In case you’re wondering

 

Much more civilized for a fat old white guy…

Stopped for lunch in the town square.

I had the Portuguese cousin of the poke bowl. Sarah had those critters that spent the whole meal staring at me.

For desert, Sarah had ordered a chocolate mousse, so I ordered the caramel one. We then found out that they were out of her mouse, so she ordered something else, that took a minute to get there.

So I got my caramel mousse. Not so much mousse as a bowl of sauce. A less substantial body than mine would have been in a diabetic coma before it was finished. I can take one for the team. You’re welcome…

 

A couple of observations

 Let’s get the contentious one out of the way first:

Have you ever noticed that, whatever bar or restaurant you sit in, and no matter what country you’re in, there is usually a spirits shelf, right?

I would guess that 95% of those bottles have their label in English. 

Is that an indictment of the colonialist leanings of the English-speaking overlords repressing the locals with alcohol addiction?

Or is it the entrepreneurial locals who know that the dimwitted westerners will make them rich as they get legless on overpriced spirits they think they recognize?

Now here’s the second one:

This is an observation from a lifetime of waiting for the better half to queue for the bathroom in a public space.

So, after years of study, my informed conclusion is that the only valid reason for gender reassignment surgery is public bathrooms. 

There is always a queue at the women’s. There is never a queue at the men’s. It’s that simple. 

Missed concert starts, dinners out, bus tours. Any time you rely on access to a public bathroom, prepare for the time you spend in that queue to be the hilight of your outing. 

The only place I ever saw that issue addressed from a design perspective, was the pre-earthquake Christchurch Convention Centre. 

In their foyer, there was the entrance to the gents on the left, and ladies on the right. Other than a group of urinals on the boy’s end, the entire width of the building between these two doors, is a row of cubicles. Common sense from a plumbing perspective. A narrow strip running practically the full width. Nothing particularly radical there. 

The clever bit was that the wall between his and hers was movable. It can slide left or right. So let’s say there are 12 cubicles in the row. For some events, there could be 6 cubicles each. For the next, there may be 2 for men and 10 for women. At a bloke-centric event, it could be 3 for her and 9 for him. Genius simplicity. 

But that building is no more, and I have not seen that solution anywhere else. 

So come on over ladies. Have the operation so that you can stand and pee, just like the rest of us. 

In and out, tute de suite. The process is not pretty, but it is functionally expedient. Gives new meaning to ‘standing room only’. 

…just one more thing…

The dad from Barbados was wearing a New Zealand souvenir t-shirt. He told me that he had looked at Portugal t-shirts, but the quality wasn’t there. 

Conclusion?

The Chinese-made New Zealand souvenir t-shirts come from a better quality factory than the Chinese-made Portugal souvenir t-shirts. 

Viaducts up the Wazoo

The drive through the Douro valley towards Porto is probably the most dramatic of the tour so far.

Left and right are the tiered vineyards of the region, providing The raw materials for the fortified wine we know as Port. 

We stopped in to look around the gardens of the famous Mateus winery. 

From here we drove on some of the most elegant engineering we have ever experienced. 

From many of Portugal’s tallest viaducts to its longest tunnel, we drove with ease through the mountainous north of the country on the new A4 motorway. Also called the Transmontana Highway. Clearly nothing to do with the state in Amrika.

Before these modern marvels of civil engineering, grapes would travel from these vineyards to Porto primarily by river. Road travel would have been steep, winding and slow. Motion sickness would definitely have been a thing not many years ago. I’m just glad I’m doing it now. 

All aboard

 There are 46 on this tour, so I’m not even going to try to describe them all. Suffice it to say, there are the obligatory Amrikan families. 

There are also a surprising number of Canadian families.

A mum, dad and daughter from Trinidad, a couple from Australia, and a few singles. One lady is a school principal from Dublin, another has retired to Florida.

Surprisingly, there are two sets of twins onboard. Lucky they didn’t join us in Germany. Apparently scientists in Germany once had quite the fascination with twins. 

As we leave the area, we see a cork processing factory, to see a statue depicting the work, as well as piles of the peeled bark waiting to be processed.

As we know, cork starts life as bark on the cork oak tree. It is carefully peeled every 9-years, weighted for months to flatten, then boiled. Bottle stopper corks are then punched out of these sheets. 

Leftover material is then granulated and further processed into almost fabric-thin sheets, which are much stronger and more flexible than any cork you have found floating in your wine. 

As a result, they make bags, hats, shoes and whatever else they can think of. 

I could make some shit up, but…

… no, I got nothing. 

We stopped to stretch our legs in a hilltop village called Castelo de Vide. Cute village with more steep alleyways. People who live on hills have no excuse to be unfit. 

I wish I could park my car in the foyer. 

If I had a foyer. 

And of course, there’s the obligatory castle on the hill. 

Near town is an old bridge, built by the Roman’s. Still in use today. 

Why somebody decided to paint the edges white escapes me. Won’t tampering with it affect its resale value as an authentic collectible?

And did I mention?

 

Went to Évora. Another walled city, home to a famous university. 

There are walls, ruins and churches. 

Found the night guards waiting for their shift

Found an air-conditioned restaurant for lunch. Al fresco just wasn’t going to cut it today. I’m already medium rare. 

Inside another cathedral, monks had taken the bones from the unknown, unimportant and undocumented citizens who had been buried outside the walls, and build a chapel in their honour. It is called a bone church. 

Then it was off to Monsaraz, on the border with Spain. 

A fort on the hill, overlooking the river border. 

The largest artificial lake in Europe was privately built here to provide drinking water, irrigation and hydroelectric power. 

Travel Sims

On our first few overseas trips, we decided we didn’t need a local sim. We would just wifi surf between the hotels and occasional malls. It’s not as though we had people to call, or a social media addiction.

On one trip to the States, we prepurchased a sim and had it sent to us before we left home.

In other countries, we streamlined the process, and picked up a sim on arrival. Much simpler. There are often really good deals. I once picked up a sim in Sydney that cost about $2/day, repurchased every day. Perfect if you’re only there for a few days, which is often the case for us. There is a data limit, but because it renews daily, it is effectively unlimited. Unless you want to download the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Every day.

But every country required a new sim. We learned that lesson in Vancouver. I told this story at the time, but in essence, Sarah stepped onto a train before me, and the door closed in front of me. What we hadn’t realised is that Canada doesn’t regard themselves as Amrikan. That means that an Amrikan sim stops working when you cross the border.

Best results when buying a new sim is to let the person selling it install and set it up on your phone. That way, you walk out of the airport with a functional phone. 

eSIMs have had fairly a slow adoption, but they are almost ubiquitous by now. 

There are lots of providers, but I have yet to see them advertised at the arrivals shops, and certainly not with those short-life tourist plans. 

Just segwaying for a moment… There is a staff travel app, where you can find loadings for prospective flights you want to take. Each request costs one point. You can earn points by answering requests for loadings on your airline. I have quite a tally, and someone in Christchurch who shall remain nameless has built up quite the addiction. 

Anyway, the app, unsurprisingly called StaffTraveller, has a companion eSIM product. It operates completely differently from any other package I’ve found. 

First, it’s data only. No issue for me, but may be to some. 

Second, it works in about 90% of the countries in the world, so gone are the days of buying a new sim or eSIM every airport. Unfortunately, one country on that very short 10% list is Samoa. So it didn’t work for the few days we were there.

Finally, and possibly as a result of the multi-country nature mentioned above, the focus is on data use rather than days or weeks. 

When you buy a package, you are paying for data.

You will notice in the small print that it is valid for 365 days. That’s right, you can use it for a year. 

Roll-over isn’t a thing, because people use up their data before the year is up. If not you bought a package that was too big for your usage.

If you need more data, buy another package and it will kick off when the last one goes dry.

I bought a 10G package in April this year, and I’m just over half way through it. I probably won’t need to top up before we get home.

So USD38 for this trip is an amazing deal. Imagine spending that and doing a handful of countries within 12 months. As long as it’s not Samoa🤷‍♂️

Faro

 Took a trip this morning to Faro.

Officially the capital of this Algarve region, but smaller than the towns we've seen recently.

There is a beachfront, overlooking a lagoon with a few islands.

The tranquility is disturbed with clockwork regularity by trains or aircraft. The airport is just over there.

Popped into a church in the old town. 

I think I counted 9 decorative alters, 3 on each of 3 walls.

Seems a bit of overkill to me.

And for good measure, the one in the middle had a modern addition

Covering all bases doesn't even begin to describe it.

Had a wander around the local streets before leaving.

Saw a sardine museum. No, really. They sell sardines, but all down one wall is an anthology of sardines over the years.

Somebody needs to get out more.

Then stopped on the way back to the hotel at another church, this time in Almancil. A tiler's nightmare.

No opportunity at either church for Sarah's Votive by stealth.

Took the shuttle into Albufeira from the hotel to catch our own dinner.

We were too early for a couple of restaurants that caught Sarah's eye, but there were plenty more to choose from.

Where we chose had this fine gentleman for protection. There was a big screen and people were watching Liverpool playing a friendly against somebody. Within the first 5 minutes they were 2-nil.

Lots of what I might call "2-euro" shops, selling souvenirs made in China.

But it was the clientele that takes the cake. Lots of misspelt youth from the UK come over for a cheap summer holiday.

There are hundreds of hotels, and thousands of B&B-style accomodation, just around Albufeira.

While it's a fun place to visit during the day, by night it becomes more and more for the Brits, what The GC is for kiwis.

We'll be tucked up in bed with our cocoa by the time the real celebrations began. I know, right?

Something odd about the language here. 

There’s a word they use here that means cool, or ‘groovy’ to those of you from a previous generation. 

I don’t know how it’s spelled, but it’s pronounced ‘feesh’. 

I thought it was an Aussie piss-take on kiwi fish and chips. 

Apparently not. 

Oh and by the way…

Just saying

Had a light dinner before heading to tonight’s hotel in Albufeira

Heard this guy in a little square