Tuesday 29th October
It’s a very international group staying here. In the morning we chat to a Welshman, mainly about Rugby and a German plus a brief greeting with the French behind us. Looking at the license plates there are also Dutch, Spanish and Swedish. A small van turns up tooting away and people all hurry out of their vans. It a bread vendor. Fantastic, it was on our list for today.
We meander down the coast. The road is empty as is the two lane cycle path alongside. We ‘re driving through tussocky sand dunes with either eucalyptus or pine. The pine is black on the trunks and no needles. Looks like it’s been burnt but they’re all intact and the scrub underneath is green. It’s odd. Occasionally we pass someone working on the trees, either a solitary man with a chainsaw and ute or a team with milling machinery. They chop the logs into 2 metre lengths over here and stack them across the trucks not long logs lengthwise like back home. There are a few settlements in ruins, roofs gone and windows boarded.
We get onto the actual coast and the road and cycle way is joined by wooden boardwalks. In the bays are resorts, mostly shuttered up.
We stop for coffee in a cliff top village square above Nazare. There are shops and stalls around the edge selling homemade ponchos, cork bags, aprons and foods. Paraponters circle on the thermals overhead. The sun is shining, warm on my skin and there is a couple of old men busking, playing haunting traditional music. It’s so relaxing.
We eventually carry on to Sao Martinho do Porto, a perfect crescent shaped bay. We go for a walk along the sand and Greg goes for a swim. That’s Portugal ticked off his list. Then we have lunch looking straight out between the two headlands, the dense, moist corn bread bought this morning.
Final destination for the day is the walled hilltop town of Obidos. We park in an aire beside an old aquaduct then 5 minutes walk takes us to the gate.
Obidos is an enchanting town, uneven, narrow cobbled lanes between white painted houses with colourful trims. Bougainvillea in flower adds more colour, the dropped petals stark on the ground beneath our feet. There are a couple of tour groups and I suspect in summer this place is overrun but today it’s busy but pleasant. There are a lot of churches, all slightly different. We wander the lanes and then the walls. Or at least the small part you can access. The views over the walls are amazing. A long valley with different crops to give textural contrasts. There is a great castle that is now an upmarket hotel. A good way to preserve history and it adds drama to the skyline. We try some local street food and pause at a lane side table with a drink to soak up the atmosphere. The entire day has been a ‘relax and absorb the ambience’ kind of day.
30th October
We drive out to the coast to two mainland connected islands. The first, called Baleal, is connected by a cobblestoned track over sand. We walk over and around the island. The rock formations are fascinating, huge slabs tilted on abrupt angles.
The second is called Peniche. It is connected by a couple of bridges and a well built up causeway. We drive over and around the loop road. The rock formations here are slightly different, despite only being 5kms away. Here they’re upright and have worn into tall stacks. This coast is clearly Surfer Zone. There are numerous beaches at differing angles. There are sooooo many small vans converted to campers with roof racks for the boards.
We drive down the rough coastal road. Passing through pockets of prosperity and parcels of poverty. Through tiny settlements where old men watch us pass like we are off another planet.
We’re heading to Sintra. The rain starts and as we come up a hill, lights start flashing on the dash and the power drops away. We pull over and the engine light comes on. Bugger. We turn the ignition off and back on again. The light stays on. Google translate says, go to a Citroen service centre immediately. Shit. We start driving again and Greg comments it’s not driving right. I find a service centre 20 minutes away online but as we round a corner there is a big Citroen sign so we pull in. Greg goes in to try and communicate our needs. I try phoning our contact for the van. No reply and when I email him I get an automatic reply, he’s on holiday. Greg comes back and they take the van in straight away and run a diagnostic test. The light has gone off lol but it shows on the computer as 3 faults. He thinks it may have just been water short circuiting the electronics. God, I hope so. He resets it all, clearing the faults and we pay €20.
So now we’re later than planned and it’s low cloud and rain. Not the best for viewing mountain top palaces and grand houses so we flag going to Sintra and go straight to the campground we’d picked for tonight. We’ll go to Sintra tomorrow morning instead.
31sr October
We wake to fog and drizzle, hopefully it will lift. We drive back to Sintra. We did some research overnight on places to see, as there is a lot on offer.
Lord Byron described this area as a glorious Eden. This hilltop area was once the summer retreat for the Portuguese kings, now it’s a tourist magnet to view palaces, and manors, all set in fantastic gardens and parks.
Park4night located a parking area suitable for campers, and not too expensive. It’s a few minutes walk up to the town centre and about 10 minutes further on to the Quinta de Regaleira Palace, the first place we’ve elected to visit.
This isn’t the oldest Palace or the grandest but it is arguably the most fanciful gardens. There is this ornate well with a spiral staircase going down, archways intricately carved on every step. When we get down the bottom, and it is a long way down, there is a tunnel leading off underground with led rope lighting along the base of one wall. We walk along it and it branches three ways. The main path you can see a waterfall falling over the entrance, lots of people standing there taking photos. We take the first branch and in a little while find ourselves at the bottom of another well. This one has been created to look natural. Again it has a spiral staircase winding around the central cavity but the ‘windows’ are like jagged crevices. We climb up and in front of us shrouded in mist is a tower. Actually three towers, spiral staircases connecting different levels and in the lower central room another tunnel.
The whole place is mind boggling and you could so easily get lost. There are grottos, and caves and bridges and towers all with staircases or tunnels leading you off on an adventure. The map you’re given only shows the above ground paths and even those are stylised. We eventually find ourselves under the waterfall we’d spotted before and there are tunnels leading around and out over stepping stones across the waterfall pool. No handrails and it is a traffic jam as everyone stops on the middle stone to get someone to take their photo from either inside the tunnels or from a bridge overhead.
There is an underground labyrinth that you need a torch, or your cellphone light on. We certainly didn’t explore all of it but we were glad to see daylight and make our way back into the foggy open.
Another tower, another staircase, another tunnel and we find ourselves coming out of the third branch of the first tunnel we’d gone down.
The fog doesn’t lift at all but it does add to the drama of the place. Greg is taking heaps and heaps of photos. He is frustrated by all the people around, especially when the walk straight in front of him while he’s trying to take a photo.
After the mysteries of the gardens the palace seemed quite tame. Mind you, we reached it at the same time as a large tour group. It has incredible ornate ceilings, mosaic tiles floors and elaborate walls furnishings. It’s just missing the whimsical nature of the gardens.
Somehow, we’ve spent 4 hours here so we go back to the van and top up the ‘pay and display’. Then we go have lunch in the town, on a terrace with amazing views…. today the view is only of fog lol. We try a local delicacy called Sky bacon. No idea what’s up with the name but it is a sweet tart with nuts traditionally made by the nuns using the leftover egg yolks after the egg whites were used in the wine filtering.
Greg found some images online that he wants to see and the next one on the list is a small castle in a lake. He showed the waitress the photo and she had no idea where it was. It totally flummoxed her. Greg eventually tracks it down using google satellite and it is in the grounds of the hilltop palace called Pena Palace. This is the big one, the highest and the most expensive. The road driving up was challenging but the parking was free. We pay to enter the grounds but not the palace, saving ourselves €50. The fog hasn’t lifted at all and it is now raining. Greg has bought an umbrella for the camera. We must look odd, both of us in raincoats but me holding the umbrella high in the air over the camera only. It turned out the castle in the lake isn’t quite what it appeared in the photo Greg saw online but the park and lakes are photogenic anyway. We climb up to the Palace and do the ‘Wall walk’. On a fine day the views must be absolutely spectacular. Today looking out it’s just grey and looking down, it’s very very high. I just can’t even begin to describe the palace. It looks like it’s from another country, maybe Turkey with its domes and turrets. Greg’s photos will have to suffice. I’m just awestruck by it all. With money and imagination you can create total beauty.
Somehow it’s now after 5 and the sunsets at 5.30. We head back down to the van, decide to skip the Moor Palace completely, and I find a place for the night. It’s 30 minutes drive and close to Lisbon. As we start driving we quickly realise that the urban sprawl of Lisbon has reached the edge of Sintra. It’s all motorways and malls and suburbia. I’m really nervous about the spot we’re heading to. It was only posted a month ago and has had no reviews. So I breathe a big sign of relief when we get here and it’s a carpark surrounded by trees and there is already another camper parked up. Well it’s not a camper but a British registered Land Rover with a roof tent. It’s full on dark now so don’t really know where we are but it’s fairly quiet and we will sleep fine. It’s Halloween but I don’t expect any ghosts or ghouls will knock on our door.
1st November
We drive 20 minutes and park close to the centre of Lisbon. The city is gritty, rundown, dirty and graffitied. The tourist area of Alfamo is drab, the buildings dirty whites and creams, plaster falling off. The balconies rusty and even the hanging laundry is boring. None of the flamboyance of Porto. We walk all around looking for the spark. There are moments of ‘wow, look at that’. The trams are pretty cool, unfortunately most have advertisements over them. It’s hard to take a Classic photo with drink Coca-cola all over it. Greg does manage though.
We looked at the Santa Justa Elevador, an ornate lift taking passengers from the lower streets of Baixa up to the Largo do Carmo district. We don’t bother joining the loooong queue to pay too much money to be squeezed into an ornate lift with other hot sweaty people. We just admire it from the bottom, while enjoying the group busking, then walk around the block to the upper entrance. There we pay €3 to go up on the roof and admire 360 degree views over the city and river.
We check out a few different churches. Greg comments that Portugal certainly has the most elaborate Cathedrals. One we go in to is like a street with windows and upstairs balconies either side of the nave. It’s All Saints Day so there are services going on in a couple.
We wander down to the river and have lunch under an umbrella watching the world go by. We both have Paella, Greg, seafood and me, vegetables. Two lunches out in a row! We are being extravagant.
After lunch we get some exercise by walking up to the castle. Once again a very long queue waiting to spend a lot of money to go in. We skip it and wander around the lanes outside.
We come round a bend and there are 4 guys busking on 2 second story balconies. A bucket on the end of a rope hanging down for donations. The building is graffitied and tagged with radical sayings. It epitomises Lisbon for me. Joyful, soulful, moment of magic rising above the grit and reality of everyday life. Opposite there is a hotel, rooms for up to €3000 a night backing onto crumbling ruins, covered in graffiti. Both powerful statements of Lisbon’s economy.
I look at Lisbon with new eyes as we walk back to the van. It is still gritty and run down but there is beauty in that too. And as far a capital cities go, it’s pretty good.
Our site for the night is 30 minutes drive north to the outskirts of the city. Definitely a first for us, it’s a supermarket that has motorhome services and a laundry in the carpark. I was thinking it would be in a quiet corner, but no, it’s right as you enter. There is also a petrol station (automated) and a self service car wash. I really hope it quietens down later. Once the supermarket closes, we’ll move to a different part of the carpark I think. For now we park beside the laundry area so we can do our washing.
BAGGAB 