Portugal!

It is probably about time to chat about my time in Portugal, as I am now into the next phase of my trip – Berlin now, and then more of Germany and Eastern Europe! (On that note, the German keyboards switch up the “y” key with the “z” key, so just a word of warning, that those two letters may be interchanged in this posting!)

So I said adios to Spain when I left from Santiago de Compostela on July. 24 and headed to Porto, Portugal. The bus ride was only 2 ½ hours, so I was very surprised to find out after having been in the city for a few hours that there was a 1 hour time change – oops! I can now say that Porto was (easily) my favorite city in Portugal. Although the terracotta rooftops, narrow streets, great coffee, and multitude of panadera (bread) and passteria (pastry) shops reminded me of Spain, it had a much different kind of feel, which took me awhile to pin down. I finally figured out that it was just more cluttered, and had a much more disorganized kind of charm than Spain – I love this about it! Although the buildings were similar in design, they were more run down looking, with the balconies going every which way – not like the neatly arranged rows of balconies I had grown used to in Spain! It was interesting to see the similarities and contrasts between the two countries, given their physical proximity to each other. Porto is centered around the Douro River, which is spanned by numerous huge and impressive bridges – one of them designed by Eiffel! If it is not yet obvious to you by the name, Porto’s claim to fame is……..(I hope you guessed it) their Port wine!! The Douro Valley (Porto and the surrounding region) is in fact the only region in the world that produces Port wine. The other side of the river, Vila Nova de Gaia, is where all of the wine caves are located, most of which offer free tours and tastings. I took advantage of this, and did a really cool tour of the Sandeman cellars – I learned so much about Port! One interesting fact – Port is “fortified” wine, as the stop the fermentation process half way through and add Brandy to it, making the final wine much sweeter and stronger (~20% alcohol) than normal wine. I was feeling quite good after tasting wines from a few of the different places…. After spending a few days in Porto exploring and seeing the sights, I decided that everyone who lives in this city must be incredibly in shape, as the streets are SO steep – the whole day you hike up one narrow street, turn the corner and slide down the next one … and repeat. I liked it – you never knew what was going to be around the bend! The other highlight of my time in Porto was the hostel I stayed in – not only was it beautiful, complete with a patio and garden terrace, but every single person staying in the hostel was a solo traveller! None of us could quite figure out how this came to be, but regardless, it made for an incredible atmosphere and a great group of people. We spent many a hour into the night, sitting on the patio with drinks, surrounded by good conversation. We also went out one night to the bars that are right down on the river, which are so beautiful with the lights on at night! We had 1 litre jugs of Caprinha (Brazilian drink) for 5 euro …. It was literally in something like a plastic Big Gulp slurpee cup, what a deal! Okay, enough about Porto – I guess it is obvious how much I liked it!

My next stop was Lisbon. I wish now that I had planned things a little differently and spent more time in the North, between Porto and Lisbon. However, I must save something for the next trip! I ended up spending 4 nights in Lisbon, as part of my time there was consumed with trying to get everything in order at the Indian Embassy for my VISA. This proved to me extremely frustrating, but I will not go into the details, as I am now in possession of a 6 month multiple entry VISA to India, so I am not complaining! I have to say that I was not extremely impressed by Lisbon. Not that I didn´t like it, but it really didn`t have anywhere near the charm of Porto. However, I saw some of the sights, ate the famous Pasteis de Belem (cream filled tarts sprinkled with cinnamon and icing sugar – incredible, especially when they are hot out of the oven!), and did a great day trip to Sintra. Sintra is one hour from Lisbon, and as soon as you step out of the train you feel as if you have stepped backwards into Medieval times. I immediately liked the town, with it´s brightly coloured buildings, narrow cobbled streets, surrounded by green trees and being watched over by two huge castles up on the hill. One looks as if it is straight out of Disneyland – complete with rounded spires and yellow, blue, and pink coloring! (I did not know that castles like this actually existed in reality!). The other is a Moorish castle that is mainly in ruins, providing a striking contrast to the first one. We hiked up to them to get a closer look, and were rewarded with spectacular views. The Disneyland castle (called Palacio Nacional da Pena) brought to light where the phrase “sitting on the throne” came from - the toilet in the “King´s Quarters” was fully wooden with a high back and armrests! If it had been in any other room than the bathroom, I would have had no idea that it was actually a toilet! From Sintra we took a bus for 45 minutes to Cabo da Roca, which is Europe´s most occidental (I learned that this means West) point. As soon as we stepped off of the bus, we were hit with huge, powerful gusts of wind and as we walked to the edge of the cliffs down into the ocean, the wind became more and more windy (all of us girls who were wearing skirts were having a difficult time remaining decent!). After taking the mandatory tourist picture beside the sign saying “this is Europe´s most occidental point”, we had some time to admire the view, which was just beautiful – the cliffs dropped straight down to meet the white froth of the waves, and because of the angle of the sun the horizon line was fuzzy, giving the whole view a dreamlike quality – wow! The next stop was the town of Caiscais, where we had a delicious and huge Portuguese dinner of Bachalau (Cod fish – the Portuguese have over 200 different recipes with it) and then headed back to Lisbon. Another thing that Lisbon provided me with was my first experience with bedbugs…..”Good night, sleep tight, don´t let the bedbugs bite. If they do, take your shoe and hit them ´til they are black and blue” Sound familiar? Yeah, well I quickly learned that although it may have been a nice bedtime song, that shoe technique unfortunately really doesn´t work – I woke up and was covered in extremely itchy, red, swollen bumps – looked like the chicken pox!! The worst part was that one of them developed into this huge, liquid filled blister on my leg (larger than a twoonie and raised more than an inch off of my skin) – YUCK!!!!!!!! And I thought Canadian mosquitoes were bad…….

My next stop in Portugal was Evora, 2 hours East of Lisbon, and the entire town is a UNESCO World Heritage sight – so I thought it might be worth a stop. The historical part of the town is entirely walled in and the Medievil influence is extremely obvious, with so many monuments and churches. Some of the highlights that I saw were: the Roman Temple which was built in the middle of the 1st century, the Evora Cathedral which was built between 1283 and 1308, and to top all of the sights – the Capela dos Ossos (Chapel of Bones). I have never seen anything else like this before – every inch of every wall was covered with bones and skulls. The columns were covered, and the curves of the ceiling were lined with skulls, in an almost decorative fashion – so weird. As eerie as it was, I was strangely fascinated by it. The 24 hours I spent in this town were so interesting and well worth it – a step back in history!

My last stop in Portugal was Lagos (NOT Lagos, Nigeria as some of you have mistaken it for!). Although I originally was not planning on going here, as rumour has it that it is a huge tourist and party town, I could not leave Portugal without seeing it´s Algarve region. I spent 3 nights here, and my time was so relaxing – went to the beautiful beaches, many of which are in grottos (inlets or coves). The highlight of my time here was most definitely SURFING!!!!!! I have always wanted to try it, and this was my chance! We got driven in an old beat up van to the surf beach, which was an hour from Lagos. There were only 3 people in the group and we had two lessons of 1 ½ hours each, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It took most of the morning to get the feel of standing up, but I got the hang of it and was surfing!! I couldn´t believe it, after so many years of wanting to try it out! The afternoon felt much better and was so much fun. I was surprised at how little it felt like snowboarding, as I thought I may have more of an advantage that way. I must say that I definitely have more courage on the snow than in the water though! Such a great day…..cowgirl turned surfer chick?

From Lagos I headed back to Lisbon for one night, to pick up my VISA and then it was on to Seville, Spain to catch a flight to London and then London to Berlin. It was goodbye to Portugal and their delicious pastries and beautiful landscapes. The journey to Berlin proved to be very stressful (at first) and long, but I made it and am now in Germany! More on that to come….(I would love to hear from any of you, so please feel free to leave comments!).

Ciao!

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.”