I feel as though I am in a constant state of jaw-dropped amazement. Portugal is amazing in so many ways.
I’m not talking about the tiles…which are amazing, and the architecture, which is all it’s cracked up to be. I’m not talking about the drivers either…they are pretty amazing too, although I’m not sure that’s much of a compliment.
I’m talking about orange trees everywhere. Filled with ripe oranges. And the fresh orange juice. They have orange juice squeezers in the grocery stores, so you can press your own juice in a choice of sizes. And yum.
And lemons. And olives.
I’m also talking about the bird of paradise plants everywhere. In full bloom in February and March for heaven’s sake. And the daffodils and narcisis in bloom everywhere. And the little yellow flowers that are probably the Portuguese version of dandelions, and which fill fields and ditches and the landscape generally. Magnolia trees, and the trees with flowers that are like upside down trumpets (I searched and this is called Angel’s trumpet), and the white calla lilies everywhere. And the cactus about to bloom and the aloe vera plants as big as houses.
And the deciduous trees with leaves (and sometimes flowers). Not all deciduous trees, as some are winter-bare, but lots of trees still have leaves
And the pine trees I can’t identify. They have longer, softer needles than a Scotch pine, and they’re not tall.
And the storks everywhere…with their nests all over the power line system. Sometimes six or seven nests on one pylon.
And the Atlantic ocean looking just like it should in this time of year….cold, green and black, and waves that amaze this prairie girl.
And the fact that salt cod IS everywhere, on every menu at least once (I’ve seen it appear as many as five times on one menu) and in every grocery store.
The murals and mosaics on so many buildings….
And the cork. Depending on who you read, Portugal produces 80 per cent of the world’s cork. Some sources say less than that, but still a significant amount. And uses it in so much more than wine bottles. I think I waxed ecstatic about this once before. But they make cork into shoes, hats, wallets, book marks, post cards, key chains, fans, purses, back packs. So much more than wine corks. And yes, I did buy some. But as we travelled north from the Algarve, we saw cork trees along the roadside. They were in various stages of peeling, some had numbers painted on them .
Strangely enough cork comes from a cork oak tree. I failed biology so I’m afraid I can’t tell you the latin name. But these trees are more than a renewable resource. By law, the cork is not harvested for the first time until the tree is at least 25 years old. The cork is is peeled by hand from the trees every three or four years, but only by qualified and certified people. It’s also against the law to chop down a cork tree without permission. Boy they protect these trees. A tree can be productive for more than a hundred years, so it’s worth protecting.
Enough about cork.
Higgledy piggledy towns and villages that just cry out to be explored on foot.
The cemeteries that look like villages with graves built like mini houses, and just as crammed together as the villages themselves.
I’ve raved generally about the food, but now I have to get specific.
We’ve eaten gelato in several countries, but the gelato we had in the Algarve was amazing (well, I said Portugal was amazing, so I have to overuse the word). Ken believes that vanilla is the test. You have to make good vanilla to make good anything else. So he rarely tries anything else. But this trip, aside from the epiphanies I went on (and on) about, he has moved beyond vanilla gelato. To cheesecake (and isn’t that a surprise) and strawberry. I can’t talk. I am a chocolate addict myself, so usually try that, but this time I have ventured so far as to try hazelnut and salted caramel (yum). And the cherry. Oh my. It was amazing, but nothing compared to the dark chocolate I had in Lisbon. My blood sugar and my heart rate both leap at the thought of that cone. The chocolate sin sundae I had in Olhao was right up there too.
Then there was the veal on a rock meal we had in Lisbon. It’s exactly what it sounds like. The chef lightly sears the meat, and it comes to you virtually raw on a sizzling rock that has been seasoned with garlic and salt for sure I don’t know what else. You cut off slices of it to cook to your taste on the rock slab. Not a vegetable in sight, unless you count the potato which came in the form of fries. And the size of it…well enormous doesn’t do it justice. I didn’t finish half of mine.
We watched food too. In Sintra, a very elegant woman sitting just behind Ken was eating her meal. Her potatoes came in the form of chips, shaped like Hostess chips, as opposed to fries. She ate a mound of these without her fingers touching them at all. She deftly picked the chip up with the bottom tine of her fork, balanced it up to her mouth, and using her tongue flicked it back into her mouth. It’s as simple as that. I couldn’t try it because my meal came with fries.
Also in Sintra, we learned the Portuguese way to eat cheese. Here they bring you little plates of olives, bread, butter, and cheese. Whatever you eat gets added to your bill. I wanted to try the cheese, which, in this case, came in a small, baby-sized yogurt-type container, open. Had the consistency and appearance of ricotta cheese, although it wasn’t. We took the tip of our knife and scooped a small amount out and put it on a slice of bread. “No, N0! Let me show you the Portuguese way to eat this cheese!” Says our Portuguese host as he moves through the crowded dining room to our table. And he flipped the container upside down squeezed it and out the cheese plopped onto our plates, much the way sand comes out of a pail when you’re building a sand castle at the beach. “Now you sprinkle it with pepper and spread it on your bread.” We did as instructed. Interesting. And we watched him perform at other tourists’ tabes.
It was in this same restaurant that Ken asked if vegetables came with his meal when he ordered. Papa threw back his head laughing and said “You’re in Portugal. You get fries!” And sure enough he did. So we had to have cheesecake to get at least a fruit serving. LOL.
When we were walking in Lisbon, we kept looking for the funicular, and climbed and climbed. We climbed to the top of that particular hill, to discover that had we zig-zagged further down the hill we could have taken it. Instead we walked to the top. Climbed, struggled. Pick a verb that expresses breathless exhaustion. We are in our 70s you know. We found a lovely restaurant, and ate outside in the warm sunshine. I ordered the shrimp tagliatelle and Ken probably had sea bream. My shrimp was the most amazing pasta dish I have ever eaten. The sauce was like a mac and cheese sauce, but so light it was like it had been made with champagne. And chef was hearty with the shrimp. I ate as much as I could, offered Ken a taste, and there were at least half a dozen shrimp left in the bowl when I was done. Please note that I don’t know the difference between shrimp and prawns, so this could easily have been prawns. They were large, but not jumbo. I concluded this delicious meal with an equally satisfying double espresso.
I have to mention people. The people we have met have been friendly and welcoming. Our yellow-house hosts told us to expect that, but not to expect the effusive French cheek-kissing. No the Portuguese are more reserved than that. But friendly and helpful. We always try and learn some of the language of the country we are travelling to. Our attempts at Portuguese were not terribly successful. Good morning/afternoon/day, hello, please, thank you. We read that Portuguese people are more English-literate than the French or the Italians. And whoever wrote that told the truth. Ken and I were apparently easily identifiable as tourists because sometimes before we had opened our mouths we were being spoken to in English. Given our lack of Portuguese, we blushed, and accepted the help. Our current host speaks Portuguese and French. Our French is faltering, and from high school and some university (many years ago) but we managed just fine about everything except the furnace. Fortunately we are prairie Canadians so a cool house is just fine, thank you very much. And we ignored the furnace and put on sweaters as required (and bought a small ceramic space heater…the furnace was quite frankly terrifying).
Our current house just north of Porto has a grapefruit tree which gave us breakfast the first day we were here. It also has lemon and orange trees, calla lilies, a couple of bird of paradise plants, trees that bloom in orange and red flowers that are a cross between roses and peonies, two black swans and two cygnets, land four ducks. That’s pretty amazing all by itself.
So the amazement continues on an hourly and daily basis. And we’re not done yet. We still haven’t been to the caves, to the Schist villages, to Nazare to see the waves, Coimbra or Porto, so I fully expect the amazement to continue.
The traffic circles here all seem to have something in them. This one is dedicated to fishermen.
We visited Nazare when we were in Fig do Foz. It apparently is second only to a beach in Hawaii for surfing waves. And the waves were pretty amazing. We ate in this restaurant. Sat at the table between the two white dividers on the left. This road is two-way. We kept our elbows tucked in. There are three restaurants in this photo if you can believe it.
The storks are pretty amazing. They seem to like living in communities, and you would often see six or eight pylons like this filled with nests.
And they are huge. I looked it up and a stork is apparently 125 centimetres tall so chest high on me, and has a wing span of 215 centimetres.