Portugal is said to have been baptized.  The building is empty save an altar and the tombs beneath the floor.  You are allowed to walk in to the church but you can only walk around the exterior wall the center being roped off.  Stone after stone is set in the floor’s middle marking the burial spot of important men.  Given the era, men and not women are interred here. Crosses are carved onto the stones.  Swords are too.  Latin inscriptions abound.

 

Looking down at the tombs I found myself humming a lyric by Van the (Foolish in Regards to Covid) Man.  It goes,

 

You can't stop us on the road to freedom

You can't keep us 'cause our eyes can see

Men with insight, men in granite

Knights in armor bent on chivalry

 

Tupelo Honey by Van Morrison

 

So much of what is an attraction is tied to the acts of great dead people.  The ducal palace was the home of powerful but now dead people.  Same with the castle.  In Porto proper there is a church with the heart of one of the kings of Portugal residing in it.  History defines so much of our character, so much of the place where we come from ethos. It is important to visit these sites with open eyes knowing that what you are seeing has been interpreted and reinterpreted so many times. No matter what the current interpretation is these places are touchmarks of a people’s history.

 

Okay the train part.  When you ride a train here you have to electronically validate your ticket before you get on.  I swear to God I did it before I got on the train back to Porto.  But it did not register on the conductor’s hand-held device.  Had to listen to a canned spiel about the Euro 150 fine and then got the dumb American shrug of I am not going to throw you off the train…. this time.  

 

Early on I bought a hat.  I have now abandoned it.  Nothing says I am a stupid gullible tourist more than the hat they sell at every stall in every market. Got to find a distressed ball cap.  Also got to lose the floral Hawaiian shirts. Need to pick up some football style shirts and horizontally stripped shirts. These will not make me look European but they will make me look less clearly and unequivocally American. If I lost 40 pounds (18 kg) that would help too.