Hotel Mansao da Torre Obidos

... a dedicated band saw in one supermarket for cutting up the larger slabs of the stuff. Sue has offered to cook some for me but the smell is sufficiently disgusting to deter me.

The British are few and far between. We are a bit of a novelty around this part of Portugal but we did meet a young couple who were as pleased as we were to do a book exchange.

We found a leaflet advertising ...

In the morning we went to Obidos, an old castle/city. There was a medieval festival the day before (just ended the day before or we would have seen people dressed in Medieval clothings!). Because of the end of the festival, we couldn't really go anywhere. So we ended up just climbing up a wall, took ...

The next day we picked up our rental car and headed for the coast. We stopped off at the Casa de Ribeira winery for our best visit to a winery yet – a terrific friendly host, a 400+ year old building, a great selection of local snacks for lunch – delivered by the mother of our host and of course great wine. It wasn't so much of a wine tasting as it was "Let’s open several bottles and drink what until you are finished."

And though we could have continued sitting and ...

Day 5 – 26/12/08

COIMBRA-FIGUEIRA DA FOZ-NAZARE

We moved our luggage out & kept it at the reception. Then we set out on foot for the Coimbra University. It was a steep climb uphill lined by pretty shops selling famous Portuguese painted tiles among other artefacts around the cobbles streets. The huge University complex is 700 yrs old & has many arms like Medicine, Law, Zoology ...

... the afternoon walking around the old fort near the sea and noticed how perfect the diving conditions were around the bay (also noting how poor the surf conditions were at the same time). As the sun went down we headed back to the hostel and had a chilled out night filled with jamming out on the back patio. Two memorable songs infusions were "Pigeon in the tower" and "The Sex Panther." The next day ...

... to Australia today (Sunday) but the internet guy had a hangover and refused to open up shop and now it is too late. We did a few Hare Krishna lyrics in our newly dyed clothes and some pixie dancing outside his little mobile home to see if he would wake up but not happening. Everything is so s......l.......o.......w in Portugal. Breakfast today was egg meringues (sugar) that we accquired somewhere and they were eaten sheltered inside the tent because it is a cloudy day ...

... harvested the grapes early to give them a different flavor. It is very light (for a port), and has a great flavor! The Portuguese language is REALLY hard to learn, and even harder to understand. I understand about 1/5 of the written word, but probably understand only 1/100 words that are spoken. I got to practice a little Portuguese today (and got a quick lesson from and old grandmother at the bus station), but can only attempt the necessities!

... by the architectural style of Westminster with a 6 hour bus ride back to Salamanca to look forward to, we could only spend a little time in each village, but at this other city we saw an antique flea market, complete with records, old postcards, old money (especially abudant since they use the euro now..), old radios and even a working gramophone!! with that, hasta luego, Portugal.

... most people are friendly except Tourist Information Offices!!, transportation system is efficient, weather has been good for March between 18 and 22 degrees, safe to walk just about everywhere downtown area - but as in any city apply caution at night, and we enjoyed the overall ambience of the prominades. Anyone needing orthotics? - Lisbon is the place to buy them!!  There were shoes stores everywhere - but after hiking castles and ...

... of flora from all over the place. We hiked through the park to various points of interest, the major one giving us a fantastic view across the forest to the castle. The castle is painted different colours which is a little strange but certainly makes it different from others. It's a definite Spanish influence because Spain is the same, as is Mexico but usually not the palaces... usually it's the houses in the little lanes. The palace very ...