Motorhome News from Europe 6

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Motorhome News from Europe 6.

Portugal 6th October 2004.

Into Portugal from the North
Santiago de Compostella, Baiona, Castro de Santa Tegra, Barca, Porto, Costa Nova do Prado, Figueira da Foz, Batalha,
Obidos, Sao Martinho do Porto



Travelling with only an outline plan pencilled on a sheet of A4 is a continuous adventure built upon expectations and reality, and shaping memories; new, exciting, revealing - and sometimes even disappointing. This week has not failed us as we journey south from Santiago de Compostella towards Lisbon.

Come then weary pilgrim, sit beside me; waggle your toes in the cool sand and close your eyes. Picture out there beyond the Atlantic breakers of Baiona, the tip of the white sails of the Pinta on the horizon as Christopher Columbus returns from the Americas, a new land of hope and toil for the lost souls of Europe. Cup your hands to your ears and listen to the sound of mighty canon as the Spanish fleet is routed by Drake for its rich cargo a little way along the coast. Open your eyes now and look behind you as chatting promenaders stroll the walkway along the beach at Praia de America and joggers pound the pavements on this bright sunny morning. We leave today for Portugal.




There is something magical about seeing another country across the river. A little way south, the Rio Mino divides Spain from Portugal along this rugged west Atlantic coast and the estuary is overlooked by the sanctuary and little church of St Francis at Castro de Santa Tegra and the remains of a fascinating bronze-age settlement. Across the bridge into Portugal there are still elderly ladies in cardigans and aprons, headscarves and wellies, carrying the tools of the day; scythe, hoe or spade and a green plastic bag which seems to be compulsory. They are off to do their daily chores in the fields of hay, potatoes, beans, brassicas, and pumpkins, chestnuts, walnuts and grapes. There is something more obvious about this border crossing, marked by the transition from a half finished country to a more orderly, elegant one where things get finished eventually. They have taken their time to put the right pieces in the right places and then draped them with exquisite balconies and ornate tiles in bright attractive colours.



The lure of the mountains drew us east into the Serra do Geres National Park where wolves and wild boar are said to roam. We didn’t see them, but the chances are that they saw us. We stopped in lovely Barca on the way, with its decaying old, and prosperous new town, where two coffees and two muffins cost 2.20 Euros, about £1.50! The road rises out of Barca into the National Park through tiny self-contained hamlets, their vines on pergolas around the edges of the fields now turning blood red as the crop matures, and the sweet smell of smoke from vine-prunings fills the air along the roadside. This is the Portugal we came to find, where the trees crowd over the road forming green tunnels of moss covered oaks and lichen speckled birch, bronzed bracken, the first sign of autumn, carpets the forest and clear granite strewn streams flow from the mountain tops. It is not so much the seeing, the touching, or the hearing, that memories are made of, but the feeling deep inside. The pull of the mountains extended our stay here and we turned north for a while up a narrow road in fine misty rain. The thin autumn sunshine broke through by mid-morning to display beautifully kept white houses on the hills, their terracotta roofs stark against the trees along the valley walls. The granite mountains shone pearl white, peach, buttery cream and milky chocolate against a leaden sky.





We have not seen a TV or read a newspaper for six weeks. Time has little meaning anymore. We lost a day somewhere last week, thinking it was Friday when it was Saturday. Hunted in all the cupboards and turned out our pockets and eventually found it in Spain somewhere. Nobody told us that Portugal was one hour behind Spain when we arrived here earlier in the week, and it was 24 hours before we discovered it! We used the extra hour to walk a mile or two along the wide sandy beach as the sun set over the crashing Atlantic breakers along this amazing western coast. It must be Europe’s best-kept secret, so promise not to tell anyone, please.







A short way east of Braga is the neoclassical church of Bom Jesus, standing atop a forested hill overlooking the town. The church with its imposing granite pillars, is reached from a baroque statue lined staircase. Bom Jesus is impressive, and a must apparently for those on the pilgrim trail.



If you’re a lover of big dipper rides, then you should visit the summer resort of Madalena on the coast and take the bus into Porto. This is big-foot country and we had been warned about the handsome young bus driver by our Australian motorhome owner Brian, both with big feet; the bus driver, and Brian. The narrow roads and the high-speed hair-raising journey are enough to frighten the moustache off your granny. But the ride is worth it, if only for the visit to the cellars of my favourite port maker, Ferreira. The bottle, - hic- bottles, will be empty before we return. Found a great fish restaurant and an interesting bus-top tour of Porto, but it’s not a city we would rush back to. This city, and much of the rest of Portugal no doubt, is a bit like most of northern Spain that we have seen, where the decay outweighs the regeneration to such a degree that it will be almost impossible to catch up. For all that, there is an attractive air of gentle softness to the place and the people. Here in Portugal we get friendly waves from the locals as we drive at a leisurely pace through towns and villages lost in time.




The heavens opened up on Sunday and ruined our chances of good birding on the salt marshes and inland waterways of the Ria de Aveiro along the narrow peninsular between the 50km of wide sandy beach and the maze of lagoons just a few hundred metres to our left. By evening we had reached Costa Nova do Prado, its fish market heaving with people at 6pm and astonishingly lovely candy striped wooden houses, green, blue, red and yellow, with balconies on two levels, that would put Southwold quite in the shade! Here too, they have beautifully painted, flat bottomed seaweed harvesting boats with high pointed prows; for which Kodak film was invented.





For us, a visit to the salt pans is always hard to resist and we were rewarded further south at Figueira da Foz with good views of flamingos (most unexpected and always exciting) and black winged stilts, swifts heading south for the winter (like us), and a marauding peregrine. By early afternoon we had reached Batalha, home to the astonishingly flamboyant Gothic Monastery de Santa Maria de Vitoria, completed in 1434 and built from ochre limestone with a most beautiful, unfinished chapel, alive with ornate carvings. What a wonderful day. This area has a wealth of notable monasteries, but we will take home a memory of just this one to avoid diminishing its glory.





You'll not be at all surprised to learn that we have started to talk to Todd, our bear (now renamed El Toddo for the duration), which is probably one of the first signs of madness.

“Are you having a good day, El Toddo?”

"Yes, thank you," comes the reply from the passenger seat, and he doesn’t even move his lips. Smiley, the motorhome, also gets the occasional ‘pat’ on the dashboard after a particularly hard days work.




Clear blue skies returned on Tuesday and another pearl turned up when we walked into Obidos early in the afternoon. This magnificent walled town is a true picture of Portugal at its very best; the sort of picture that you would want to put in your back pocket where no-one else can find it. Narrow cobbled streets and tiny houses line every hill and the three churches stand proudly at the turn of a corner in this biscuit-box little town. We are reminded of an apartment we once owned in The Old Town, a mile inland from Villamura on the Algarve. Magic! But then it is October and the tourists are long gone. Heading south, the wind of change in the fortunes of Portugal becomes evident. Beyond Sao Martinho do Porto; that beautiful, smart resort with 350 degrees of beach and its’ eyes on St Tropez, the buildings along the coast shine bright in the sunlight of Lisbon money and the signs of mellow decay have vanished. We are heading down towards Sintra and Lisbon over the next few days now that we have had a quick round of golf at Porto Novo, on a course designed by Walt Disney I think. But it was fun and we needed the break. There are another 12 spectacular courses between here and Estoril!





We have travelled 3,800 miles through France, Spain and Portugal since the 1st September and we are nearly half way through the first part of our journey through Europe. (averaging 115 miles per day). From Lisbon we will head inland to the Spanish Extremadura to try to catch the tail end of the autumn bird migration to Africa.

David and Janice
The Grey Haired Nomads

Birders note: Exceptional sighting of hen harrier yesterday quartering the reed-beds, plus gannets, shearwaters off the point at Peniche, crested lark (on top of Smiley), purple heron, egret of course, and hoopoe on the golf course.

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Photos

Portugal - just across the river
from Castro de Santa Tegra

Castro de Santa Tegra
bronze age settlement

This is the Portugal we came to see
....self sufficient villages - the way of the past and a signpost for the future?

Bom Jesus
a long climb

Porto
across the river

Aviero ria Moliceiros
....beautiful, even in the rain

Aviero ria Moliceiros
traditional seaweed harvesting boats

Obidos
....exquisite balconies to take your breath away

Obidos
with its picturesque steep cobbled streets

Sao Martinho do Porto
350 degrees of sandy bay

a brief golfing excursion
...on a course designed by Disney perhaps.

On a chilly, but bright day
Janice, on the beach

Comments

[emerald257]

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