She'll Need to Keep Me on a Chain?

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We decide to break up today’s drive back to Lisbon by taking a long detour off the main motorway to the town of Beja. As we get into the car a map suddenly flashes up on the dashboard. It seems that our chariot has a GPS. Hmmmm. It might have been handy to have discovered this a week ago rather than today when we have to take it back.

The low hilly countryside around Beja looks like fertile agricultural land; most of it's covered in vineyards and olive trees. We park in one of the main squares in the historic town centre. It‘s Sunday and the whole place looks like it‘s still asleep; there's hardly anyone around and none of the shops are open. Even the church seems to be closed. We start to wonder whether we've wandered into a ghost town; I hope it isn't haunted. We wander through the maze of narrow alleyways in search of lunch. The only establishment that does seem to be open is the local undertaker. I hope dying's not the activity of choice here; I wonder if they let you leave if you're still breathing. Maybe we should make a run for it while we still can.

The old town's very cute, with an abundance of the traditional Portuguese architecture that we saw in Olhao yesterday - wrought iron balconies and buildings faced with ceramic tiles. It's built on a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside. We read that it's been inhabited since Celtic times, and Julius Caesar named it Pax Julia when he made peace with the local Lusitanians here in 48 BC. Much of the original town wall and castle are still in tact. We read that the castle was built in the thirteenth century over the remains of a Roman fort that had subsequently been strengthened by the Moors. The keep's a very impressive forty metre high granite and marble edifice, and is apparently the country's tallest such structure. Unfortunately it's closed for lunch, and won't reopen until after we have to leave.

We return the car to Lisbon Airport and catch a taxi to our apartment. The driver tells Issy that she'll need to keep me on a chain while we're here, or the local women will try to steal me away. I'm not at all sure what to make of this; are the women here all crazy or do they just have very poor taste. He goes on to tell us that the Portuguese language is a combination of Greek, Celtic, Latin and Arabic. We're staying in the Alfama district, and we're told that this and any other words that start with "al", eg Algarve and Albufeira, are Arabic.

It seems that our apartment is in one of the very oldest and hilliest parts of Lisbon. We follow the apparently famous number 28 tram through a maze of narrow streets. The tuk tuks here look to be much bigger than the two passenger versions in the Algarve, and some seem to have as many as six brave souls crammed into them. It seems we can't drive all the way there; the final bit's too narrow for cars.

The apartment's on the second floor; there's no lift and the stairs are ridiculously steep and narrow - hauling suitcases up here's more than a tad challenging. The ceiling's so low that they've installed protective foam strips around all the door frames to stop you bumping your head - if I don't duck, the bottom of my nose hits the frames; Issy says she's sure it's only a matter of time until one of us comes down with a case of concussion. We're told that all the buildings in this neighbourhood have low ceilings. I wonder why. The Portuguese people that we've seen so far don't look to be any shorter than anyone else. I'm not feeling entirely happy about having to spend most of the week here stooping, but my mood improves as we're led up some more narrow stairs onto a large terrace. The views out over the neighbouring rooftops and down to the Tagus River are spectacular. I think we might be spending a lot of time up here. A lot of our neighbours' balconies and windows look onto our terrace. A lady's hanging out her washing on a small balcony only a couple of metres in front of us, and two of our immediate neighbours' windows open directly onto the terrace, but the sills are at the same level as the terrace floor. One of the windows is open, and I'm finding it a bit hard to ignore the people inside as they sit below us at their kitchen table eating dinner, only a metre or so away from our feet. The whole place is very cute and full of character, and I suspect that the lack of privacy is probably part of the charm. Our host has left us some beer, wine and nibbles, so we settle in on the terrace and make sure that his offerings don't go to waste.

It‘s dark and we‘re getting hungry. We want to go out for dinner, but we're pretty sure that if we leave we won't be able to find our way back again. We struggle back down the narrow staircase into the alleyway, and head through yet more narrow alleys to a square at the bottom of the hill near the waterfront. A lot of the buildings look more than a tad rickety, and we agree this probably wouldn't be a great place to be if there was a fire or an earthquake. We're reluctant to go any further in case we can't navigate our way back, so we settle in at a restaurant in the square. We want to finish dinner with some limoncello, but they don't have any, so we try a random Portuguese liqueur instead. It's more than a tad potent, and tastes vaguely of licorice.

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