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Published: April 1st 2010
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I thought that last night would be a quiet evening given the excitement we had with not being able to hook up with our hosts. However, leave it to the Racicot siblings to throw us a curve ball. Sometime after dinner, while it was still quite light, Catht and I decided to walk down to Casaal da Ponte to do some exploring. Unbeknownst to us, the Racicot’s were doing a fine job finishing off the wine in our absence. So Peter & Jo decided to walk back into Alfeizerao to buy some more wine. Remember now, we’re some 2 or 3 kilometers from Alfeizerao and we very quickly learned that night fall comes real quick in this part of the world. They were long gone by the time Cath & I got back but while walking in the dark, Pete & Jo got lost. They wandered around like nomads in the dark until they were finally able to get their bearings and they could see our villa in the distance. Thankfully, for Pete, Jo actually got him back on track or he would have ended up back in Lisbon. Needless to say, Renita was quite worried however they eventually showed up
with wine in hand so we chalked it up to yet another adventure with a happy ending.
Today is our first full day in Casal da Ponte. We were all up at different times this morning as none of us slept very well. Our villa is quite chilly and, being so close to the ocean, it also felt quite damp. However, after a breakfast of ham and eggs washed down with real coffee (as opposed to cafe longo in big cups or regular cafe in teeny cups (it’s all mud to me) and or port, we started to put our plans together for the day. We decided to walk to Sao Martinho do Porto (Sao Martinho, for short) which is a sea side town along the Silver Coast. The Silver Coast gets its name from the color of the sand but it all looked pretty brown to us. Sao Martinho is about an hour walk from Alfeizerao. Along the way we passed a couple of very old churches and their attached cemeteries. Once there we poked around several little shops and checked out a couple of sidewalk cafes. We walked all around the board walk and even got our
hands in the ocean (a cove, really).
We found a quaint little, family run, cafe and eat a lunch of cod fish and swordfish, 2 of the house specialities. A little more wine and we were on our way. While in the cafe I was able to upload my first blog as I was able to find a wireless site. After lunch we walked farther down the board walk. Peter, Renita and Jo walked to the end while Cath and I climbed a very steep hill to the lighthouse that looks out over the Atlantic where it enters the cove. Cath and I have now seen the Atlantic from both sides of the world. That was pretty exciting.
On the way home, Peter, Renita and Jo decided to hop on a bus back to Alfeizerao while Cath and I walked. By the time their bus arrived and they did some grocery, they were only about 10 minutes ahead of us when we arrived at the grocery store. We were all pretty bagged so dinner was simple ham sandwiches and, of course, wine & port. We spent the evening looking at slide shows of our pictures to date and
then it was off to bed. Tomorrow we catch the bus to Obidos, about 35 minutes south of Alfeizerao, an entire town enclosed within the walls of a 13th century castle, as it’s too far to walk (thank God!!)
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