For those of you who hadn’t heard, a while back we had a long weekend in Portugal with my good friend Bruno. Bruno (see my earlier post for more information) is from Lisbon, which made him a great candidate for tour guide on the trip. Bruno also likes to organize events and adventures, so he went to town putting together a trip for himself, Mariah and I, and two of our South African friends Mark and Samantha. You don’t have to tell me twice…I wasn’t stopping him. Generally my favorite kinds of vacations are the ones where I don’t have to think about anything or do anything. This trip involved both.
We left at the crack of dark, cold morning on a Friday. The flight was easy. I don't really get stressed out flying, but I do get stressed traveling in general. Fortunately there were no surprises this time for gate changes, or delays, or reading the time wrong for the flight... We arrived in Lisbon around 10:00am to rent a car and head into the city center. We were all starving, so we headed straight for a famous pastry restaurant just off of the river. The restaurant was really interesting, seeming to meander endlessly into a beautiful old building. It was just room after room of small tables and little bars here and there. The wandering nature seemed to carry over to the waiters as well, but we eventually put in our order. The waiter brought us out each a croissant with ham and cheese (like a sandwich – very common in Portugal it seems) and a plate of custard pastries that look like little tiny pies, which the restaurant is famous for. We tore through our ham and cheese croissants, simple but lovely, and then moved on to the main event: CAKES! The little pies were just amazing. Think of the kind of custard they use in crème brûlée and then bake it into a flaky pastry crust. Now pull it steaming from the oven, dust it with powdered sugar and cinnamon, and you might have an idea of the oral pleasure we were experiencing. Yeah. We got another plate.
The restaurant sat just down the street from a huge Catholic monastery, so we went inside and took some pictures, primarily of the church, and then walked down by the river to look at a few monuments there. After that we drove down into the heart of Lisbon and just started walking. The city is really quite interesting and beautiful. Big public squares and meandering streets (though by no means as meandering as Dublin). The light there seems much warmer, though this could have just been a psychological side effect of actually seeing the sun… We had drinks on the rooftop terrace of a hotel bar, with a fabulous view and just relaxed in the sun; lunch outside in the middle of a pedestrian side street; it was amazing, and did I mention sun? At around dusk we went to another hotel bar to meet up with Bruno’s girlfriend Marta, who would be joining us on this adventure, and sat out on their rooftop terrace to have a few drinks and watch the sunset. It was an amazing view and a nice relaxing time. We couldn't stay long, unfortunately, because we were bound for a traditional Portuguese restaurant, which Bruno set up reservations for.
The restaurant sat on a hill high above the city where we could look out over the city with its many sparkling lights. They have a bridge there that mimics the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, so we got to have a little piece of home while we were there as well. Portuguese food generally involves good, tasty raw materials with minimal flavor enhancements. Lots of salt though... We got to try somethings we wouldn't normally choose, I would say. Portugal, being almost all coast, has a very large fish industry, so fish is very common. We had sardines (not the little tiny canned sardines - these were full sized fish about twelve inches long) and another fish I can't recall the name of (it was basically the same). They were full fish with skin and head and bones and everything, so eating them was an experience. I now can say that I have a serious problem with eating anything that can look back at me... It is just wrong. Maybe if I just ripped the head off and tossed it like you do with prawns... We also had some pork and beef, some salad, bread, potatoes, and some chorizo sausage. A few of Marta's friends were there as well. The conversation segregated a bit between English and Portuguese (as it often does when you have groups with different first languages), but it was a really fun night and we made the cross-over here and there.
Once we finished gorging ourselves we got in the cars (our rental and Marta's car - the six of us couldn't manage to squeeze into one) and began the two plus hour drive down to the south coast of Portugal, to an area called the Algarve (basically a county in Portugal), where we would be spending most of our trip.
Beach!
Fortunately Bruno and Marta were the drivers to start heading out of Lisbon. The first four lane street intersection (an intersection of two four lane streets) where there were no lights, no stop signs, no words on the pavement, no old bums waving there arms...just cars not so carefully yielding or not yielding depending on what seemed convenient at that time, was enough for me to understand that I didn't want to drive inside Lisbon. A little ways outside the city we stopped at a gas station and I got to take the wheel from there on through. We were on the open freeway at that point, so it was easy and I just had to follow Marta's tail...lights. We made it down to the beach apartment we were staying at without event. Well. Almost without event. Arriving into the town where we were staying we got stopped at a random police checkpoint (they have these in Dublin too) where I had to get out and do a Breathalyzer test. This was ironically funny and nerve wracking at the same time, and I was glad Bruno was there to translate. Of course I passed and Marta passed and we went on our way. It was pretty funny when the officer checked my driving license: I handed it to him and he looked at it for a few seconds, then shrugged as if to say, "I have no idea what this is, but it looks official," and gave it back to me.
We made it into the apartment, dumped our bags and fell asleep. It was about 2:00am when we finally got there.
The next morning we woke up relatively late to a beautiful sunny morning in a beautiful resort (Bruno's family owned the apartment, despite the resort environment - it seems it is common in Portugal for people to have a beach home...sign me up!) with a pool and a five minute walk to the beach. Bruno and Marta had already gone and picked up breakfast from a nearby market (croissants with cheese and ham - are you seeing a pattern? - some fruit, juice, and yogurt) so we ate a leisurely meal and then headed down to the beach.
BEACH!
Beach for the win! Really beautiful! We spent most of the day swapping between dozing in the sun and swimming in the ocean (the ocean wasn't too warm because it was late September, cold compared to sitting in the sun, but it was not bad once you got used to it). We walked up and down the beach and just enjoyed the relaxation. We capped off the leisure time by walking back and having a dip in the pool. For the evening Bruno took us for dinner at another great Portuguese restaurant located where the river meets the ocean. More great views and good times. After dinner Mark, Sam, Bruno and Marta headed to the resort bar for a few drinks and some pool. We were tired, so we just headed for bed and ended a nice, restful day with a long rest.
Sunday was a repetition of Saturday: Breakfast (yes, croissants with cheese and ham were involved, but this time I went with Bruno to get them), beach (sun, swim), pool, great dinner, entertainment, sleep. This time we joined them for some pool (the tables were a strange amalgam of snooker and US tables - not quite as large as a snooker table, but with the tight pockets with their evil rounded corners sized for the US style balls) which was a bit long and arduous, even for a moderately skilled player like myself. Those round corners are unforgiving when it comes to rail shots...
The first half of Monday was more of the same. We only got a few hours on the beach this time, but we took all that we could get. Late afternoon we packed up, piled back into the cars and headed for the big city. On the way back to Lisbon we got to stop in a really interesting outlet mall where we had about an hour to shop, but could have used half a day. There was everything there and for really good prices...at least for Dublin. After a little shirt buying and a Speedo (don't ask) we headed into the city for a final dinner. Another great restaurant in the heart of Lisbon city center. Bruno brought his little brother, who was quite the interesting kid, and Marta invited a pair of her friends to join us as well. After dinner we were just about exhausted, so headed to Marta's place to sleep a few hours before the plane flight home.
Our plane flew out early Tuesday morning and we were home by around 2:00pm. Bruno went straight to work. We weren't that committed and preferred to take the afternoon and evening to recenter ourselves and get ready to finish out the week.
Portugal: Highly recommended!
It was a really great time and we only have Bruno to thank for putting the whole thing together. Someday maybe he will open his own tour guide business for trips to Portugal, but until then you will just have to be satisfied to hear the stories.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment