She Says - Portugal gets interesting…

14-17 August

We left the campground near Viana, where the music had gone on late into the night and included fireworks at some unknown hour, and headed into the city to see the historic centre our guidebook said was worth visiting. Well, it wasn’t! Apart from a neat looking church well up a hill, the fort was unimpressive and we found no sign of an interesting old sector. What we did see was a lot of preparation for the Nossa Senhora festival, which appears to be a fairly localised festival. I felt slightly torn at leaving and missing this cultural event, but didn’t feel that it was worth staying any longer.

We headed down to Porto, the second largest city and home of port wine, with a World Heritage-listed city centre. Sorry Dad, as much as I wanted to, I didn’t buy any port to send home! We spent about 4 hours wandering around the steep, thin streets. I liked the city, it was somehow full of a grimy charm, with the general housing buildings mostly in need of a good cleanup and repair, while the more official-looking buildings and churches were very grand and clean. Like a completely different world, we saw people hanging their washing out the front windows of their multi-storey flats, and chickens in the back alleys. We found the national tourist office and finally some information brochures about the country, and from this I discovered the blue tiles I’ve been starting to see everywhere are a national art called azulejos. Apparently Portugal is famous for these blue and white tiles that depict anything from a simple picture of Mary and Jesus or a saint, to massive murals of seafaring expeditions and battles. I found one cool church in Porto with the front covered in azulejos, but they pop up in random places like houses and plazas.

After Porto, we headed back into the Douro Valley to see more of the port-wine-growing terraces we spotted when we first arrived in Portugal. Having bought a map of Portugal that morning, we headed for a campground that was right beside the Douro River and, I figured, was far enough away from everything that it would be nice. WRONG!!!! After a long trip down small roads, it turned out to be the worst campground ever - absolutely massive with people crammed into every space, and mostly full of static campers. It was expensive (similar to Spain) without great facilities, including a supermarket with really rubbish supplies – frustrating, as we were low on food and had assumed there would be a nearby town for grocery shopping (apparently not). Its only redeeming feature was that we were in a strip of camping spots under cover and right next to the river. However, they let a 4x4-camper park right in front of us so we lost our view (the tent next to us was furious!). While there was a pool, they also had swimming section in the river – it was really nice, the water was almost warm and very refreshing after our long day. The bar and restaurant were thankfully at the top of the camp, but it was loud all night from people all around us, and we slept terribly.

We got out of the campground really early the next morning, as much to get away as to cover as much ground as possible on our way down to Lisbon. We spent the morning following a small road alongside the river, making our way up the valley, watching as the hills became more and more covered in terraces for growing grapes and olives. It was a very pretty landscape, but hard to capture in a photo. The river has been dammed in sections and they have huge locks to allow boats to move up and down river. I’d never seen one of these before (only small ones for canal boats in England), so instead of eating our salami and cheese sandwiches we stopped for some roadside salmonella…sorry, roast chicken…at one of the locks and got to watch it in action. Pretty cool! They let through two large passenger ferries and a small speedboat all at once, slowly raising the water level by what looked like 50m.

Our plan was to stop about halfway down the country, then hit Lisbon the next day to spend a few days before heading inland. The toll roads were very quick and easy, and very economical - they really were the best way to cover some ground so we could see the places we want to see, and make up for our misguided journey north. We felt surprisingly fresh after our awful night, and managed to push well down the country that day, heading for Alcobaca because it had a World Heritage-listing on the map and seemed far enough away from everything that it might not be too big or crowded (even thought hat failed us the previous night!), but close enough to get us to Lisbon early the next day (always good to hit cities early). On the way, we turned off the road because we saw a World Heritage (they have a lot here!!) sign for the Batalha cathedral. We wandered around for an hour, admiring the very grand building from inside and out. Inside, we got some cool shots of reflected stained glass and the very attractive candlestick holders. Outside, the glow of late afternoon made the place look great. Now this was more like it! We reached the campground at Alcobaca and it was the right choice – the small and very quiet campsite cost only 7 euros!! The monastery in the city and the adjoining old streets and buildings of the World Heritage city centre were very nice. We took some night photos and enjoyed wandering around the very quiet streets. For the first, we time found a place we liked in Portugal, and felt that we were getting ourselves on the right track at last.

We reached Lisbon early the next day, after a reasonably easy trip into the city. We weren’t exactly sure where the campground was, only the district, and managed to get ourselves here somehow (we later found there are nice big signs off the highway!). The campground is huge and expensive (22 euros), but actually quite nice. Campers are set in a different area to tents, and the whole area is set in woodland and covered in pine needles (makes for soft bedding!). It’s surprisingly quiet, and for the first time in weeks I haven’t had to wear earplugs to bed. After getting ourselves settled, we caught the conveniently located bus from the campground into the city centre. Lisbon is nice, very laid back and extremely quiet, though we have to wonder if that is due to lack of tourists travelling in the credit crunch, or is it always that way? Basically everyone we saw was a tourist, even if they were Portuguese. One of the few big cities we’ve visited in Europe, it is the first place we’ve had any hassle (e.g. people offering drugs, someone took a little too much interest in my camera at one point), but we’ve had no actual problems.

The old city centre is very grand, with some really cool big buildings and streets paved with cobblestones. Sometimes, patterns are made from black and white stones, creating mosaics on the street. I remember seeing this in Granada, Spain, 10 years ago and loved it, and have seen smaller, less impressive versions so far on this trip. Some of the patterns are incredibly detailed. I see great cross-stitch patterns coming out of these! The streets in the city centre are big and in a grid, and buildings are generally well maintained. Above the city is the castle, and near here the streets twist and wind up the hill. Buildings near the castle are more shabby and decaying, but this seems to just be the way of it in Portugal! Plenty of places were lived in, just not well maintained. The fronts of buildings were covered in tiles, ranging from blue and white azulejos, to 70s inspired (or perhaps 70s-inspiring!!) greens and yellows with patterns. The streets in the old centre are all lit with big decorative lamps that make for great photos. We discovered the world’s most beautiful lift, made from metal in a Victorian-style, and leading up to a viewing platform over the city. We came back here for sunset and night photos, but Lisbon just doesn’t seem easy to capture. We treated ourselves to a nice meal to meet the challenge set by my work colleagues, who donated some euros and suggested they be spent on a nice meal. We ordered a very local dish of grilled sardines, accompanied by a jug of sangria. The fish were superb, very fresh and huge and grilled with just rock salt, and the sangria was cold and delicious. Thanks guys!! Today we visited the World Heritage-listed monastery and fort on the riverside. The monastery is massive, with some cool gargoyles, but I found it uninspiring – maybe I’m just getting Europed-out? The fort was more interesting, for its in-the-water location, Templar-knight history and Moorish-influenced architecture. We haven’t spent a lot of time exploring Lisbon, just the main tourist areas. We seemed to get a feel for the old city rather quickly and didn’t feel the need to explore any further, so have decided to move on tomorrow.

Costs have changed a lot over the last few weeks. France had very cheap municipal campgrounds but expensive food (similar to Switzerland) and fuel. Spain had expensive campgrounds, costing nearly double the French campgrounds (around 16-17 euros), but food and fuel were cheaper. Portugal seems to be a mix of the two - food is cheaper than Spain but camping costs almost the same (fluctuates a lot), and fuel costs are like France. Spanish and Portuguese campgrounds are big, busy and noisy, and people seem to want lots of comfort and set up their enclaves for the long haul camp (though not as bad as the British with their privacy barriers and giant tents!). A bar and restaurant in the campground seems to be a requirement in Spain and Portugal, and frequently there’s a swimming pool too. And I always thought camping was supposed to get you away from everything…