WooHoo! Fourth European country – Portugal! It was a country that neither Duncan or I had been to, we knew very little about it, didn’t have a guide book to tell us the hot spots or even a road map to tell where to go. With no expectations, just a desire to visit it and discover what Portugal had to offer, we hit southern Portugal.
You know when you walk into a place; room, house etc… you instantly get a good feeling, like you could spend a long time and get very comfortable? That was what Portugal was like for Duncan and I.
We arrived in the Algave area of southern Portugal and it seemed as though everything was so easy. We drove a couple of hours and found a wonderful campsite with pool, bar, wifi and lovely setting under Eucalypt trees. We were feeling very homley. Luz was only meant to be a stopover, but we loved the place so much that we spent two nights. The town is a wash with clusters of little white houses, linked by little, steep cobbled streets which tumble down towards the beach front. The beach was gorgeous (ok, no surf, but it is allowed one failing). The town and beach front was the type of laid back that hasn’t been ruined by tourism just small traditional houses and no high rises. We sat on the beach soaking in the sun watching the speed boat take the thrill seekers out on their rubber donuts. What is it about sun and sea which makes you have a craving for beer, fish and chips?? Duncan left the beach to be on the hunt for some fried goodness. We found a great little English pub (In Spain and Portugal they are like our Chinese takeaways – there seems to be one in every town no matter how small). The pub was perched up high looking over the wonderfully Portuguese coastline. Time to reflect that we were in another country and try to practice up our Portuguese – Obrigado!
Taking advantage of the extra hour sleep in (we discovered that Portugal was an hour earlier than Spain!), we headed up the coast to another beach recommend by Trip Advisor. I can understand why the Portuguese were such famous sea-fearers; the amazing coastline pulls you in like a powerful magnet. Zanbujeira do Mar gave us a wonderful beach stopover to stretch our legs and soak up some more sun in a fantastic beach setting. Another white “Pueblo Blanco” (I don’t know what the name in Portuguese) town dropping downs to the dramatic cliff bounded beach. We had a wonderful lunch on our picnic rug and then an energetic game of bat and ball game (souvenir purchase in Luz) that every European seems to be playing on the beach this summer – we are suckers for fads!!
Have I mentioned yet that the beaches in Portugal are beautiful? We spent a night staying at another campsite on the beach and had a memorable moment watching kite surfers fly and jump about with a magical sun setting into the water, and a sandy beach which stretched on for miles.
The 7th of July will always stand out for Duncan and I as a perfect travelling day where in the true spirit of travel we made a spontaneous decision and created one of the most memorable nights.
We arrived in Lisbon at about 5pm, as with all major cities it is always tricky to find a park as close to the centre as possible, and Duncan and I pride ourselves to be able to find a free park in close to the centre no matter how big the city. Lisbon we managed to find a gold park right on Lisbon’s version of the Champs Elysee. Unfortunately on this occasion we had to pay a small fee, but this lasted until 9 am the next morning- little did we know that this would come in very handy.
We dropped into the information tourist office to findout about campsites in the area, then followed with our standard question of “what’s on in the city at the moment?”. That’s when we found out that Lisbon’s huge music festival Optimus Live was on tonight http://www.optimusalive.com/ . Price €50 and an opportunity to see Bloody Betroots, Iggy Pop, Primal Scream and finally, and the clencher, Foo Fighters. Duncan and I thought about it. “We don’t know how to get there!”, “We have to commit to an all-nighter”, “Kam’s toe wasn’t completely healed, would it be ok?”, “Will the car and all our possession be safe?” ……….Wait!!!! Wait just one darn minute!!! Why were we travelling if all we were going to do was talk ourselves out of awesome experiences??? Foo Fighters, Live, in Lisbon!! Experience of a lifetime!
We found the ticket office and queued with all the other Lisbonites who needed to pick up tickets, and Backpackers who had just arrived and wanted to score tickets as well. Were they sold out? Coldplay played last night and the festival sold out completely, oh god, now that we were pumped were we going to miss out? An agonising wait, however after a whole hour in the queue and we had scored, the tickets that is, we were off to Optimus Live!
5pm we arrived in Libson, 7pm we had bought tickets to a musical festival which we had never heard of, 9pm we were watching Primal Scream at Optimus Live with what seemed like 100,000 people.
We experienced some great bands while waiting for Foo Fighters and Bloody Beetroots, we also had a little too much fun jumping around to all the freebie tents and collecting free samples and trying out the cool products. One thing we were shocked at is how disorganised Australian festivals are to Portuguese (assuming European) festivals! Time spent queuing to get in: 10 minutes, Maximum time waiting for food: 5 minutes, Maximum time queuing for the toilets: 3 minutes, Maximum time waiting for drinks: 2 minutes; but the clincher; Cost of a pint of full strength beer: €3. Organisers of Australian festivals, take note, cos this makes festivals FUN!
12:45am – The arrival of Dave Grohl on stage, everyone went wild including two Aussies from Canberra who were having the time of their lives.
3:30am – very hoarse from belting out Foo Fighters with 60,000 other people we were in the ‘sweaty tent’ moshing it up with the Bloody Beetroots.
I got that thrill that night, the thrill that tingles all the way through your body which says I feel alive! And this feels amazing!!!
4:30am – I felt rough, my toe throbbed. I really shouldn’t have moshed. And I still had 2.5km to limp to our car. But, no regrets, none whatsoever. We just had the time of our lives and made a wonderful spontaneous travel decision!!
The unfortunate thing was that as we had no accommodation booked, we had 2 options, drive to the campsite in Lisbon and sleep outside until they open in 4 hours time, or drive onward, away from Lisbon to a new campsite where we can relax. Option 2 was decided as Duncan had jumped, moshed and danced all the alcohol out of his system; however the drive to the next campsite unfortunately was unexpectedly long. At about 6:30am after driving around for 1.5 hours Duncan had to pull over at a service station to get a power nap in the car. Word to the wise – If you have been driving the car dead tired and then you pull over and get some shut eye, move out of the driver’s seat. Poor Duncan woke up at least 4 times in the 40 minute power nap with sudden shock and thought that he had fallen asleep at the wheel. Very scary for him!! L
We finally found a campsite at 9am!!!!! We could barely put up our tent we were so tired. Even after perfecting our routine of erecting our house, it took us about 1 hour rather than the 15 mins it normally takes us. I looked around the campsite wondering why everyone was still in their Pj’s, it strangely felt like mid afternoon for us. By that stage we had been awake for 24 hours. Problem: trying to sleep in a tent in the middle of the day in 31 degree temperature, with screaming kids with their nosiest toys right by your tent. Pure blissful recovery sleep did not happen for as long as we would have wanted, by lunch time we were sleeping in our own pools of sweat with a real urge to wring some kids necks (or their parent’s, whichever was closer).
By dinner time we were well and truly wanting to call an early night, especially after a surprisingly epic walk we did along the beach in the afternoon. Alas it was not meant to be. At 10pm, in our tent, PJ’s on, settling down for an early night and a long sleep, the campsite band started up – at 10pm and didn’t stop until midnight. Our gold position just near the bar where we could pick up free wifi severely backfired! Any other night we would have been up there singing karaoke with the kids, but not tonight, we just wanted to get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow.
We woke the next morning to my birthday, Happy Birthday Kam, Hip, Hip Hooray!!! Best way to celebrate my birthday, to throttle the kids who woke us up at the crack of dawn… just joking… we did get a bit of a sleep in after the kids woke us up. We decided the best way to celebrate my birthday would be with a bit of port in Porto. We packed up our life, and again hit the road.
Along the way we had a lovely stopover in a place called Aveiro which was billed as Portugal’s Venice. There are certainly a few canals and a couple of local boats, which are gondola looking, ferrying tourists around, but that is where the similarity ends. It is however a very charming traditional Portuguese town and Duncan and I spent a wonderful lunch in the main square right by the fish market sipping Portuguese green wine (named for when the grape is picked rather than the colour) and of course having (some very fresh) fish.
But my birthday was just beginning…
