Portugal (Eurovelo 1)

Day 1 (10/11) - Arriving at Lisbon, Portugal

Day 1 went smoother than expected.

One of the challenges with bike touring has always been the transportation of the bike and the accessories – mine were four panniers and one rack pack. It went with no glitch from SeaTac to Lisbon. The Diamond status (soon to be expired) certainly made things easier.

Flight to Paris, around 10 hours, was uneventful. I wasn’t able to doze off so it was a bit uncomfortable. AF food is about as bad as I can remember among all airlines :). (The food on the way back was much better)

Connecting at CDG was an experience. For one the distance to the gate was a bit long and the direction wasn’t clear. That said, I think that’s a common perception when you are traveling at an unfamiliar location, especially in a foreign country.

Day 2 (10/12) - Exploring Caldas da Rainha

Didn’t get out of bed until a little after 9. The place had a nice setup for coffee and hot water, the two most important things for me to get me through the day :). Using the Nescafe was pretty straightforward and it made a good cup of coffee. I made it more like an Americano than what the expresso that they typically used for. There was sugar but no cream. I later figured out how to make a latte-like coffee by heating up a cup of milk first and then making the espresso into the cup. The place was like a cat city 🙂 – they were cute and friendly.

Now it’s time for exploration..First thing first, I needed to get some breakfast and eventually settled in a place called Citrus that Teresa recommended. The food was simple but it hit the spot. I later found a few better options than this place.

The restaurant was just right next to the farmers market so, now with the stomach taken care of, I took a stroll around the area. The market opens every day. I was told later that the ‘real’ farmers showed up only on the weekends. That made sense because they were working during the week. I picked up a few clementine and a persimmon. They tasted very juicy and sweet, unlike the ones in the States.

As with most of the new places I visited for the first time, I looked for tourist information. If not nothing else, I would at least get a free map of the city. It turned out the place was steps from the farmers market.

After getting some useful information from the office, I set out to explore the city. To make a goal out of the walk around town, I followed the Rota Bordaliana route – a tribute to this famous artist whose work was on display along the route. Part of the game was to look for these ceramic sculptures. I found a few but not all.

The walk took me back to Don Carlos park right next to my apartment. It’s a beautiful place that I walked at least 2-3 times every day when I was in Caldas.

Lunch time came and, not knowing any better, I went back to the same place (Citrus) for their Pratos de Dia.

After that I went back to the apartment and took the bike out of the box. Keeping my fingers crossed, I put the bike together and, Volia! everything seemed to be intact except missing a nut used on the rear light. That little nut would play a critical part of an incredible story that would get unfolded the next day.

Later in the afternoon, I met up with Arnaldo (brother of a friend of a friend of a friend). He said to go get some coffee. I thought it was just in the neighborhood cafe but he drove 15 minutes to the seaside town Foz do Arelhlo. He was a mechanical engineer and an owner of a municipal water cleaning service/equipment company. We had a nice chat about his work history; quite a talented guy. When we were ready for the bill, I insisted on paying since I thought it would be substantial for a glass of white wine and a cup of Americano. I handed the credit card to the waitress and she said something about 5 Euro. Turns out the bill came to a grand total of 3 Euro which I cannot pay by credit card :). This just blew my mind!

For dinner, an upgrade from the night before – I had tuna instead of sardine. I like that better.

Day 3 (10/13) - The long search for gas canister

This one was shaping up to be a series of disappointment and despair but, at the end, like most of the other times, thing just worked out in a very unlikely manner.

Getting a gas canister for my MSR stove wasn’t a big concern in my preparation for the trip. That’s mistake #1 by trusting the limited comments from travelers online and my own assumptions based on the U.S. market. The information was not all that incorrect except that in here, Caldas or even Lisbon, the stores stopped stocking the camping items with the summer season over. The stove and canister types had to match in order to make it works. Even if I had brought my Gaz stove with the screw-in fitting, there’s less than 50% chance that I would get the right canister – the more common ones are the snap-in type.

For breakfast, not knowing any better, I went back to the same place for the same breakfast :). After that, I stopped by this indescript hardware store a block away to look for the M4 nut for my bike. They had it there and they charged me for one euro (I could have a big glass of wine for one euro ;)).

I got sent around to different places for the canister. The town wasn’t big but doing it on feet took a lot of walking. And none of the places had what I needed. Feeling tired and despair, I went back to the apartment to reevaluate the situation. At the time, I had the assumption that I had to have the stove to get me through the camping. As I found out later, that’s not completely true. In one of the stores I visited, I picked up one canister that had a screw-in type which I was pretty sure that its metric thread wouldn’t work with my MSR stove that has English thread. But a slim chance is better than no change. Sure enough, it didn’t work. And that’s when I did something that so unlike me – I took the parts to the hardware store that I bought the nut from earlier and asked them if the thread on the canister can be modified. As expected, the answer was a positively no. And then he pointed to the shelf where they did carry the canister with the non-threaded version. Well, that didn’t help me until, after some more broken communication, he told me they carried the stove also. Problem solved! I bought both the stove and the canister. The price was a bit steep but it was nothing compared with my excitement at that point.

One thing worth noting was the lunch place that I went to. It’s very close to my apartment and I walked past that a few times. They had the menu with pictures displayed outside and the octopus salad caught my eyes. This place would become my regular for the weeks to come.

Later on I had a dinner date with Teresa who took me to a traditional Portuguese restaurant. Lots of food and wine to go along with the good dinner conversation. How lucky to have someone like Teresa to show me around in a foreign country!

Day 4 (10/14) - Scouting the route to first campsite

The canister issue set me back a day in my planned itinerary. It’s not so much about the time lost (I have a lot of margin), it just meant I have to extend my Airbnb stay for a day. Fortunately it was available and got taken care of quickly.

I went out to Rocky’s, the restaurant where I had lunch the day before, for breakfast. The waiter was so nice and accommodating, and best of all, he spoke fluent English. He basically asked me what I like and told me not to worry what’s on the menu. I told him my preference and they delivered the breakfast beyond my expectation.

After breakfast, I did the routine walk in the park. It’s just beautiful, quiet, and refreshing, and there’s hardly anyone there. Riding out to the campsite Baia Azul turned out to be pretty straightforward. My main worry was to be on the bike the first time in this unfamiliar area, not to mention with the full load. It turned out the ride wasn’t bad at all. I kind of followed the Eurovelo 1 route that took me west to Foz de Arehho and then north to Baia Azul. In fact, I was already at Foz twice the days earlier. Once I got there, I realized how beautiful it is….

I had lunch at this restaurant by the seaside. I ordered the grilled seabass. It took forever but I think that’s the standard pace for Portuguese :). With the wine, the bill came to around 15 euros.

On the way back, I decided to follow the more direct route by Google. It was indeed much easier and didn’t have the rolling hills that I encountered earlier. (I somehow missed the same route the next day and was lost in the wood)

With that, I am packing up and ready for the ride the next day

Day 5 (10/15) - Starting the ride

Today was the moment of truth. As much as I felt pretty good with all the preparations and the test ride I did the day before, there were still a lot of anxiety of what lied ahead. I was now in a foreign country with all my belongings on the bike and sorting out any glitches would be challenging, to say the least. But that’s part of the adventure, right??

I made arrangement with Teresa to pick up my bike box so I can retrieve it upon my return. Then I proceeded to check out the Airbnb. Now I had the fully loaded bike that I needed to navigate out of the city. The loaded bike didn’t seem to give me any trouble until at one intersection I decided to challenge Google and used my instinct….bad decision. I was basically lost in the wood. Google didn’t do any good at that point. I was going to back track at some point when I saw a guy riding with a kid coming from the opposite direction. I flagged him down and told him my situation. He showed me the trail path to get to the campsite. The instructions were correct and I got to the campsite shortly after.

It was early afternoon when I got to the campsite and there’s plenty of time to do the check in and set up the tent. With the extension cable added, the bill came to 11.5 euro. I thought it was such a great deal until I found out all my other camps charged 8.50 euro. But those were without renting the extra cable :).

Mine was the only pitched tent in the entire campsite. This would be the same in all the other camps that I soon be visiting – camping season was over ;). All the facilities looked sparkling clean. It had laundry area, dedicated dishwashing area, and others that I probably didn’t get to see. Feeling pretty good, I headed out to the main strip just down the street. This was clearly a seaside tourist town which I later on found out is called Sao Martinhu.

With the camp fee about 10 usd, I felt like I should splurge on the dinner. That night I ate at an upscale restaurant by the seaside. When I asked what fresh fish they had and, sure enough, it was sea bass (but fillet this time). With a glass of wine, I walked out the door for less than 20 euros. I would soon find out how affordable the food was in Portugal!

I tried to get myself situated inside the tent before the sunlight was gone. I think I slept okay that night.

Day 6 (10/16) - Second stop Nazare

I probably had a decent sleep considering it’s inside the tent. I wasn’t going to make breakfast at the camp because I knew there were a lot of restaurants in that area. But it did take me a while to find the one that’s opened for breakfast. It was a nice place and I had a panini-like sandwich (couldn’t remember how I ordered that). With a cup of coffee, it came to less than 5 euros. Incredible! I strolled around the beach on the way back to the campsite. After packing up the stuff, I was ready to go.

The ride to the campsite Oribtur was quite straightforward after some struggles getting out of the city. Google map obviously did not work well in some of the small city roads, and I just went around and around the roundabout. Finally I had someone to ask and got back on the right track.

This campsite Orbitur de Valado turned out to be the one that we stayed before when our family visited here about 12 years ago.

Day 7 (10/17) - Third stop at Praia da Vieira

It rained a little overnight so my tent cover was a bit wet. Luckily there’s a lot of space to hang dry. The gas canister was another unbelievable careless thing that I did – I brought the wrong one with me after all the hassles I went through earlier! Turned out the campsite carried the right one and I bought another one. The whole breakfast thing took almost 1.5 hrs from start to finish. I had never done this without a flat surface in my previous camping (U.S. campsite almost always have a picnic table). It was a good practice nevertheless. After a cup of homemade coffee, two eggs and two pieces of bread, I packed up and was ready to go.

Right from the start, there were a couple of long climbs that got me totally out of breath. However, I also realized that I recovered quite fast once I finished the strenuous climb, But the killer one was yet to come. It almost got me surrendered. Keeping my head down and counting out the numbers in Chinese eventually got me through that. The view at the top was just spectacular. With my bike perched over the cliff, looking down the ocean and hearing the roaring waves felt so exhilarating. And I was so glad I had my homemade nuts with me, my energy level was running low at that point.

The next section of the rider was arguably the best scenic route I’ve ever ridden. Most of it was along the coastline where I could actually see the water. For miles and miles of riding, I probably saw only 3 to 5 other cyclists.

The campsite Praia da Vieira looked a bit iffy when I first got there. Folks there didn’t speak any English and took a long time to check in. He then told me to follow him on a four-wheelers with his buddy standing on a makeshift trailer. It just didn’t feel all that comfortable for me. After the seemingly eternal zig-zagging through the maze, we came to this plot of land that had nothing other than a pine tree. I picked the best spot I can and set up the tent. It’s actually wasn’t as bad as it looked. After that, I went to the waterfront to look for food. The town was very quiet. I was able to find a restaurant that I thought was the only one that opened (turned out most of them will open at around 7:30-8 pm). I had a beer and a tuna fish sandwich which was actually quite good.

I had plenty of time to get back to the campsite and took a shower before going to this nice restaurant for dinner. Again, I had seabass :). But this time I had a sangria instead of wine. Service was good, food was good, and the ambient was good. Couldn’t ask for anything better for less than 20 euros.

I think I slept okay. Only thing I remembered was the sound of wind and wave, knowing the next day was going to be a rough ride ahead.

Day 8 (10/18) - Fourth and last stop at Qaiso

Today it had just about all the elements one can think of in this bike trip. The day started it out quite nice. I think I had a decent sleep the night before. I knew today was about distance and the constant sound of wind wasn’t encouraging. As usual, first thing first – hunting down a good breakfast place. And I did find one. After having a good, big breakfast with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice I was ready to go. As it turned out, the wind was blowing from the south. So I was either riding the tail wind (I was heading north) or hit by the cross wind. I put in a good 30 miles when I decided to skip the campsite that I planned to stay. I wasn’t even sure that campsite was open and I would have to get off the main route to get there. It was still early and I felt like I still got some legs left. I rode in to this town called Figueira da Foz to regroup and find something to eat before moving on. The cafe was inside the train station so. just for curiosity, I asked the ticket person whether the train would go to Caldas and whether my bike can go on there. The answer to the first question was yes and the second one was probably yes by his body gesture. I didn’t think much of that until later on it became very relevant.

The ride to the next campsite was the steepest and longest that I had done so far. Keeping the head down and counting numbers was my way to keep me going one pedal at a time. Finally I made it to the campsite and, as expected, the receptionist told me I had the whole campground to pick from :). I asked for the closest restaurant and she said everything was closed except for a small grocery store. I was scratching my head – this looked like another beach side tourist town? Well, I wasn’t really that hungry and I figured I just went to get some veg and do the ramen/tuna/lettuce dinner. By the time I got back to the campsite, it started drizzling and the wind started kicking up. And that’s the beginning of the hell’s night 🙁 Setting up the tent in rain by one person was already tricky; added the wind, it’s more than twice as bad. Once the tent was up (without the tarp), it would just catch the wind and get blown away. Eventually I was able to get the tarp on and move all my panniers inside the tent. From that point on, the rain and wind just kept pounding and wouldn’t let up. That reminded me typhoon #3 in Hong Kong. All night long, I was lying on the mat inside my sleeping bag and tried to keep the tent and myself from blowing away. The morning light finally came….

Day 9 (10/19) - Trip back to Caldas

This turned out to be the most dramatic day of the trip. With the weather forecast of non-stop raining for indefinite days ahead, I knew the ride was over, 80 miles short of the final destination Porto. Making the decision to stop ridding was simple and clearly the right choice, but how I was going to get back to my home base Caldas da Rainha was a challenge. And that’s how the twist and turn of the story developed….with a nice ending 🙂

The night before, while I was fighting the wind and rain, I was strategizing how I was going to pack up in the morning and assessing what options I have to make it back to Caldas. With my fair weather camping experience, there’s no way I can pack up everything with the wind and rain. And without that, I can’t move on. That’s when I discovered how resourceful I was (tooting my own horn). I always pitch my tent as close to the bathroom/dish cleaning building as close as possible. So what I did was packed up everything in the panniers inside the tent. Once a got a break, I quickly moved all those pieces to the dishwashing area 50 feet from my tent. The critical time was when I took the last heavy piece away from the tent. If the wind kicked up, the tent would start flying. Luckily it didn’t before I hurried back. The next challenge was that I can’t break down the tent under that weather condition. What I did was to take the whole tent into the bathroom that I scouted out earlier. It had a large floor space and very clean, and there was only one person there taking shower. It was so easy to break the tent down in there. Now I had everything packed up on the bike ready to go. And here came the next amazing part of the story…:)

There’s a 4 stars beach front hotel which I walked passed yesterday. I figured I would go there first to inquire about transportation options and places for breakfast. Only plausible option I was contemplating at that time was to grab some coffee and food and try to ride my way back to Figuria da Foz where I found out about the train information earlier.

At the hotel the nice man at the front desk told me there’s nothing open in this town (season is over). Hah?? Impossible! He told me to try this one place and, sure enough, it was closed. I went back to the hotel and told the guy my situation, and he said he can call a taxi to take me to Fig. da Foz. I thought about taxi before but most of the ones I saw were 4-door sedan that won’t close to fitting my bike. He called his taxi driver friend and asked if he can put the bike in it. His friend said it’s possible and one of the wheels might have to come off (no problem with that but it will take a bit of work because of the fender and front racks). All of the sudden the light of hope brightened up. The taxi showed up and it was a good size hatchback. With just a little bit of fiddling, the whole bike was able to fit in without taking off any parts at all. Bingo! Here I was sitting inside this nice comfortable car and talking to Mario who spoke fluent English. And he loved to talk :). He’s 2 years younger than me and told me he’s been working in the hotel business in his previous career. As we were chatting, my mind was actually pre- occupied with the logistics with the train. I casually asked if he will drive people to Caldas. And the answer was a positively YES! Hallelujah! That’s the best 140 Euro I ever spent. I asked what the 2.40 display on the meter. He said it is for the additional luggage :). The ride only took little over an hour. I thought to myself it took me 4 days. But he was flying. I felt pretty good about the distance I put in. He dropped me off at my previous Airbnb place where I was familiar with the area. Side note: as I was waiting for the taxi at the hotel, I asked for the room rate there. It was 50 euro per person per night. I would have stayed there for a night if the taxi doesn’t work out. At least I will have food there.

Since this was the last minute move, there was no arrangement made for my stay in Caldas. That was the easy part. I went to my favorite breakfast place and basically worked out the lodging details for the next week – a combination of motel and the Airbnb while I was eating my lunch. Bringing my tablet with the eSIM turned out to be a very good decision.

The motel (Residencial D. Carlos) was old and the room was small. The bathroom was small even by my standard but everything was clean and in good working condition. That’s really all I needed. After unpacking and taking a hot shower and back to civilization, I was out for an afternoon snack and later on went to a Georgian restaurant for dinner which wasn’t all that impressive as the online reviews said.

As I later found out, the gentleman in the motel was nice enough to put me in one of the only 2 rooms on the floor that looked out to the park, it’s quite a nice view.

First night on a bed in a week and I slept quite well!

Day 10 (10/20) - Day of cleaning

Today was mostly a cleaning day. I got all my wet stuff out and did as much washdown as possible in the shower. There was a lot of fine wet sands stuck to the various parts of the tent and luckily they flushed down the drain quite easily. It had a good breeze that day so they dried relatively quick. I even took the main tent across the street to the park where they had long benches for me to spread the tent.

The going in and out of the motel was like something I watched in the old movie. On my way out, I either passed the guy my room key or just hung it on the board next to the tiny front desk. One guy who worked there spoke amazingly fluent English with no accent (unlike Mario). Later on I found out he moved to Connecticut when he was 4. Everyone has its own unique story.

The Lunch of the Day at my regular restaurant was some kind of cuttlefish mixed with bean stew, my kind of food that didn’t take much chewing. 6 Euro might seem ridiculously cheap to us but I think it’s quite substantial for the locals. I tried as much as not showing this perception. The workers there were so catering and I felt like a VIP there. One of the workers Igor speaks fluent English as well.

At night I tried this place and ordered the Perch, It was steamed and I didn’t like it as much as the pan fried sea bass that I had previously.

Day 11 (10/21) - Trip to Lisbon

It is a last minute decision to head out the Lisbon. The morning started out with heavy rain and it’s looking that I will stay put in Caldas. As the rain subsided I decided to give it a go, if for nothing else, to scout out the transportation from Caldas to Lisbon. I’ve already done some homework the night before and checked our the bus station, which is only a 7 minute walk from my motel.

The breakfast was another expected good story to be told :). I tried this cafe inside the grocery store Continente where I do all my shopping, There’s always a long line there. I looked at the menu and the only pictures available was for the #4 combo. It looked good and I ordered that. The first sign of troubles was that the guy came around the counter with a notepad and started asking me for all the choices. I started sweating as the line behind me started building up. I did as many ‘yes’ and as quickly as possible. I was stunned when I looked at the two trays of food I ended up getting for 4.5 euro – Scrambled eggs (~3), toast, ham and cheese croissant sandwich, coffee (latte) and a glass of fresh squeeze orange juice!

I then went straight to the bus station and tried to find out when’s the next express bus to Caldas. It was about 45 minutes away. I bought the ticket and went back to hotel to gather a few things. The bus is super comfortable and I got the front seat with the panoramic view. It took about an hour to get to Lisbon,

Once I got to Lisbon, my goal was simply find an arbitrary destination to walk to and then back. Pasteis de Belem, about 1.5 hr walk, was a good choice, and so I thought. I had to take a subway down to the center to start the walk. I didn’t make it there. I stopped about 45 minutes into the walk. The route was simply not pleasant, just a lot of city traffics. I did stop at a Japanese restaurant for a nice plate of sushi. With the miso soup and a lemonade/grapefruit drink, it came to 14 euro.

On the way back, I stumbled into this gigantic food hall called Time Out market. It was quite impressive with all kind of food you can imagine, presented in upscale manners. I later found out from online that this is indeed a must-visit place for the first time traveler to Lisbon. I walked around the hall a couple of times, contemplating which new dish I was going to try. At the end, I picked the usual Peixe do Dia (fish of the day). I think it’s a sea bass again 🙂

Made it home was uneventful, For the subway, I hurried into train that was about to leave and it was going the opposite direction. Good thing was that you can just get off the next stop and walk over to the platform on the other side, as long as you don’t exit the gate. Waiting and finding the express bus in this grand central station was a bit unnerving because of the crowd and you won’t know which bay it will show up at until 15 minutes before the departure time. The ticket person told me not to worry, they will make the announcement. That’s great…announcement in Portuguese! Turned out it wasn’t that difficult to spot my bus number in the bay area.

On the way back to the motel, I stopped by a cafe and picked up a piece of cake. It’s like a sport bar where lots of people are watching a soccer game.

Day 12 (10/22) - Moved back to Airbnb

That was something I looked forward to – moving back to the Airbnb I stayed previously. Residencial D. Carlos was adequate but not a place you want to hang out. On the other hand, the Airbnb just felt like home. It has all the amenities, and more, for my normal living needs. What’s even better was that this time I got the whole apartment; the hostess was not staying there. That made trying with various cooking other than ramen and canned fish a little more conducive 🙂

The decision to go out to Lisbon yesterday was a good one. It didn’t rain since I left Caldas. Today was raining quite heavily when I got up. I was going to my usual ‘Rocky’s cafe’ but apparently it opened late on Saturday. So I went back to the cafe inside the grocery story. This time I ordered the right thing 🙂

I was glad that I picked this motel which is only a 5-minute walk from the Airbnb. That made the moving a bit more manageable. The only glitch was that the hostess forgot (or thinking I will be showing up much later) to place the key where it’s supposed to. I just left everything outside the door and the bike downstairs and headed for lunch in La Viva the shopping mall. Teresa got back to me and have everything straightened out.

Day 13 (10/23) - A trip to Obidos

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Day 14 (10/24) - Rest Day

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Day 15 (10/25) - Shopping at fish market

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Day 16 (10/26) - Visited University of Coimbra

Today, as usual, while I was eating my homemade breakfast, I checked the hourly weather. (I soon found out the daily forecast was not all that reliable; it just showed rain, rain, and rain.) I had one more place I was thinking of going to but not a must – Coimbra. The hourly forecast looked good and I checked the express bus right away. The timing seemed good and I got myself moving in no time. The bus station was only 10 minutes away and the direction was very straightforward.

As much as I wanted to practice my Portuguese, typing in the ticket information into Google Translate was much safer than my verbal communication 😉 It was probably about a 20 minutes wait before the bus showed up. I used that on the trip to Lisbon so no surprise there. The only surprise was that, for each different bus that went to Combria, they had different routes, stops, and duration. The one I went on happened to be the fastest one, 1 hr 40 min as opposed to the others that took 2 hrs 20 min. I thought I was lucky and, to the most extent, it was. It needed to have one transfer at Leiria. And if my first bus was on time, I had exactly 10 minutes. It wasn’t on time. As the bus exited the freeway and was twisting and turning in the city, the clock was running out. When the sight of the bus station finally showed up, I had 3 minutes. And it’s one of those stations where there were multiple buses waiting in multiple bays; you will have to look for your bus. I figured I probably won’t make the connection and I will just catch the next bus. The bus stopped and I was able to get off the back door right away. Instead of searching, I handed my ticket to the bus driver who’s handling the boarding for the bus right next to ours. He scanned my ticket and he showed me in. The bus left right after that. Was that another divine intervention, I thought?

Combria was the former capital of Portugal and is the home of the prestigious University of Coimbra, one of the oldest universities in Europe. This just felt like another metropolitan city when I got off the bus. As with most of the unfamiliar cities, I googled the tourist information and it was about 20 min away. The office was in this very touristy part of the city; it was great, two birds with one stone. It looked quite charming. Probably because of the off-season, there were quite a few tourists but not overwhelmingly crowded. The university and other attractions were not too far from that location. I tried to go to this one place for lunch but, for the first time at this hour, the small restaurant was full right after it opened at 12:30. I actually was a bit relieved because I really didn’t want to spend too much time for lunch not knowing how much time I needed to see what I will see. So I settled with a bakery where a tour group was congregated in front earlier listening to a tour guide explaining something. I had a beef pie, vegetable soup, and a glass of orange juice for a mere 6.5 euros. There I chatted up with the two Canadian women from Toronto who rented a car from Porto and drove south.

The campus turned out not all that impressive. This was supposed to be the equivalent of Oxford/Harvard but it didn’t look anywhere close to the others’ magnificence. After walking around as much as I can I headed back. On the way, I stopped at this Tapa place that I saw on the way earlier. Since it was tapa and I was just by myself, I asked the waitress whether I could have half the portion of lamb and half the portion of shrimp. After she went off to consult the kitchen, she came back and told me the portion was really small so it’s not feasible. I chose lamb chop. Well, the size was in the eyes of the beholder – 3 good size pieces of chop and they will be an entree size in U.S. That was the best lamb chop as far as I can remember. They were tender and had no gamey taste at all. There was honey and almonds in the sauce and it’s just the right balance. I licked the plate clean :).

The bus back took a different route. There was no transfer but it detoured and stopped at quite a few places. It was long compared to the outbound – 2 hr 20 min. When I got home I was craving for my ramen/tuna/leaf lettuce. It hit the spot.

My hostess texted me earlier saying there will be two guests checking in to the other room but I have yet to see them as of this writing.

Day 17 (10/27) - Hair cut and Sushi

Today was a day of laying back after yesterday’s long trip to Coimbra. My hostess texted me a day earlier that 2 new guests will be checking in. I knew they were in the room but I didn’t get to meet them yet. I went on to make my gourmet breakfast which I kinda look forward to every morning. My version of latte tasted really good – heating up the milk in the microwave and the espresso capsule from the Nescafe. Something I am still puzzled about the dairy products in Portugal as well as the rest of Europe are 1) I have no reaction to the milk like I have in the U.S. and 2) They don’t refrigerate eggs or milk.

I went to the park for my usual morning walk. The temperature was comfortable, the air was fresh, and the surroundings were so peaceful.

Then on to the farmers’s market. Today I had a rare find. Yam (or sweet potato) was everywhere but I never saw the cooked ones being sold. I picked up two of those, along with a few clementines and a persimmon. As soon as I got home, I heated up one of the yams in the microwave and they tasted like I never had tasted before. I always like yam but, 9 out of 10 times, they were too fibrous. These ones in Caldas were sweet and tasted like mashed potatoes, no fiber at all.

After puddling around the apartment for a little bit, I headed out for lunch. I had my site set on a Japanese restaurant but it wasn’t open, so I settled with my trusty Rocky’s.

The plate of the day was a pleasant surprise – liver with onions. I wasn’t a big fan of liver but it was surprisingly good, no gamey taste at all. And I cleaned up the whole thing. Again, a single portion of entree was usually enough for at least 1.5 persons in the U.S. So I ate a lot, but it’s not heavy. With a glass of white wine (1 euro), it came to 7 euro total! I actually told them not to fill the glass too full but, well, they had different ideas of what full was 🙂

Walking after lunch, especially a big one, was a must. I took a little different route today and when nature called, I needed to find a restroom quickly. This is one thing that impressed me so much even though I’ve been here for almost 3 weeks now. Lot of buildings, public and private, didn’t look like it’s well maintained. But the cleanliness was just top notch. I saw more people cleaning in Portugal than any other countries that I’ve been to. Back to the point…I found the bathroom in the park. The outside looked like any other ones in a public park, but the inside was definitely cleaner than the one in my own house 😉

Now that I was relieved, what’s next? There’s still a few hours before dinner. Well, how else to immerse yourself into the culture other than getting a haircut. I came across a few barber shops and I decided to settle with this one where the two employees wore some pretty fancy uniforms :). Those uniforms ended up costing me a few euro more. Most of the ones had the price published for 5 or 6 euros. I paid a whopping 8.5 euros. What a rip off! Wait..Tacoma was running $20 for the hair cut now.

The evening turned out to be quite entertaining. This Japanese restaurant I read online had some reallying interesting history behind it. Regardless of the credibility of the story, it’s another good cocktail story 🙂

There’s no one else in the restaurant the whole 2 hours I was there. After I sat down and looked at the menu for a few minutes (I already read the menu before I came), the chef’s wife ‘Ju_Zella??’ came up to my table and, instead of asking me what I want, asked me where I came from and whether I was visiting. That must have been a full 30 minutes conversation that had nothing to do with the food. It was about how her husband came to be a sushi chef and also how they and other Portuguese were struggling to survive partially because, well, people like me (not exactly). Just like any other place, including the U.S., any area that seemed attractive to people that came from a higher cost of living, they will start moving in and make everything more expensive. And the locals always ended up suffering from it. Lots of expat from the U.K. and U.S. were moving in. In fact, the flat mates that I finally met earlier were from the U.K. and they were in the process of getting Portuguese residency. The guy Mark was so fed up with the decision of Brexit and the current situation in the U.K.

Back to the dinner. I ended up getting a plate of sashimi/nigiri combination. There was only salmon, tuna, and dodura (sea bream??). They all tasted fresh but I was hoping for more variety. I had to pause in the middle of my meal to chat with the chef as he was telling me how he prepared the fish and how he can get any fish I want if given enough notice (at least a day). I told him I would come back for the unagi which is my favorite.

Day 18 (10/28) - Hanging out in Caldas

The morning had been raining non-stop until 10ish. I was about to finish my breakfast when the hostess’s husband came out from their room. I was a little bit stunned because I didn’t know when they came in last night. Now we have a full horse – 6 adults and 4 cats. After my usual big breakfast, I did my morning walk inside the La Vie shopping mall instead of the park because of the rain.

While I was in the mall, I decided to do a more thorough study on the whole ATM thing. Had Meena not brought this up, I would have continued to blindly accept that 12.5% markup everytime I made a transaction (not that I made frequent withdrawals since I paid for most of my purchases with the credit card). With the sample size of two, I had concluded, with the combination of the Charles Schwarb debit card and selecting the ‘rejected conversion’ option, I got the market rate and virtually no transaction fee at all. Had I done that earlier, I would have saved myself about 40 USD. Good lesson learned! In hindsight, this simply was the same option that we always encountered when we used credit card in foregin country. The most common one was in Canada where they usually had you to select from these options when you paid by credit card, even though the verbiage was much clearer.

Everyone Portuguese I met would tell you Portugal is a poor country. But by my account, if you set the price aside, you can’t really tell certain areas were any different from the first world countries. In fact, some aspects were arguably better.

I couldn’t remember why I stopped by Continente for another breakfast. Most likely it was because of the bathroom thing. I still hadn’t been able to get over that ridiculously cheap price (but not cheap quality) for the meal ;).

Once the rain subsided, I walked to the farmers’ market to pick up the yam and persimmon (still couldn’t figure out the difference between the soft and the hard ones). Nothing better to do, I walked over to the Rede expresso station and asked for the direction to Mafra Palace which I did not wholeheartedly want to go. As expected, I will have to take the bus to Lisbon first and make another transfer. Next top was the train station that was only 5 minutes away. I asked for directions to go to Sao Martinho, a popular seaside town where I was told they have good seafood such as lobster. It’s only 2 stations from Caldas so it’s quite doable if I can make the infrequent train schedule.

I walked by a realtor place and decided to go in and asked about the real estate properties around here. This is totally out of my element, and that’s what retirement does to you – plenty of time and there’s nothing to lose :). After dropping off the food I bought earlier, I headed to Rocky’s and, without needing to communicate much, they knew what I was going to order – Plato do dia and a glass of red wine.

I decided to give the butcher shop a second try. The last piece was quite tender (yet to find out what cut that was, filet mignon??). This time I had the ribeye picture shown to them so I thought I got that right (vazia). It turned out not to be as good as I expected. Also, the apartment was so full that I wasn’t all that comfortable making the food and eating in the kitchen.

And before I headed to bed, I took the list of items to Yasuke for tomorrow’s dinner – 6 unagi nigiri, 4 hamachi, 2 shrimp tempura, and 1 agedashi toful. Let’s see how it turned out 🙂

Day 19 (10/29) - Another day around town

The morning was wet. I actually got caught in heavy downpour while I was walking in the park. There’s really not much happening today other than catching up with some journal stuff. I switched between the La Vie mall and Continente for the hangouts; they both were quite comfortable.

For lunch I tried this new place that I walked past days earlier. I ordered a cod dish on the Plato do dia menu and it turned out to be quite good. It’s one of those dishes that mixes the main ingredient (cod in this case) with other ones like potatoes, beans, and eggs. It’s my kind of fish dish because it had no bones and I didn’t have to chew much 🙂 The dish cost 6.5 euros and I think the total is around 8 euros with the wine.

The most disappointing food in the whole trip was the sushi that I custom ordered ahead. The unagi was at room temperature and I never had it like that before; they actually tasted a bit fishy and I left 2 pieces behind. Both agedashi tofu and shrimp tempura were mediocre. In hindsight it was kind of ignorant on my part. The restaurant didn’t have much business and expecting fresh fresh was just a dumb idea.

Day 20 (10/30) - Trip to Sao Martinho

Today more than made up for the two wet days earlier. I was starting to have cabin fever🙂 I knew from the forecast that this was going to be one of the few good days left for an excursion. Someone I talked to earlier recommended this place called Sao Martinho that was supposed to have very good seafood restaurants. I looked it up online and the place looked awfully familiar. It was only one train stop away from Caldas (opposite direction to Obidos I visited days earlier). The train didn’t run that often and I had plenty of time to finish my morning routines. As usual, the park walk was so nice and tranquil and I never got tired of it. I also got to do my second breakfast at Continente and a quick trip to farmers’s market for a few persimmons.

The train was already at the station way before the departure time, so I had time to snoop around the train. It’s only then I confirmed the train did have an allocated section for the bike.

But even then I didn’t know exactly how it worked, like where you would park the bike. As if someone read my mind, a couple with the bikes came on the train and they moved to the very front cart that seemed strange to me. They struggled a bit to get their bikes situated that I couldn’t see clearly from where I sat. Only when I got off the train (the couple stayed on) I was able to see from outside the storage of the bikes.

The train station didn’t seem familiar to me. But after walking 50 feet towards the water, I realized this was exactly the same place as my first campsite.

I also later found out that this train could have taken me back to Caldas from the place where I was stranded on my last day of the bike ride. This opened up a lot of opportunities for future planning.

First thing in order was to hunt down a good place for lunch. It was still a bit early and restaurants in Portugal usually don’t open until 12:30 for lunch. I basically scanned most of the restaurants in the bay and finally settled with this one (just a hunch). I ordered the grilled octopus and this turned out to be one of the best meals I had in Portugal (the lamb chop in Coimbra could probably be a tie).

I had octopus salads before in Caldas and they were good, as Portugal is famous for octopus. But that was nothing compared with this dish. The grilled flavor and the natural taste of the octopus were amazing. It didn’t have anything added to it, not even salt (I think). The side dish was so tasty and good. It has a lot of ingredients in it; it tasted familiar but I can’t make out some of them. There’s a good dose of olive oil and butter for sure. One thing I was proud of myself, something that I read online earlier, was to realize that the condiments they brought to the table were not free. Not that I mind paying for it, it’s that I would be full before the meal came. I was hungry and the octopus dish took about 30 to 45 minutes to make (only 2 tables in the restaurant). They looked tempting nevertheless.

As I was ready to pay, the waiter told me I had one more thing to finish up. He signaled his coworker and he poured me a liqueur and a small piece of cookie. Well, it didn’t take much for me to finish that.

I would be more than happy to pay $25 or more for this dish in the U.S. In fact, the portion was large enough for 2 persons. With all that, the grand total came to 17.5 euros!

The challenge with having all these foods and drinks was that you have to work it off. And this place provided the best environment for this activity. I walked around here before so it wasn’t a surprise to me. The one place I was pleasantly surprised was this long boardwalk that I missed last time I was here. This boardwalk must be the longest that I can remember of anywhere. And the fact that it’s right along the water was just fantastic.

Day 21 (10/31) - Dinner at Taberna do Manuelvina

Teresa delivered the bike box in the morning….

Day 22 (11/1) - 2nd Trip to Obdios

Today was expected to be a nice day. I knew I would go on an excursion. I would either go to Mafra Palace or Obidos. Mafra Palace was never that appealing to me. It’s another European palace but the better reason was that the transportation was a bit complicated – I needed to go to Lisbon first and then catch another bus to Mafra which was in the opposite direction. Obidos was a must-go place because I needed to pick up the Jinjiha to bring back to the U.S. Turned out to be a good choice.

As usual, after finishing up the breakfast at home, I went for a walk at the park. The train departed at 11:16 am so I had plenty of time.

I was so familiar with the train station by now and it took me less than 15 minutes to walk there. After getting the round trip ticket (2.5 euros) and confirming the time, I went to a nearby cafe just to kill some time. The puff pastry was something we had in Hong Kong and this one tasted quite good.

Something I learned during dinner with Teresa the night before was that their Halloween trick-or-treat is different from ours. For one, they did it during the day, and I believe they did it on both Oct 31 (Halloween) and Nov 1 (All Saints Day). They asked for bread instead of sweets (I think).

Only one other person who got off the train with me. She’s an American from Virginia. I soon found out she’s another one looking to move to Portugal. She’s been scouting all over Portugal. She casually mentioned the upcoming midterm election results that she’s concerned with. I showed her the way and we split once we got to the entrance of the castle.

I got to see a little more than the last time I was here. Climbing up to the high spots on the castle wall was not as physical as my rubber feet. Since these structures were old relics and they don’t have safety measures built around them, one needs to be careful with the steps. It didn’t seem like it bothered the tourists much. And I actually preferred the originals than with all the altercations just to keep a few wreckless tourists safe.

I went to the same place for lunch. Once again you sense the culture of Portuguese. As with the other western European countries, they worked slowly And it’s not the individuals who were working slow, it’s the system they set up was slow. And it’s not a bad thing at all, as compared with Hong Kong the go-go vibe.

On the way back while I was waiting for the train at the station. I heard the commotion and, sure enough, my comrades from Taiwan, one man and three women showed up. I said hi to them in Chinese and the first thing they said was “Are you here touring the train station too?”. I said “ No, I am just catching the train back home”….:)

I was going to do the ramen/tuna/veg for dinner but there were so many activities in the kitchen by the hostess and her husband. Checking the time I decided to just head out. I settled with this place next to the old motel I stayed at earlier. There was always a bit of hesitation because the dining area was tucked in that you couldn’t see from the outside. But I saw their menu post outside a number of times and I wanted to try the vazia (supposedly ribeye). As usual, it came with two good sized pieces and they were quite good and tender. The one that surprised me was the french fries. I always dismissed that just because I thought of that as fast food. But theirs tasted quite a bit different, pretty sure that was freshly cut and hadn’t been frozen. I ate all the fries and didn’t touch the rice. I overate and it took me a long walk to barely feel comfortable ;(

Day 23 (11/2) - Last Day in Portugal

To be added