Quarteira; Unexpected Things.

We’ve truly visited a wide variety of places here in Portugal. Starting with Lisbon, which surprised us how much we liked the area we were staying in—Alameda. Next we went to Porto. That was non-stop action. Within a couple of days we discovered the relative peace and quiet of the Gaia side of the river. Then we moved down to Sesimbra, which was a pretty amazing place. With it soft sandy beaches and winding cobblestone streets. It was so much more low-key than Porto and Lisbon. Next we went further south to Ferragudo—an absolutely unique town and extremely quiet and elegant. We water-taxied over to Portimao, which was not quiet nor elegant. It’s the perfect place for a weekend of senseless drinking and flirting all with as little clothing as possible—not really our thing. Now we’re in Quarteira, and it is a big sprawling beach town with Sesimbra’s family vibe and Portimao’s beach chairs and umbrellas. Next week we head back to Lisbon for a couple of nights.

A lot of things have happened on this trip we didn’t anticipate, which is half the fun, right? For example, the day after our arrival was May first… Portugal’s Labor Day. It took a little skill to navigate what was open for business. In Porto was college graduation… the first in many years. What we didn’t know was that every class celebrates with the graduating class—a lot! I can’t tell you how thankful we were to not be trying to get around the city in a car. The traffic jam was so bad that people were sitting on the hoods of their cars chatting and smoking cigarettes while they waited for what seemed like hours. Then when all seemed back to normal, the Porto soccer team won the Portugal national title. The entire city went into convulsive fits of joy. Nothing unusual happened in Sesimbra, but on the day we left they had a rare train strike. That was chaos. Oh, and don't forget the motocross race in town.

The alternate route of going by taxi-metro-bus-taxi sucked. Ferragudo was calm except the rare weather condition of warm water being pushed up to the southern coast of Portugal and cool weather coming down from the north caused chilly foggy weather for a whole day. You’d have thought the locals were going to keel over and die. To me it felt like the northern California coast, but to them it was freezing. Via taxi-train-taxi, we’re now in Quarteira.

This may sound odd, but Quarteira is almost too perfect. It doesn’t seem possible that people actually live like this. I’ll take this moment to give kudos to the Portuguese government. It’s amazing how well maintained the public spaces are. They have these nice boardwalks everywhere (I mean everywhere we’ve been on this trip, not just here). The beaches are kept immaculate as a matter of national pride. 387 beaches in Portugal have been awarded the coveted blue-flag for cleanliness in 2020. The promenades are wide and well maintained with artistic designs on the tiled walkways. 

The most unusual feature we see in all public areas, is workout parks. They are clean, neat, and used. Honestly, I don’t think public gyms like these would last five minutes in the States before someone either vandalized them or sued the government because they hurt themselves. Some of these gyms (and playgrounds) are in the sand… not wheelchair accessible to say the least. 

So, in the US, nobody should get to use them. In reality, it’s not the government, but the citizens who make this lifestyle possible. Their patriotism and desire to have good quality things is universal. What they have, they take care of.

I’m sitting on my deck writing this. I keep stopping and leaning back in my plastic chair to stare out over the sea. I know Africa is just over that horizon and wish I could see it. Our condo is at the very end of the beach condo strip. We’re on the fifth floor that overlooks both the Atlantic and the parking lot. It’s a hub of activity here all day long with families eagerly scrambling out of their cars with all their gear, only to return hours later with sandy feet and wet towels—exhausted.

Yesterday there was an awning attached to a van (right in my line of sight) selling beachwear. A constant stream of women wandered through it. This morning I watched as the van pulled up. I sat drinking my coffee while marveling at their determination to get that awning back up again and to pull all the dresses and flowy things out of the back. It was like a magician’s hat they pull rabbits out of. I can’t understand how all that stuff came out of that van. But today the wind wasn’t cooperating and it kept snatching the dresses off the racks and flinging them on the ground as soon as the vendors turned their backs. This went on for a good twenty minutes. Finally the wind knocked over a huge rack with 30-40 dresses on it. The couple gave up and put everything back in the van and drove off.

I made a food ordering mistake today. We stop and check out the menus of all the restaurants along the promenade until something appeals to us. Today I saw a Chef Salad on the menu. We promptly sat down and I ordered the Chef Salad. Oh boy was I excited! I was bitterly disappointed when they brought me a gorgeous salad with no egg, no meat, no bacon. I asked the waitress where the meat was. She looked as baffled as I did. A chef salad simply means the chef makes it with whatever is available (it really was a great salad). The lady said she’d bring me some chicken. Ten minutes later she scooped a perfectly cooked and thinly sliced chicken breast onto my salad… and she didn’t charge me because she said she just wanted me to be happy.

The customer service here is a little awe-inspiring. The other day I went to the pharmacy to get cough medicine since Joe and I both caught a cold. I didn’t have enough money. I was short by 75 cents. A guy in line offered to pay the 75 cents. The pharmacist told me I could come back later when I had it and give it to her then. I told her how nice that was. She shrugged and answered with a smile, “I trust you, and it’s only 75 cents.” I paid for it with a card, but it was so nice of her.

Speaking of medical care, the guy across the street from us back in Ferragudo was saying he just had a knee replacement. He has private Portuguese healthcare insurance, which is one-thousand a year for him and his wife (they’re in their 80’s, from Sonoma). They kept him in the hospital for a week and did physical therapy… the bill came to 400 euros! His wife had cancer on one of her kidneys and had to have the kidney removed. A week in the hospital and 400 euros. “We couldn’t believe it, and they saved her life!” He and his wife decided to come to Europe and move from place to place. Portugal was their first stop (they’d visited before). That was 14 years ago and they never left Ferragudo. 

He lives on the third floor of a triplex on top of the hill (remember—148 steps) and he’s in his eighties. I commented on how youthful he looked and he just waved his hand to encompass the beauty around us. “It’s because I live here.” I wish we’d met him before the end of our time there.

I’m sipping the most expensive wine I’ve purchased since we arrived. I struggled with the purchase and left the store without it. That night I went back and bought it. It was the second most expensive bottle in the store. It’s a beast of a wine at 16% alcohol made by Convento da Tomina—it’s luxuriant and velvety… it was twelve euros. :) Most of the wine in the store was under five euros, but those wines tend to be dry. I don’t like dry wine.

Now it’s the next morning, Wednesday. Last night Joe was feeling crummy and exhausted, so I went to a restaurant on the promenade to get take-out. It was 9:30 at night, but remember the people don’t start eating dinner until 8:00 here. Anyway, I went by myself. As I walked along in the dark, I kept thinking, “Wow, I can’t believe I’m safe.” Everyone whom I passed either ignored me or politely said hello. When I got to The Shaker to order my beef burritos, the waitress brought me a blanket because I looked cold. I almost ended up with two mojitos, but thankfully I caught her words when she repeated my order. Everything went well until I got back to our high-rise. I got the key to work to let me into the interior, but I couldn’t get the stupid condo door to open. Finally, Joe hunted down his key to unlock it from the inside. That’s so unsafe! What if there was a fire? You’d have to keep a key in the door at all times. The beef burritos were great and we watched yet another episode of The Chosen.

One of my true disappointments on this trip is the pool here. For three weeks I’ve been unable to get in the ocean because it’s too cold for me. But I knew the last week in Quarteira would be the warmest weather, so I chose (and paid more for it) a place with a pool. The big bummer is they are renovating the façade of the building right in front of the pool! The pool is open, but there’s cement dust (my allergy) and little chunks of tile everywhere. Out of shear stubborn determination, I marched through the construction debris and got in the pool yesterday. It felt so good, but the curious stares from the construction workers six stories up and the ugliness of it sent me back inside. But, I did get in the pool.

Algarve and lots of Photos

This post will be mostly pictures. I have a desire to communicate the beauty of this country, but words aren’t enough. Hard to believe, huh? When I describe a narrow cobblestone street with bougainvillea draped over ancient doors, it just doesn’t do it justice.

I’ve always loved flowers. This place has flowers everywhere. Even the weeds are pretty flowers.

The lighting is also hard to describe in words. How do you explain it?

The moon! Have you ever tried to take a photo of a huge moon looming on the horizon? It almost always looks like a dot.

I had fun with posing the moon on my husband’s nose and in his mouth… he’s so patient.

Vast beaches are another tough thing to portray in a photo. I try to get different angles and closer to the ground, but it never looks as good.

One thing I managed to capture was the stunning caves of the Algarve. We went on a boat tour. I chose a smaller boat because I heard it could fit in more of the caves then regular boats. Our captain loved making us gasp as he charged into a cavern carried on the surf.

The light coming in from various holes was stunning.

One of the caves was actually a tunnel and we came out on the other side.

We really saw his mastery at work in the Benigal Cave. This world-famous cave is absolutely amazing. It’s the only tour Joe actually asked for. It is huge and has an enormous hole in its roof. A beach is on the inside and seems in photos like a peaceful bit of sand. Far from it! It was absolute mayhem. The people on the beach had mostly arrived by kayak. 

A team of guys inside the cave helped them escape… barely. The whole time our captain kept our boat (like a Zodiac) hovering inside the surf—never going forward or backward. When I say inside the surf, I mean we were sitting on the cresting waves. Pictures can’t show that, but I will never forget it!

Another thing difficult to describe is the agony of climbing 148 steps to our room after a long day. We stop over and over again, gasping and laughing at each other. And that’s just from the town square.

We have to descend our hill, climb another hill, and descend a long stretch of stairs to get to the beach. We figured out a way to get to the town from the beach without climbing an extra flight of stairs. Unfortunately, today we mistimed it and the tide came in, blocking our path in front of the castle. Up the stairs we went.

These old cities are like a maze of alleys and stairs.

Ferragudo and Travel Tips

Since you are reading this, you can assume we survived our trip from Sesimbra to Ferragudo. My plan-B went fairly well. The taxi picked us up and hauled us to the metro. From there we went to Sete Rios metro stop, walked one minute and arrived at the bus depot, and there we sat for 2.5 hours. Fortunately they had a snack bar outside, so I spent my time watching a lady working the crowds for a hand-out. A man came up to me and asked if I spoke English, then he said he was  from the Ukraine, hungry, and needed money. Yeah, right. 

Generally, if some scruffy person asks for money for food, the person they asked buys them some food. They gratefully accept it and eat it. Not like in the States, when the bum gets mad because they really wanted the money. I’ve also seen lots of people give cigarettes to each other. Can’t say I approve of that plan, but they seem appreciative. This seems to be a pay-it-forward culture.

The bus ride was an uneventful 4 hours. Then we scrambled off the bus at the big depot in Portimao. Turns out we should have stayed on for a few minutes longer to be dropped right at the shoreline… next to the taxis. I didn’t know that. After waiting in the sun in an empty bus-lot for a non-existent taxi, we called a taxi number from the web—the number was no longer in use. I finally texted my host at the Ferragudo Airbnb. She promptly came and got us… that’s way above and beyond.

Our place is a two-bedroom two-bath house with a balcony overlooking the valley. Honestly, it’s as big as my house in California. The kitchen is big enough for a table and chairs, whereas the front-room is huge with two loveseats, a dining table, and room to spare. The downside is we are top of the hill that Ferragudo is built upon. The upside is we are able to burn off the calories we consume at the restaurants.

Today our plan is to take the ferry over to the neighboring town of Portimao. There’re two reasons; one, we want to see this high-rise condo city with its giant beach. The other reason is we want to do a trial run at using the ferry because we have to do it tomorrow for a tour going on to the Benagil Caves. (p.s. we didn’t go because we are lazy bums. We'll just wing it.)

For the mundane things I can give a little travel advice for self-care. For your skin you should bring whatever sunscreen you like. But for lotion, just buy a little bottle of olive oil. Its molecular structure allows it to soak into your skin and keep it luxuriously silky without feeling oily. In Portugal, there’s no need to buy drinking water. The tap-water tastes fine and has no health issues. We bought a bottle of water and refill it with tap-water for taking to the beach.

What to wear: Start with the shoes. Shoes are incredibly important for hilly travel, which is all of Portugal. I’ve found it’s not the bottom of the shoe that is important, but the length. I recommend going a half size bigger than normal because as you go downhill your toes ram against the shoe and it’s painful. If weather permits, use a high-quality sandal instead. Bring bandages for the chaffing. Pick out the very best pair of shoes and the best sandals you own, then go from there. 

Pick clothes that dry fast. Don’t bring white clothes—It’s not that you can’t wash them, but it’s difficult to do small loads (all washers are small here). I have one white tank-top that I keep having to wash separately because I don’t want it to get grey from all the dark stuff. Try to imagine throwing everything in your suitcase in one load of wash.

Washing your clothes can be a challenge. Either make sure your place has a washer and a drying rack, a laundromat nearby, or bring your own detergent and wash your stuff by hand. For the washing machine: The machine is almost always in the kitchen here. They use these little pods that disintegrate in the machine. Unfortunately, you usually have to buy these at the local market in a container of at least ten. That’s way too many. I suggest you bring a small hard container to take the number of pods you think you’ll need for your trip from the box you had to buy. The clothes washing machines take a PhD to figure out how they work, and they run like a jet engine warming up for flight. Washing by hand is easy enough, but after awhile it gets harder to do bigger stuff like jeans, but certainly doable.

Here's another tip. Buy a sim-card in Europe. I’m not sure if this is possible for phones with a locked sim-card (That means the entire phone service through a cell company like Verizon or T-Mobile is locked into a contracted service plan). We choose to use the pay as you go service… like a phone card which has an automatic payment to reload. The sim-card is not locked in that case and it can be removed in another country and replaced with their sim-card—then you have full phone service. It cost us 40 bucks and now we have local service. Beware!... Do not lose your sim card from the States. You’ll need it when you go home.

Joe is changing his facial hair almost every day. I don’t know why he only does this on vacation, but he likes to try new things. Last time, in Italy, he grew a beard. This time, he shaved it off to a goatee. After a couple of days he shaved off the goatee. He’s teased me that the moustache is next. That would be a miracle. He’s had that moustache since he was a teen. I’ve never seen his upper lip, and we’ve been together since 1979.

The Ferragudo beach is beautiful with a castle clinging to its cliffs. There’s a couple of beach restaurants and a place that rents lounge chairs for 15 euro a day (a rip-off). The little commercial area of this town is adorable. They have a town square packed with tables and umbrellas and a dude playing a guitar. Last night we went down one of the back streets to a packed local’s place and had one of the best meals so far… two huge kabobs loaded with chicken and pork, and French fries. I had my glass of wine and Joe had his two stout beers—$32.00.

My first impression of the Algarve is hot Mediterranean sun. It cools nicely at night and we’ve been sleeping with our windows open. But during the day it’s hot, not Sacramento Valley hot, but it’s got that closer to the equator feeling. The ocean is slightly warmer than Sesimbra. I think if I get hot enough, I’ll get in. We’re going to head over to the castle beach now and see. For some reason I like the cheap little snack bar on the right better for beverages than the nicer places to the left and above. It just seems more real, but the food is mediocre.

It's difficult to put into words how safe it is here. I’m sure there’re streets and alleys that are dangerous, I just haven’t found them yet. We walk around at all hours of the night along with all the grandmas and grandpas. Even when we’re walking deserted streets, there’s no sense of danger. Yesterday, our neighbors across the street got into a rip-roaring yelling match. A teenage boy was seen marching up and down the stairs with his stuff—yelling the whole time. From inside the house came the answering shouts. I have absolutely no idea what it was all about, but it felt localized to that family dispute. When I went outside our front door to see what the fracas was all about, the pissed off lad made eye-contact with me. I saw no threat at all on his face. He was mad at someone inside the house… not me.

Sesimbra; Why We're Here

Our time in Sesimbra is coming to an end. Tomorrow we travel to Ferragudo in the Algarve. The Algarve is a state stretching across the bottom of Portugal. It’s at the mouth of the Straights of Gibraltar.

But today I am sitting in a café full of salty old-timers in Sesimbra. I could write a book just about this café. Out front is a long stone bench built who knows when, with old men looking out to sea for who knows how long. The history is in the wrinkles and deep gravely voices. It’s overcast and misty today. The throngs of beach-goers are absent. Seagulls screech as they soar overhead. I’m drinking yet another cup of coffee—the national drink.

Unfortunately, we discovered a croissant bakery. I’ve never seen such beauties. Flakey and fresh out of the oven. All over town I see people carrying their signature to-go boxes, heading back to their homes. Of course we had to taste them. The first day we got a ham and cheese croissant, but today Joe couldn’t resist the dark chocolate one. I took a bite and it was delicious. It actually tasted like chocolate.

Speaking of food and drink. I’ve grown fond of their green wine (vinho verde). It’s actually a white wine. I have no idea why it’s called green. I like it when I’m hot because it’s refreshingly tart. The red wine is good no matter what. I’m learning that I prefer the sweeter wines of the Douro region. Sesimbra is packed with little tiny restaurants. Most serve fresh fish and shellfish. They proudly display what they have available in refrigerated ice-packed display cases.

The other night we walked through some steep little back streets and got talked into eating there by an old guy who pulled the fish out of the cabinet and patted it lovingly. We ended up sitting in a beautiful alley that ended with a view of the sea. Our waiter tried to convince me to order their special fish for two… I think it was called Pegado. It was the most expensive item on the menu. They had shellfish platters for four that were more expensive, but for two it was expensive. As you know, Joe is extremely generous and likes to spoil me. It became a matter of husband verses wife. The waiter was thrilled when the husband won. He made a big deal out of the presentation and even cleaned the fish off the bones and placed it on our plates. It came with vegetables, a salad and the view. With two beers and a glass of red wine it was the most we’d spent on a meal so far—$63.00.

The Tap House was another special night. Tap House is on top of the fortress with an amazing view. We ordered the salmon meal to share. It came on a platter with veggies all around a blazing hot stone. We put the raw salmon on the stone to cook along with the onions, etc. They served Joe a specialty stout and I had red wine. We weren’t hungry after splitting the meal because it was huge, but since we are little piggies, we ordered the platter of shrimp sauteed in garlic butter. That meal cost $52.00. Our server was super friendly, but very hard to understand. He tried three times to tell me he was thirty-six years old before I could figure it out. He’s from Liverpool! I felt like he was speaking a foreign language.

Sometimes beach towns can be so perfect, they seem like Disneyland. Sesimbra isn’t like that at all. I love the way they honor their elders by painting their pictures on electrical boxes. The children are a major deal here. The whole family heads down to the beach together. Sure, there’s clusters of sexy twenty-year old girls and groups of guys watching them, but mostly it’s families. It’s nothing to see elderly women exercising on the beach while the hubby looks on proudly. Speaking of the beach, the one straight out and to the left is California Beach, and the right side is Gold Beach. Gold Beach is where those ladies go do their workout in the morning and then strip down and jump in the water. I still haven’t gotten used to that one. We usually go to the leftmost part of California beach (east) and I sit against the rocks like a lounge seat.

I don’t think I’ve talked about this already, but I use a website called Rome2Rio. It does a great job of laying out all your alternatives for travel. It tells you the time for each mode of travel. I typically will start there to get an idea of what I want to do. I decided to buy train tickets from Pinhal Novo (a city about thirty minutes from here) down to Tunes, then a local train to Portimao. Monday morning we planned to get a taxi to the train station in Pinhal. And another taxi at the other end from Portimao to Ferragudo. I was a little concerned about catching the second train as we only had ten minutes to buy the tickets and board, so plan B would be a taxi from Tunes to Ferragudo (about 25 minutes). All-in-all, about 3.5 hours travel. THEN I got an email from the train company telling me that the train industry was going on strike for the day of our travel!! They stated they may not run our train. Well, cr*p! All of my work had to be undone. I wrote to our next Airbnb host, Carla, and told her we couldn’t predict our arrival. She promptly told me to buy bus tickets fast. She said everybody in Portugal would be doing the same thing. It took me about three tries, but I got our bus tickets. Now we have to get back to Lisbon to get the bus. Our plan is to get a taxi to the metro in Amora. We’ll take the metro to upper Lisbon and catch our bus to Portimao. Then we’ll get another taxi to Ferragudo… we’ll see. Visualize me shrugging my shoulders in resignation.

Joe has moved outside to stand with the local men drinking a beer. He’s made a friend at the beach gym—he’s a Brazilian who works virtually in California as an attorney. A major question amongst every one who knows us is, will we move to Portugal? We’ve been here for two weeks now and I think I’m ready to share what I’m thinking. First let me explain why we’d want to move. The number one reason is the crime in the States. Family values are falling fast. The cost of living and taxes is through the roof. Our little city of Rancho Cordova is holding its own against this wave of change, but barely. We could move to another state, but few places can match our climate and beaches.

I started with an internet search for the safest countries in the world. At that time, two years ago, Portugal was number three (behind Greenland and New Zealand). The USA was number 138. So I started looking at Portugal. Safe, religious, family-oriented, patriotic, healthy lifestyle, coastline with loads of beaches, pristine ocean, scuba diving, friendly towards English speakers, great incentives and taxes for retired ex-pats. The restrictions for moving here are basic. You have to have money and not need a job… they don’t like giving away their children’s jobs. You also have to run a background check for all fifty states. So, they like older people with passive incomes and a clean record? Sounds smart to me. We spend money, don’t take their jobs, and we’re law abiding. This is like internet dating. It all looks good on the web, but what would it be like in real life? That’s what we’re here for… to see if we like it in real life. So far, it’s exceeded our expectations. Therefore, I invite you to read between the lines.

The language is difficult, but speaking Spanish helps a lot. We learned some basics before we left and the locals truly appreciate our efforts. When we first started learning online, we didn’t realize that most of the internet (including Google translate) is based on Brazilian Portuguese. The biggest difference is the pronunciation, which means I can look up the words, but I have to understand how to pronounce it. That’s not impossible. The most important things to be able to say in any country is; hello, thanks, please, and help.

The sound of the language is very unusual to our ears. It sounds like a mixture between Russian and Italian. It’s the slight guttural sound that surprised me most. But behavior-wise and rhythmically it’s much more Italian. They speak passionately with waving arms. I can’t tell you how many times I thought someone was arguing, only to turn and see them smiling and laughing… especially a bunch of men together. Wow!

They have a pretty basic appearance. I can’t really put a finger on it. Some look Italian, others Spanish. There’s definitely some Irishness to their look. Maybe a bit stockier than their Mediterranean cousins. I guess they look Portuguese. This is a country of immigrants from all over the world. Right now it’s home to a lot of Ukrainians.