Adeus Portugal (A Retrospective)

Yesterday we said adeus to Portugal, a beautiful and interesting country unmarred by all the car troubles we experienced. Our only regret is that we could only spend 12 days here - I think we'll definitely be back!

1. Porto: For us this city represents two things: getting lost and drinking port. We arrived in this city without a decent map and spent hours driving around looking for our campsite, only to find out that it had closed down. Luckily, we were able to drown our sorrows by going port tasting by the picturesque river.

2. Coimbra: Usually a charming medieval university town, but it was absolutely pouring the morning we arrived. Luckily it had cleared up by the time we arrived at the amazing Roman ruins - a well timed visit given that it was Patrick's birthday (happy birthday mate).

3. Tomar: Despite some troubles at our campsite (being charged €24 for a local phone call), this town had an amazing old convent that we explored for hours.

4. Lisbon - A fantastic place, made all the better by the fact that we could spend it with our friends and their lovely parents. Although already eating incredibly well during our Portugal trip, they made us fantastic local fare, which we are eager to transport home.

5. Evora - It was incredibly hot in Evora, so it was a hard fight between lying by the pool (Birgitte and me) and exploring the ancient and medieval ruins (Josh and Pedro). Luckily we got to do both, otherwise I would never have experienced this rock (with no explanation, in English or Portuguese).

6. Tavira - After returning briefly to Lisbon to pick up our car, we drove down to the Algarve to visit the beach. The Island of Tavira was just stunning and perfecting our tans was the perfect way to finish our time in Portugal.

Next, we're back in Spain and then onto Morocco. We miss you guys and look forward to seeing you again soon!

Olive Mania in the Mediterranean

Olives. They seem to be everywhere here - on trees, in tins and jars or bottled as oil - and no meal is complete without them as an appetiser.

Of course we eat them in Australia too, but only in Spain and Portugal can you truly appreciate the journey from tree to table.

We love them and thought we'd post these beautiful photos to show you what we've been eating non-stop since we got here!

Car Drama Ends

What we wanted to write two days ago was:
"This afternoon, after 4 more calls to Renault/Eurodrive Assistance, we picked up our car, free of faults and gave back our rental car. Which, by the way, was a very similar model to our car and had several faults of its own. But we could still drive it, which was the main thing. And nothing was going to make me hand our replacement car back, short of a complete breakdown."

Silly us for writing a draft post before we actually got the car.

That was not what happened. Instead, a lot of drama ensued following promises of the car arriving in Lisbon at 5 pm, then 9 am the next day, then midday that day, then 4 or 6 or 7 pm (depending on who we spoke to) that day, then 10 pm that day, and then finally an inability to confirm when the car in fact would be arriving. However, we managed to stay cheerful (and sane) because of the wonderful company we had at Pedro's parents' house.

The upshot is that we got our car this morning without any further delays and our rage is dissipating already!

The Five Names Club

Yes, there is a club, but Josh is actually only the Vice-President. The President is his Danish/Portuguese friend Pedro. He and his lovely wife Birgitte (who is an honourary member of the club, now also having five names) have been showing us the real Portugal.

We've been having a fabulous time and just wanted to say 'obrigado' to them, Mette and Eduardo for being so hospitible, especially in the face of all of our terrible car problems!

Castle Fatigue

Amongst those acquainted with travelling in Europe, there is a well-known syndrome known as "Church Fatigue". For those not in the know, this is experienced by tourists who enter churches on a regular basis for the purposes of sightseeing. It can strike at any time, depending on the strength of the tourist's constitution, the number of churches visited and their differences or similarities. I have been so keen to avoid this syndrome (which caused me, on my last European holiday, to throw in the towel and go to see some mosques in Turkey) that we have been quite selective in our viewing of religious monuments thus far. I might add that this cautious approach has also been much to the liking of Tova.

However, what I was not aware of is that there is a related syndrome, known as "Castle Fatigue", which has struck both Tova and I rather suddenly. It happened today at the Castelo da São Jorge here in Lisbon, the capital of a country with countless well-preserved and amazing Moorish and Templar castles (as well as its fair share of Roman ruins).

We started our castle tour just a few days ago near Constançia at the castle of Almoural, situated on an island in the middle of a massive river. We took a ride with the boatman for €1.50 and were the only people on the island. That is, until we heard some explosions and a couple of soldiers on a training missing saluted and walked past us.

Next, we visited Convento do Cristo in Tomar, a beautiful castle and convent complete with azelejo tiling.

Our third castle was in Sintra, on the outskirts of Lisbon, where we saw a massive Moorish fortress overlooking all of the surrounding hinterland. The ramparts also afforded great views of the neighbouring multi-coloured Palácio da Pena, also known as the "Sleeping Beauty" castle.

The fourth castle we saw was in Montemor-o-Novo (a castle which was just beginning to be excavated), the fifth in Arraiolos (which wasn't a castle at all, but was a church built inside a huge round fortified wall, which presumably once contained a castle) and the sixth and final castle here in Lisbon.

All of them have been amazing and all of them have afforded great views of the surounding countryside (or city), but I think we might just start spending some more time looking at churches from now on!

What's Wrong With this Picture?

Let me give you a hint.

Apparently the fringe trim is not something they learn at hair-dresser school in Portugal. But whilst I have been wearing the assymetrical fringe like a fashion statement, Josh has as yet been unable to recreate the more "machismo" look that he was given by his hairdresser in Oveido.

At least they asked before giving him pointy sideburns!

10 Kilos in 10 Days

Although we're in Portugal at the moment, I can't leave Spain without sharing the photos of the incredible food we ate in Spain.

Breakfast: While we stick to croissants and baguettes, the major breakfast food is dipping fried batter into a cup of chocolate (not hot chocloate - just melted chocolate). While this looks incredibly delicious, it proved too much for us - something about the combination of oil and chocolate just doesn't work.

Snack: While there are plenty of pastries on offer, in Barcelona we visited the local fresh market, picking up cherries, peas and other goodies on the cheap. The stuff tasted great and more importantly looked amazing! We supplemented these with visits to the local lolly shops that seemed to be on every corner.

Dinner: The most ubiquitous restaurants in Spain are the tapas bars. The usually delicious bite-size portions are great, as you avoid the extreme hazard that comes with ordering from a menu written in Spanish. If you're not careful, you could end up with Galician octopus (AGH!)!

Drinks: Unfortunately our time in Spain has turned us unwittingly into mini-alcoholics, along with the rest of the local population. Every meal either includes a bottle of excellent red wine or you can buy one for €3.00 or less. The other day in Porto we found ourselves with a bottle of red for lunch, followed by port tasting, followed by another bottle for dinner! After taking stock, we've definitely decided to cut back on our alcohol intake!

Somehow, despite all this eating, it appears that all the walking we've been doing has meant that we've managed not to become obese!

Car Drama: Update

After much drama, I'm pleased to report that we've dropped off our broken car and been given a rental car in Portugal. We've been promised that our fixed car will be delivered to us at a location of our choice, but we're somewhat skeptical. This photo represents how we've spent the last few days: on a public telephone fighting with the kind people at Renault/Eurodrive.

Northern Spain: from Sun to Sun-Drenched

Now that we're in Portugal, I thought it might be nice to give a brief summary of our time in Northern Spain.

We started off in San Sebastian, a stunning city set amongst mountains decending into the Cantabrian Sea. The weather was beautiful, warm and sunny. Needless to say, we continued our beach holiday there.

And there, the beach holiday ended. Apparently, they have a saying in Northern Spain which goes something like: "If rain is art, then Northern Spain must be one of the best museums in the whole world".

And rain it did. Quite a lot. As a result, we decided to seek refuge in Santiago de Compostela (after stopping off to check out the oldest functioning lighthouse in the world at Á Coruña). That city, according to our guidebook (which we've previously mentioned is a paragon of accuracy), is "sun-drenched". Well, let's just say that the book had it half right: the operative word in the phrase "sun-drenched" being the word "drenched". Presumably the sun was somewhere above all of the clouds.

Apart from the rain, which sometimes caused our camping to be less than luxurious, the trip across the north was amazing and not what one would expect when one thinks of Spain: green and lush.

An Unfortunate Incident

Ok, so that's not our car - but we have been having some car troubles that are putting a bit of a dampener on our already very damp time in Northern Spain.

Way back in the French Pyrenees we had an incident with our car where the power steering suddenly stopped working and it beeped and flashed at us: Panne de la Direction. Seeing as we don't speak French, we did what all English speaking travellers in France do when faced with a foreign language, we ignored it, restarted our car and kept going (oh, I can see my parents wincing).

When it happened again in Andorra, our French wasn't any better. When it happened driving down a mountain in San Sebastian I had the ingenious idea of looking in our phrasebook. It turns out that 'panne' actually means breakdown! Yet, acting like the intelligent, well-educated people we are, the word BREAKDOWN flashing in red in front of our eyes was not sufficient for us to get ourselves and our car to a mechanic.

Finally, in Santiago del Compostela just restarting the car no longer works. The red flashing and beeping will not go away and the lack of power steering makes driving and parking here very difficult. So we bit the bullet and called Renault, who put us in touch with a very Spanish speaking mechanic this morning. After following him back to the workshop, he plugged our car into a computer (the wonders) and promptly informed us it was broken! Thank God he cleared that up!

Three hours later, after much sitting around and arguing with the head office in Paris we finally resolved the situation. The solution proposed to us was that we would stay in (cold, wet) Santiago until they recieved the necessary part and fixed our car in four days. Instead, we're driving to Porto tomorrow, where our car will be fixed whilst we explore Northern Portugal in a rental car.

Much kudos goes to Josh and his language skills saving the day by being able to communicate in German(!) with one of the Renault mechanics.

The Art of Spanish Driving

I wasn't going to write about driving in Spain, figuring that it was probably much like driving in France. However, after being here for some time, it has become abundantly clear that that particular assumption was wrong. There are some key areas of difference, which I've decided to share with you.

First, the roundabouts. At least, that is what they appear to be at first glance. On closer inspection, however, what is revealed is a complex and hopelessly confusing mass of changing lanes, traffic lights and arrows, clustered around what appears to be a circular mound in the middle of the road. Some questions that immediately come to mind are:

- Why bother with a roundabout at all if there are going to be traffic lights involved?

- Equally, why bother with traffic lights if there is a roundabout?

- Why bother at all?

- Whose idea was it to drive into the city?

- Which lane am I in again?

- And why is some Spanish guy shouting and threatening to get out of his car??

Second, the autopistas. In France, the speed limit on the autoroutes is 130 km/hr (which about 50% of the drivers adhere to). Here, it is 120 km/hr (which about 5% of the drivers adhere to). In fact, as an experiment, I decided to speed up in order to try to follow a car which had overtaken us, only to find that it was travelling far in excess of the speed limit. Shortly thereafter, I terminated that particular experiment, for what will appear as very good cause. In France, despite the limit being a paltry 130 km/hr, it is relatively safe to exceed to the limit as the lanes are wide and the road straight. Not so in Spain. Here, the autopistas seem to curve like some crazy version of Medusa's hair and roadwork is almost as common as in Andorra (and that is saying something).

Third, signage and maps. Crap, simply crap. In fact, the Spanish driving map we have is pretty much useless for a whole host of reasons, including the following limited list:

- Roads exist that do not appear on the map.

- Many of the roads that are on the map are numbered differently in real life to the way they appear on the map.

- All of the exit numbers on the autopistas are different in real life as compared with the map.

- Some exits do not appear on the map.

- Some towns that appear to exist (unless we have been halucinating) do not appear on the map.

As for the signage, it doesn't really assist. The Spanish appear to have perfected the art of putting signs up next to the road after they are required, so that you find out that the last exit for 50 kilometres was the one you needed to take after you have passed it.

Fourthly and finally, parking (always my favourite). French parking is nothing to what we've seen here. We haven't engaged in it ourselves yet, but we've noticed that it a lot of drivers have the practice of double-parking anywhere they like on any street. This is apparently rendered permissible by simply turning on the car's yellow hazard lights (although this practice is not universally adhered to - naughty naughty!). It is not necessary to stay with the car, much less move it within any particular amount of time.

Modern Art in Northern Spain

I'm going to start this post with a big disclaimer: the Louvre is great, I love it and highly recommend it. The art there is very beautiful and very famous. But when travelling in Europe you kind of get sick of art that only has two themes: Jesus (and his associates) and naked ladies. So it was a breath of fresh air when we visited the Guggenheim in Bilbao this morning.

As you can probably tell from the wacky building, it's a modern art museum and I loved it! Out the front is a massive puppy made out of the flowers, almost as tall as the building itself. The work there is relevant and provocative, referencing politics, religion, history, literature and is made out of every different medium you can think of.

So while Bilbao doesn't have much else going on (as far as I could tell) it was definitely worth the drive.

Thanks for all the comments

Just a quick thank you to everyone who has been writing comments on our posts. We've really enjoyed reading them and hearing from everyone. Keep them coming!

Desert Country

We finally left the sparkling blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea today, driving inland to the Aragónese town of Zaragoza. We're killing a bit of time before we go and have dinner (the Spanish eat dinner between 8 pm and midnight), which we are very excited about, as we are in the "unofficial tapas capital of Spain", and by logical extension, the world.


Anyway, I digress. The drive to Zaragoza was nothing short of amazing. The difference in climate and landscape on the southern side of the Pyrénées is stark, with lush forests and rolling hills giving way (once the crossing of the Pyrénées has been made) to arid, sandy plains and jutting mountains.

Nowhere have we seen this type of landscape as pronounced as on our drive from Sitges to Zaragona, which is a city of 700,000 pretty much situated right in the middle of what appears to be relatively inhospitable semi-desert. In fact, the landscape here reminds me a lot of Western Australia north of Perth. However, despite the conditions (or maybe because of them - I'm no expert in viticulture), plenty of wine is grown here.

We're spending just one night here and then heading to the Basque city of San Sebastian on the north Atlantic coast to get back to the beach!

We hear it's raining in Sydney...

...so you'll be extremely jealous to hear that we have spent the last three days at a camping ground located on the beach at Barcelona. Ready to try somewhere a little quieter, we drove down the coast to the seaside town of Sirtges. Whilst our campsite isn't quite as close to the beach as in Barcelona, it's only a short stroll down to the beautiful and warm Mediterranean sea, flowing in from Africa.

As the photos attest, this is a classic Mediterranean beach holiday, with the sun shining and the beach dotted with striped umbrellas.

I was a big old prude and kept all of my swim wear on, unlike most of the other women on the beach. Apparently, in Spain tan lines are a far worse breach of social etiquette than public nudity!

Sitges, Jewel of the Mediterranean...

... or so they like to say here. Actually, that sounds a little cynical, which it shouldn't. This town is fantastically pretty, situated right on the coast known as the Costa Dorada, south of Barcelona.

Since the weather has been so good, we decided to delay heading to the north Atlantic coast and spend some more time by the Mediterranean.

The drive from Barcelona to Sitges was spectacular, with the road winding along the cliffside, affording us views of the sparkling sea and then giving way to lowlands where the town is situated by the beach.

Insert "Beautiful Barcelona" post here

We spent the past two days in Barcelona, soaking up the sun, seeing the sights and enjoying the Catalan food. It is a fantastic city, with a great atmosphere.

However, due to an unfortunate incident with the USB connection in an internet cafe, we lost all of the photos we had taken of the drive from Andorra to Barcelona and of Barcelona itself. This photo is testament to the pain and misery caused by this untoward development.

On the bright side, we did manage to save the pics we took in France and Andorra, and after getting those burnt to a CD, we spent an hour or so taking some photos to replace those we took over the past few days. Here are a few of them.

First is a photo of this extremely long pedestrian street called La Rambla, where, according to our guidebook, "anything can happen". In fulfilment of this prediction, we saw quite a few street performances. Simply crazy. Where will the craziness end?

And here is a photo of one of the winding streets in the district known as Barri Gòtic.

Ok, well, these photos don't really capture the great time we had in Barcelona, but at least we have some photos of Barcelona to prove we have been there (if there was any doubt)!

After we'd recovered from the shock and disappointment of what will now be known as the "USB incident", we went to drown our sorrows in Sangria and Paella, which certainly contributed to put a positive note back on the day.

A drive through the Pyrénées

We drove from Moissac (the town north of Toulouse where we had been staying) to Andorra la Vella (the capital of Andorra) today and as a result said a temporary farewell to France.

The drive was shorter than we expected and was nothing short of spectacular. After driving right under a mountain through a tunnel, we were treated to amazing 360-degree views of the Pyrénées along the subsequently winding road. Along the way we saw mountainsides variously covered in forests, scrub, flowers and snow. We also discovered that Andorra is somewhat of a skiing destination in the winter.

And despite the fact that the weather looks cold in the photos, it actually isn't too bad - the temperature has been about 16 degrees in Andorra la Vella today, which with no wind feels positively balmy.

Andorra is a little bit of a strange place. Its natural alpine beauty is thrown into stark contrast by the towns which, although not ugly per se, certainly do not seem to fit nicely into the landscape. There is construction everywhere and we are at a loss to know why it is necessary in a country of only 80,000 inhabitants (the capital has only 20,000 inhabitants).

Andorra is said to be Europe's shopping centre and we have certainly seen a lot of shops and shopping centres selling designer gear tax-free (there is no GST, VAT or any sales taxes in Andorra, and yes, it is a tax haven). Indeed, there doesn't seem to be anything to do other than shop.

The official language is Catalan, so as you can imagine, communicating has been interesting, but we've been managing in a hybrid of broken French, more broken Spanish and some English.

As interesting as it is here, we've decided to head to Spain tomorrow to finally get some of that long-awaited Mediterranean sun!