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Published: September 26th 2015
It was just a few hours drive in the blazing sunshine over the border into Portugal. We left the highly colourful soils and found yellow as far as the eye could see. Fields after fields. A few green trees livened up the scene but not by much. Some olive trees and the odd orange or lemon grove. We saw sheep and cows with enormous horns. Ugly things they were too. We were heading for Elvas. Parking was going to be near its aqueduct. It is possible to stay overnight but we were just going to use it as a stop to give the town a once over.
The parking should have been easy to find but Elvas was and is highly fortified with Vauban style walls and forts. Gateways pierce the walls and are only wide enough for one vehicle at a time. Initially we got lost . We could see the town but Sally Sat Nav decided to take us up country and we ended up in the fields on a quiet country road . Not quite what the co-ordinates should have taken us to. We backtracked and eventually drove along wide boulevards with palm trees. Neat and tidy
pavements and cycle tracks . No graffiti nor any litter.
We drove through the town trying to locate our parking. The walls of everything are painted yellow . I was lost for a colour so forever this yellow will have been renamed Elvas yellow. All the houses were painted white. It looked as if the entire stock of Dulux white paint had been bought up and used to spruce up every building. The sun is relentless and needless to say the white paint helps reflect it off the buildings. They were enlivened here and there with blue or green paint.
We parked up on the sosta in the shadow of what must be the longest, biggest and probably most ugly of aquaducts. Built by the town in the 16
th century it has not the beauty of a Roman aquaduct but it is a masterpiece of engineering bring water to the town as it curves it way across the valley. Not gently curving is this acqueduct. We have some lovely aqueducts back home. Telfords Pontcysyllte carrying the Llangollen canal over the Dee Valley. The romans built Pont du Gard which is graceful and staggeringly beautiful as it crosses the
river. They built an aqueduct in Segovia which is stunning and impressive . Elvas – well it is not beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. It is ugly but in a way a stunning piece of architecture. It does what it says on the tin. Suzy looked positively dwarfed underneath its arches. In most towns the roads would have taken priority and the aqueduct would have have been forced to give way. Here the road took second place and there were four road each of which went through one arch of the aqueduct. It is not often an ugly structure has such presence. It would look magnificent at night all lit up like a christmas tree.
We walked up to the town in the blazing sunshine . Our first port of call an ice cream. Depite having a feeling of being back end we struggled to get served in the first café. Still there were more to go at and at the second we bought the ice cream. The town square reminde us of Tolmar but smaller and there was a large castle on the hilltop. The tourist information directed us down to the local shops were we
bought our fridge magnet. It was wrapped up in a magazine page. It seemed that during the winter months the proprietor of the shop ripped up pieces of magazines just the right size to wrap up fridge magnets. It reminded me of my grandparents who spent days ripping up newspaper into pieces to use as toilet paper . Left a black mark on your bum.
A our first taste of a Portuguese town this trip it was well worth a detour. If you want to see something impressive make sure you drop in on Elvas.
We left Elvas after going through one arch of the structure , going round the roundabout and coming back under another one. Convuluted but it worked.
We drove a few miles before hitting our first Portuguese motorway. They are unmanned and relatively empty. The locals either hate them or are too tight to pay the tolls. We accessed the Via Verde green lane and waited for our tag to ping at us. NOTHING. Just silence. Had she worked? Had Tolltickets sent us a dud unit? Oh my God we will get fined. There is no way to get off nor any way
to check if the tag is working. Nor is there any place to pull up and talk to a human. We just continued and hoped for the best. Perhaps it would ping as we exited the motorway. Hope is a fine thing. We stopped off at the first petrol station we found and wondered how the young lady got to work as there were no obvious exits nor entry points and she was so alone we wondered if she worried about being robbed or raped . It was a lonely place and not one I would like to work at. I guess though work is work and she must have felt pretty secure out there in the middle of nowhere. .
Eventually the landscape changed to something more scrubby. It was the end of the line. We crawled towards the Via Verde green line ever so slowly. We checked to see if there were any manned toll booths. The intention was to get out and take the box to the human in it and ask them to check if it was working or perhaps to make note of our registration to prove we were legitimate to go through. No tell tale ping. No green light . We still had little idea if the tag was working and no sign of life.
It dampened our enthusiasm and we wondered if we should hide it and just pay at the next one. It is vehicle recognition so fine number one on its way. We did think at least we had the invoice from Tolltickets which showed we had hired it and on what day it started. We took photos of it on our windscreen. Just in case we needed to prove we were not fare dodgers.
Our campsite for the night was Camping Evora a site we had used previously. Not one of our favourites. We paid our 16 euros ACSI and reception was reasonably friendly. It is a site with little charisma . Pick any plot we were told so we found one in French corner right up against the fence. Not much good as it was a long way from the electricity box and when I got there my two pin socket wouldn’t fit in the bottom row. This row was worse than useless. Moved to Brit street where all the Brits were parked and eventually found a plot where we could access the electricity much more easily. No- one spoke. Next stop washing. When I got to the machines one was out of order the second had been filled by Mrs Tesco Bag . The machine said that the programme would be finished in 31 minutes just enough time for a swim. After 35 minutes the programme had finished and there was no sign of Mrs Tesco Bag coming to collect her washing. 40 minutes passed and I decided to help her out by taking out her washing and folding it up for her. I took out one towel and folded it neatly, then a second. Still no sign of her . A pair of purple knickers. Then another tea towel . At which point she turned up. Glaring at me she said nothing. I said nicely “Are these yours? “ At that moment of time I should have shrivelled to stone as if Medusa had gazed upon me . she was not amused and kicked my bag across the room. I glared back and muttered in welsh “twp” a word that unkindly means stupid. I filled my machine, checked the time and ensured that I returned early to collect my washed washing. Sadly she was our neighbour across the way and kept giving me the evil eye all night. May her washing fester I thought.
Our body clocks are all wrong again now. We are on Portuguese time which is the same as Greenwich Mean time. We woke an hour ahead in Spain and went to bed an hour earlier in Portugal to the sound of Mr and Mrs Owl hooting. Tomorrow we head for the end of the land. The furthest west before the sea starts.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Reading about your doing the wash...
reminded me that I had put a load into our washer earlier today and forgot about it until now. Linda is back east visiting our daughter, son-in-law and grandson so I'm on my own learning how much I need her for the little things.