JOURNEY TO LAGOS

---

We are currently on the train to Faro where we will pick up a rental car (anticipating an issue here but we will see) and drive to Lagos. We choose Lagos as it is supposed to be one of the top 10 places to retire, you can actually live on your social security comfortably. It is however a huge vacation spot in July and August, so if we actually retired there, we would simply travel for those 2 months. No, we are not retiring any time soon, but one does like to think of the possibility of a life without work and where you no longer know what day of the week it is.

We are on a high speed Portuguese train traveling in comfort class. The seats are very comfortable and we have a table so it makes it easy to blog. There is also Wi-Fi access but it is very slow and not secured or stable. While we may be in first class, this is nothing like first class on a French TGV or Canadian Via Rail. They make no effort to be pleasant, the attendants are short with everyone, especially non-Portuguese speaking and you get 1 beverage per person. I had a coffee, which was actually served like espresso but not really espresso. They offer a cold breakfast for 5.90 euros, on the Canadian trip from Montreal to Quebec City it was a hot breakfast and included in your ticket. Most TGV service includes breakfast and beverages are always included.

That being said, it is a very nice train and again the seats our comfortable, Jerry is sound asleep, as it he man across from him. Across the aisle from us is a very rude American Tourist, she has a café style seat, meaning two seats facing each other with a table in between. I can only assume she paid for both seats, since she has stretched out and taken all of it. Luggage on one, and she has her feat stretched across so no one else could possibly sit there. Luckily no one else has the seat, so no scene as of yet. She asked for a beverage, she was already on the train and had previously had her allotted one beverage, when she was told there was only one beverage per person, she became very indignant and the attendants would have none of that and just walked away.

The train trip to Faro is about 3 hours, so I have taken the opportunity to catch up on blogging, and since I have time, will give a few impressions of Lisbon so far. My initial reaction was not positive, mainly because it was solid rain and constant bombardment of hawkers trying to sell you something just reminded me to much of Budapest. However, Budapest turned out to be very enjoyable. Lisbon is beautiful and much more so when the sun is out. The rain of course changes one’s perception of everything so I have had to look beyond that to see the real beauty of the city. The food with a few exceptions already noted, has been disappointing. It is just very hard to find truly traditional dishes. All of the restaurants you come across are geared for tourists, and though they may say “typical Portuguese” food, they in fact are very poor attempts at it. We do have a cooking class during our return trip, which is where I hope to truly learn about Portuguese food.

The people, while friendly, seem very insincere, more concerned about selling you something than really telling you about the best place to get traditional food or see a Fado show. The cab drivers, surprisingly, seem to be the most helpful of everyone we have run into so far. Yes, Pedro at the hotel has been helpful, but you can also tell he is directing us to places he likely gets a kickback from when he refers customers. With all the difficulties we have encountered I do like Lisbon, it is very different than I imagined, I guess I didn’t really think it would be such a tourist trap but they do need to make money so I can blame them for doing whatever it takes to make a living.

The weather is supposed to improve upon our return to Lisbon so that will likely change my impression as well. Again, it is a beautiful city and I am glad we made it a stop on this trip.

Rental Car and drive to Lagos

As I predicted there was an issue picking up the car. First of all, it was crowded, everyone in Portugal must have flown in to Faro today. I thought the issue was going to be the deposit and debit card, but that wasn’t even close. The real issue was they did not have on record that I had prepaid for the insurance and were insisting that I would be responsible for the entire value of the car if in a wreck. It took about 20 minutes to straighten out, but we did, but not without the poor rental agent and me experiencing a lot of frustration.

So after an hour delay, we were on the road. Again, the reason we came here was to see if we could possibly live in the area, as it is supposed to be one of the best places to retire. You can tell that the area is preparing for something as they are investing a lot in their infrastructure, they are adding on to the airport and road work is going on everywhere. When we walked through the airport to pick up the car, the number of retired people with their golf clubs was ridiculous.

We found our way out of the airport and on to the slow road to Lagos, I was driving and jerry was at navigation. It was a pretty easy drive we only took one wrong turn, but got to see a nice old small church. The drive allowed us to see the country side between Faro and Lagos, the building is out of control. Every other store is some type of building supply, garden shop or swimming pool store. The weather was cloudy but lots of sun breaking through, enough sun for my sunglasses. The drive to Lagos took about 90 minutes maybe a bit longer. The most exciting thing we saw was a field of bird nests in a marsh on high poles, have no idea what kind of birds, but they were clearly new chicks in the nest as someone was on guard at all times.

Lagos & Lunch

Lagos is a small seaside town, the old city is inside the old roman wall, and a good portion of that wall still remains. One side is boarded by the harbor which leads to the Atlantic Ocean. It is very much a party town in July and August, which is obvious since there are zero hotels in the old section only hostels and discos. We found a parking lot just outside the main entry to the city so we were able to walk around easily. Inside the walls there are many winding streets and the streets are lined with shops and restaurants. There are only about 5 things of historic importance to see in the city, the church and slave market being two of them. Lagos actually had the first slave market in Europe, not really something to brag about.

We walked around about, stuck our head in some shops while we looked for a place to eat and an ATM for our daily 200-euro allotment. (not that we are spending 200 euros a day). We found a place to eat that looked ok, it was actually; more than ok. We ate outside but the inside seating area was very quaint and they had a live crab tank, they even looked like Dungeness crabs but I don’t think they were. So lunch was a pleasant surprise, not Uttrea pleasant but still a nice surprise. This lunch does deserve a full listing.

Jerry had Gaspacho (not a typical Gaspacho even the spelling is different). This was followed by a Salade D Sebastiao (mixed greens, vinaigrette, cucumbers, really good tomatoes and alas beets). His final course was a dish of sautéed vegetables and couscous, which he said tasted as if it had a cube of butter in it, and that is a bad thing?

I had a wonderful garlic bread soup, full of garlic and a poached egg. This was followed by possibly the best avocado I have ever eaten stuffed with shrimp and tomato based aioli dressing. My final course was pork chops in a fig sauce. The sauce was like a fig béarnaise, it was heavenly. The best part is they gave you extra for the fries.

After lunch we walked around a bit more and bought some wine then headed back to the car to find our hotel. This is the one and only time we totally relied on google maps to get us somewhere and it actually worked. We are staying a resort kind of. It is really a complex of apartments that have been turned into a resort. There are 7 pools, a restaurant, spa, etc., it is called Costa D’Oiro Ambiance Village. It must be kismet that it translates roughly to gold beach, which was always one of our favorite places to go in Oregon. Check in was a breeze and the woman at the front desk was very friendly. We even were upgraded to a full apartment instead of a suite. It is really a beautiful room with a king size bed, two balconies’, one of which overlooks the pool, a small kitchen and a fireplace, not that we are using that. There are also several house cats wondering the grounds. Always a good sign.

After we checked in and brought what little luggage we had into the room, I passed out on the bed for about 30 minutes or so and Jerry unpacked and took pictures. We are currently enjoying the room with wine before we head to the restaurant for dinner, which happens to be pool side. So that is all for now. Bom Tardes.

Dinner

We could have drove a couple of miles and had dinner on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic, but that would mean driving back and we always have wine with dinner, so we decided to eat at the resort. It turned out to be a good choice. We were not expecting much, but it was a very nice space decorated in a fish motif. The waiter happened to be named Chris so he treated us very well when he found out my name was Chris. He recommended a really excellent wine, which Jerry will not allow me to share as he doesn’t want it to be the next big thing in the US and drive up the prices. I realize that we are here on off season, but the prices are more than reasonable, we spent 7 euros more for dinner than lunch and had a bottle of wine with dinner.

This is a place we could very much come back to even in winter. The surrounding neighborhood is also nice, and we wonder what the rents are like for something with a private pool, retirement, is very possible here.

This brings me to dinner. The menu was simple but full of regional dishes. We started with codfish croquettes and they were the best we have had so far. We also had Persunto (prosciutto) and melon. Jerry had a grilled salmon and I had fried squid in garlic, a bit chewy but really flavorful. It was a really unexpected meal, as typically resorts don’t always have the best food.

We have retired to our room enjoying some Jazz from KHMD in Portland as I finish up today’s entry. Tomorrow we check out the beach, drive back to Faro for lunch then the train back to Lisbon for the last weekend of Portugal before we are off to Paris to meet our friends Christina and Jourdan.

---

Photos

Acorda Alente
Garlic Bread Soup

Lulinahs Fritas
Squid