Keeping Left in Portugal

We had managed to avoid the left-hand driving of Europe for over a year and now it was time to embrace the European rental car. Our destination was Portugal for 5 days along with our good friends Ritchie and Trace. This would help soften the blow that would be swerving around on the wrong side of the roads by sharing the driving with some experienced European drivers. We all flew el cheapo styles with Ryan Air from Stanstead Airport and landed a couple of hours later in the city of Porto where we picked our rental car up and headed straight off to Lisbon. The journey got off to a great start with lovely weather and nice clear roads. Most of the roads in Portugal have toll booths at regular intervals so the further you go on the motorway, the more you pay. This wasn't so bad as it meant the motorways were fairly empty so we had a good practise driving lefty without denting up the locals cars.

We stopped off at a few small towns to check out some sights. One of them, I think it was called Coimbra, was our lunch stop and we took a walk up through a historical university. The sun was beaming and we managed to find a nice wee lookout over this sleepy little town before heading back on the road to Lisbon.

The drive to the seaside city of Lisbon via our crazy sat-nav directions took about 3 hours. We had arranged an apartment in the historic side of the city where we would stay for 3 nights. The streets in this part of town got narrower and more cobble stoned as we wound our way up a hill towards our apartment. Once parked we managed to get our keys from the neighbour and settle in. The views from the balcony were marvelous. In one direction just over terracotta rooftops was the ocean. Looking around to our right was the hill continuing up to and old castle and a big white church. Most of the buildings were tiled on the outside with lots of colours from yellows to blues. We had a complementary bottle of port waiting for us on the table when we got in which was a nice welcome. We aimed to make the most of this in the evenings after dinner as was custom in Portugal.

Our first night out at dinner was to a local restaurant where a nice old man was waiting for customers at the door. Inside we sat down to candle lit tables and were entertained by traditional singers in the style known as Fado. Its a kind of lamenting, folk, story telling type singing and you are not meant to talk while they sing as Ritchie found out. He responded by singing while they sang which caught them off guard a little. After being hushed through most of our dinner we headed back up the hill to the apartment.

The next day we took the car across the city and to the outskirts to a village nestled in a steep valley called Sintra. This place was wonderful with several palaces lining the crests of the hilltops. We drove up to one and wandered through the palace and grounds, stopping for lunch in one of the gardens below. The views from the palace were spectacular as it was one of the highest points around. Heading back down we stopped off at a local market where we ate freshly baked stone oven bread and bought local hand painted terracotta pottery. Ritchie acquired himself a bargain pair of jeans which lasted all of 30seconds once put on later that evening. His first test with them was to do a squat which promptly tore a gaping hole in the backside. In disgust he tore them off and stripped them to bits. For dinner we wandered up to the top of the hill near where we were staying and came across a nice wee outdoor cafe/restaurant that overlooked the city harbour. We sat down to eat and noticed that there was a small theatre within the courtyard that was putting on a comedy show based on the Dracula story. We thought about going but decided against it as it was all in Portuguese. After our meal, 2 actors dressed as vampires/goths wandered through the crowd performing all sorts of comedic and bizarre acts. One guy walked around the tables with a small box and occasionally sat down, opened it up and ate a piece of raw meat. The other girl randomly screamed and then looked perplexed as everybody turned to see what was going on. It was quite funny as many diners were doing their best to avoid these guys as they quite often caused everybody near them some embarrassment. We changed our minds on seeing the show and ended up getting that last 4 tickets. Although the show was in Portuguese most of the comedy was in the acting as 3 actors played multiple parts and improvised for props using different hats and a few boxes. The show was hilarious and one guy in the audience couldn't stop snorting as he laughed which caused the actors to burst into laughter themselves.

It was Ritchie's birthday the following day so Becs and I bought a few goodies for him that morning and being short of wrapping paper, we made do with the handy amount of denim lying around the apartment. Today we spent the day sightseeing Lisbon a bit more, stopping off at a beach to sit on the sand and eat ice-cream. We then took a walk through a park and along the waterfront to a great monument marking the many famous 15th and 16th century explorers. That night we went to the local Hard Rock Cafe to celebrate Ritchies birthday. After the shenanigans at dinner, we took a drive across the harbour bridge to the base of a huge statue of Christ with his arms outstretched, very similar in style to that of the great statue in Rio de Janerio. Ritchie smoked one of his birthday cigars and we all helped out with the puffing by attempting to blow smoke rings. After an impromptu Irish jig on the side of the road, we headed back to base for our final attempt on the bottle of port and our last night in Lisbon.

The next day we wove our way back to Porto via a beautiful coastal town called Nazare. We pulled our car up in a clifftop village overlooking a great white sandy beach with turquoise blue waves crashing into the shore. The beach stretched as far as the eye could see in one direction and around into a nice wee cove with a quiet little beach in the other. We headed down to that beach and into another sleepy little town there where we were the first to walk on the sand. Across the road was a surf shop that was a wee way from home but comforting none the less.

Back in our car we headed for Porto and what was to be a few hours of hotel hunting due to our lost sat-nav. After coming back to the same place 4 times we decided to switch to map mode but that had its problems when the streets we were looking for were under the map key. Tensions rose in the heat a little but we managed to find our way to our hotel after traversing every one way street in central Porto. After our check in we took a stroll down town to find a place for our last meal. Porto is a visually stunning city and even more so by night. Its many ancient buildings traverse from the rivers edge up very steep mountain sides. The great river dividing the two sides of the city is spanned by a great narrow old iron bridge which has a train crossing on the bottom, car in the middle and a cable car on top for pedestrians. .We managed to find ourselves a great tapas restaurant and had an almighty feast there with a one price all you can eat and drink. We rolled out very pleased with ourselves and slept very well that evening.

Portugal was a nice change from most European cities. It has some spectacular white beaches with some famous surf as well as ancient buildings cobble stoned streets. We had a great time travelling with friends, especially our car adventures.