One year – September 2015 part X
Nowt like this in the University of Sunderland
Or this!
Or this…
Was like this on many an occasion though!
The song that’s just finished on iTunes was the Status Quo version of The Wanderer, a tune that couldn’t be more appropriate when writing about Coimbra, because wandering around is the way to appreciate the city.
First ports of call on our first full day in Coimbra were all university related.
Velha Universidade is a mix of 16th-18th century buildings with its Clock Tower, Biblioteca Joanina library and sweeping views over the city. Caroline spent more time exploring the buildings than I as I went in search of things that I could relate to.
The surroundings were much grander than those at my alma mater and it was interesting to look down into lecture rooms which were steeped in history rather than concrete and plasterboard.
The student cafe wasn’t posh by any means and there wasn’t a barista in sight as I ordered um bica to top up caffeine levels.
This was one aspect of life in Portugal that I’d come to appreciate – that the simpler places were more relevant to me than those aimed at foodies, hipster beardies and those who like to pay over the odds for a cup of milky coffee with a chocolate topping or a fancy design marked out on the top of the milk.
Whilst I’d been sampling the coffee, Caroline had been heading to the heights around the top floor of the University and then the Clock Tower.
Once we caught up with each other, it was time to head back into the student cafe for a very cost effective lunch. Students, lecturers and tourists mixed together in the queue and whilst Caroline ordered a salad, I ordered some good old fashioned comfort food – the Portuguese take on sausage and mash and a bottle of Sagres Radler.
Although the dining area was a bit crowded, we managed to grab a table on the balcony/sun trap behind the serving area…
Once lunched out, it was time for our time in Biblioteca Joanina. It was impressive in several ways, but the overall experience didn’t do much for me.
Heathen tendencies? Quite possibly, even though I have studied history.
I’ve slowly, but surely become more interested in the history that we didn’t learn about at school – 1900 onwards, the political intrigue of the 1950’s and 1960’s, technology and the stuff that’s now coming to light about Thatcher’s Britain on so many different levels.
But I digress. Once back outside, we started to wander around Coimbra via its back streets and alleyways. A few bits and pieces were picked up along the way, along with a couple of pairs of ear rings for Caroline.
Our second full day saw more of the same as we had a restful day doing nothing more than mooching around the centre and down by the riverside.
Cafes in squares or near the Tourist Information Centre provided food and refreshment and the Science Museum the last piece of brain fodder before we headed back to Casa Pombal for a siesta, shower and our last evening meal in Coimbra before we went to Lisbon for the flight home.
And we went back to the scene of the Great Pig Cheek Encounter. The same guy spotted us and pointed us in the direction of a good table overlooking the Jardim da Manga fountain and handed us the menu.
If memory serves me right, Caroline stayed away from the pork stew by having a fish course whilst I went for an identifiable meat course (details are hazy as I don’t have the receipt to refer to), but on this occasion there weren’t any problems with either choices main course.
With wine, beer, desserts, Moscadet and coffee rounding off the meal, we didn’t need any energy drinks to give us wings to get back to our digs for our last night in Casa Pombal.
Packing up didn’t take long after breakfast, but as we’d booked a lunchtime train back to Lisbon, we had time to kill. A little bit of mooching time gave way to coffee and a read of a Brit newspaper before more coffee, a light lunch and a wander back to the railway station.
With Lonely Planet Portugal quoting rail fares between the cities as €20 each, we were happy to book advance first class tickets for €15 each.
Yes, the advance bookings for travel and digs had limited us a couple of times and this was one of those times. Three nights in Coimbra had been one night too many and we should have headed back to Lisbon sooner.
Our last night in Portugal was spent at Casa Oliver, but on a room only basis. The wander into Lisbon centre stretched the legs a bit more as we negotiated quite a few people heading out for a stroll, something to eat or a family night out.
Ristorante da Vinci beckoned once more for a meal, dessert and drinks before the walk back to Casa Oliver. Only we didn’t walk it all as we had a few euros left to use on our Viva Viagem travel cards, so we hitched a lift on Elevador da Gloria.
We’d walked past Elevador da Gloria on several occasions, but had never got onboard. It was Saturday night and busy as many headed from one area to another to bars, clubs or their hotels. We didn’t have an early night, but we needed to pack in readiness for our Metro ride to Lisbon Airport for the flight home.
Sunday morning came around all too quickly and after checking out of Casa Oliver, it was time to find breakfast. Fortunately the cafe we’d visited the previous day opened at 8am, so that was the destination for a breakfast of coffee and a couple of pasteis de nata each.
Coming up – home thoughts on Portugal…
One year – September 2015 part VIII
Picture postcard Coimbra…
From the side streets
To the main shopping areas
Coimbra – a mix of old and new…
Sunderland University wasn’t like this!
The view from that balcony
Same balcony, later that day
The sun goes down…
As Coimbra was mentioned as a ‘must see’ in guidebooks and on various travel forums, we had to go and see this university city for ourselves.
Trains and accommodation had been booked in advance, so all we had to do once we alighted at Coimbra A railway station was to find our guest house and then lunch.
The advice was to get a taxi from the station to the guest house. We didn’t.
We walked. With packs. In the heat of the day. And realised why the taxi may have been a good idea…
We didn’t get lost, but we did get disorientated as we made our way towards the area where our digs were located. Once found, our bags were stashed so we could get lunch, wander around and then go back and check in.
Cafetaria do Museu was our lunch spot. It’s next to the Science Museum and whilst there’s plenty of seating inside, we took to the terrace, scanned the menu, ordered, sat back to wait for our food to arrive and took a look at the view from the terrace.
Once lunch had come and gone, we wandered around as a way of getting our bearings as we’d decided that that was the best way to explore Coimbra.
It looked like it was newbie time at Coimbra’s University as smartly dressed students were leading more casually dressed people around the city so that they too could get their bearings.
We’d seen this in Lisbon on our first visit to Portugal back in 2013 and weren’t surprised, but it was a far cry from my days as fresher at University of Sunderland in 1994 when self and my new housemates familiarised ourselves with the centre of Sunderland by taking a leaf out of the local’s book – by going on a pub crawl…
But I digress. Coimbra city centre is fairly classy – no big name stores were spotted, but there were several more interesting locally owned places down avenues and alleyways that were spotted first and visited later in the week.
After a mid-afternoon cafe stop, it was back to the guest house to book in.
Casa Pombai is in the old town area near the University and had come with some good recommendations on booking.com and in guidebook sections devoted to Coimbra.
The small balcony near our room became a good spot to look out over the city, watch the sun rise and set, take photos or sit and read whilst one or other of us were having a siesta, shower or doing some clothes washing. Breakfast was a simple one with choices of bread rolls, cooked meat, cheese, cereal, fruit and coffee or juice.
What didn’t materialise was the flask of port mentioned in the Lonely Planet review of Casa Pombai. We knew other rooms had one, but ours? Nah…
The lady looking after Casa Pombai the night we booked in had mentioned one restaurant as being a good place to eat. As we’d seen mention of it, we gave it a try.
Our waiter was attentive, but he did seem rather nervous when Caroline ordered pork stew (I’d gone for pork escallopes).
Drinks arrived, as did the escallopes and the pork stew. This appeared to be going down well as Caroline was getting stuck into the bowl in front of her.
Then she uttered the immortal words “What’s that” as she lifted some meat out of the bowl on her fork. The conclusion we came to was that the slice of meat was a pig’s cheek and that it was a facial cheek, not a butt cheek…
Now we’d already eaten out at lunchtime so we passed on dessert, but did go for coffee and a complimentary glass of wine before tackling the route back to our beds at Casa Pombai.
And what a route it was – the evidence will be here in tomorrow’s posting!
One year – September 2015 III
Beyond the Se…
If it’s Wednesday then it must be Porto and guess what? It’s still raining…
This doesn’t phase us though – we’re from Yorkshire and we’re used to rain (just not as much as we had on our first full day in Porto!).
As the rain was a bit lighter, I left my jacket behind and used a brolly. The footwear were dry though as my other pair of shoes were still drying out after the previous day’s soaking.
It was a day for mooching around the places that we’d intended visiting on Tuesday. Caroline (and quite a few more from a string of tour buses) headed into the Se whilst I had a wander around the area before sheltering from the rain once more.
Going to see the Se…
View from a terrace
The day was a one of two halves as we wandered around, dodged more showers and found an old-style corner shop to get stocked up on food such as cheese, bread rolls, soft drinks, fruit and a bottle of red to have for lunch in the case of the food or with our evening meal in the case of the wine.
As our Portuguese is virtually non-existent and the shop owner’s English was minimal, we were pleased to be able to come away from the store with a reasonably full shopping bag without any difficulties at prices that weren’t too far removed from what we would have expected to pay in a supermarket.
We did however have lunch back at the hostel and whilst I still couldn’t work out how the heck to get the coffee machine to work, I enjoyed the cold can of fizz and resolved to get a caffeine fix later on in the day.
The afternoon wanderings weren’t in any particular direction. All we did was just walk and see where we would end up at. Yes, there was a coffee stop or two, but there was also a bit of non-food shopping to be done.
As the temperatures were cooler than we’d experienced on previous visits, Caroline decided to have a look around a couple of clothing stores for some extra tops. A denim shirt hit the spot in Zara whilst C&A came up with a warming full zip hoody.
Whilst Caroline was in C&A, I was downstairs in F-NAC in search of a DVD. We’d seen what others were playing on the big screen in the hostel lounge so we wondered whether we could get hold of a locally encoded copy of one of our favourite films – Paul.
The answer was no. The guy in F-NAC had heard of Paul and remembered that it was about an alien, but also recalled that the distribution in Portugal had been handled by a company that was no longer around. Which kind of put that idea into touch.
When we arrived at Sao Bento station in Porto, we’d noticed the azulejos on the walls of the station’s entrance hall.
These blue tiled walls were suitably impressive and I could see why Michael Portillo had taken time out from his rail journey through Portugal to film a piece about the walls for the Porto segment of the finished programme.
Sao Bento station, Porto
The tiles were attracting lots of attention from camera and smartphone owning passers by. Guidebooks had warned us about hustlers in and around the entrance to Sao Bento, but we saw none of it as there were a few armed police officers around the building and elsewhere in Porto too (but not in the same numbers as we’d seen in Lisbon city centre back in July 2015).
With more coffee consumed, we headed back to the hostel in search of our evening meal and started talking to an American lady who was taking a couple of days off walking the Camino Portugues. She was walking on her own whilst her husband was acting as back-up by driving a hire car. The time out was to get over an injury she’d picked up, so she was resting, putting her feet up and taking the tablets to get over the swelling and the pain.
Whilst we were in the hostel, we noticed that only a few had signed up for the meal being cooked by staff every evening. We’d budgeted on having a couple of evening meals in Porto so we’d decided to cook or have a salad based meal for three nights.
What was more interesting was doing some people watching – which blokes were going on the pull and whether they were successful or crashing and burning. Some however were feeding the lounge’s DVD machine with a film and then not only reacting to messages on their iPhones, but also stabbing their index fingers at the screen of their iPads too.
The mix of hostel users was an international one, but until the couple from the States arrived, we were the oldest ones there and whilst we’d tried talking to people, most were more content to interact with their smartphones, tablets or laptops than they were by talking to people either in the lounge or around the breakfast table.
With the weather forecast for Thursday looking good, there was only one thing to do – head down to the river in Porto and indulge ourselves by taking a look around a port wine lodge…
The Don awaits…
One year – September 2015 – part I
Liverpool John Lennon Airport after dark from the Hampton by Hilton
Yes, we had another trip to Portugal in September 2015 and it was a combination of bus, train and another bus that saw us arrive at our hotel at Liverpool John Lennon Airport for a night before another early morning entrance into the terminal building across the road for our flight to Lisbon.
As we were travelling easyJet from Liverpool to Lisbon on hand luggage only once more, it was interesting to arrive in the hotel foyer as a family were trying to get up to their room.
Yes, we had our trusty Osprey packs, but this lot had so much luggage that the top case on the trolley was higher off the floor than the top of the head of the bloke trying to push said trolley in the direction of the lift.
The Sunday morning stroll across the road and into the airport may have been an early one, but breakfast had already been served in the hotel, so once we got through the fast track security process and into the airside catering area, it was time for more coffee.
As we’d taken the same flight a couple of months beforehand, we knew what the score was and where we should wait before the screens flashed up our gate number. This ensured that we were through the gate and heading to the plane in no time and seated before most of the other passengers had even joined the queue at the gate. Smug? Us? Maybe…
We also knew what to expect when we got to Lisbon. Off the plane, bus to the terminal, passports checked and then the long walk from passport control into the land side.
As we already had some euros, there was a quick right turn in the direction of the Metro station, a short wait in the queue to get a couple of Viva Viagem travel cards recharged with enough credit for the few trips we were going to be making on the Metro around Lisbon at the start and end of our trip and then it was off to Rato Metro Station.
No, we weren’t going back to Lisbon Dreams, we were heading to Casa Oliver, a boutique guest house overlooking the park at Principe Real. Our arrival at the park meant that we had some time to kill – at lunchtime.
Fortunately we’d eaten at Esplanada, the cafe in the park before, so a table was grabbed, drinks and food ordered and both were consumed in a suitably relaxed manner as befits Sunday lunch on the first day of a fortnight away.
As our check in time for Casa Oliver wasn’t until 3pm, we still had time to kill, so we adjourned to another cafe for coffee, very good lemonade and a little bit of reading too…
Cafe, lemonade and Kindle in the park – and Caroline too!
Now when I’d booked Casa Oliver, I was under the impression that it was room only and that no breakfast was available. When we checked in, it became apparent that breakfast was available and that it was €10 each. As we had a train to catch the following morning from a station that we didn’t know, breakfast was booked as a time saving measure.
The early start to the day and the lunchtime beer & wine started to kick in, so after a siesta and a shower, it was time to change, have a walk and then find an evening meal. It was Sunday evening, but the streets were busy with others wandering around in search of food, drink or friends.
Whilst it was tempting to find somewhere new to eat, the familiar surroundings of Ristorante da Vinci in Rua Jardim do Regedor beckoned us to sit, eat, drink and do some people watching whilst we were at it.
Beer, fresh orange juice, a bottle of San Pellegrino, a lasagne and a filling calzone came, were seen and were conquered in a relaxed fashion before €33.15 settled the bill for another meal taken in what has become our favourite eating place in Lisbon.
Yes, there’s a Hard Rock Cafe nearby and a Starbucks around the corner at Rossio Station, but as the staff, food, ambience and coffee have always been good at Ristorante da Vinci, we’re happy to go back there and to write about it too.
After a reasonably good night’s sleep and a light breakfast, we headed off back down in the direction of Restauradores Metro station in search of Santa Apolonia station in search of our train to Porto.
Which we found almost as soon as we hit the platform area at Santa Apolonia. After more coffee, we hit the station’s Pingo Doce mini-market.
The intention was to get some bread rolls, some cheese, some cooked meat, some canned fizz and a couple of bottles of water to have for lunch on the train. We may have booked first class tickets at a reasonable price, but even we prefer to buy food off the train rather than on on it.
As I’d sorted my food needs out quite quickly, I took a look at what else was available as we were due to be doing some self catering once we got to Porto and found Rivloi Cinema Hostel, our base for the five nights in Porto.
As I wandered past the fresh meat chiller cabinets, my eyes glanced down and noticed a few packs of meat that brought back memories of a 1970’s number one record.
There were a few packs of freshly skinned rabbits in the cabinet and whilst there was no fur in sight, I started to sing a song that summed up what had been left behind by the store’s meat prepping team – Bright Eyes…
This was the calm after the storm in Porto… more on Wednesday!
One year – July 2015 IV
Does my flag look big on this?
Friday in Lisbon and the flags were flying as we ventured on foot in search of Museu Calouste Gulbenkian and Centro Arte Moderna. We negotiated Parque Eduardo VII with ease and having found the viewpoint seen above, we were confident that we were on the right track.
Or so we thought. A nearby map directed us on our way and after about half an hour, we decided that yes, that was the wrong way, so we retraced our steps, cooled off with a couple of glasses of a very fine mint flavoured iced drink and found the right way to the museum and art gallery.
Same flag, different view…
Yes, I know what I said yesterday about museums and galleries, but having read up on both places, I reckoned that even I could find something of interest in one or both sites, especially as there’s a connection between Museu Calouste Gulbenkian and my home city of Durham here in the U.K.
The prospect of seeing fine Oriental and Western art was intriguing, but in the end I ended up finding a seat as Caroline made her way around the apparent one-way system in the museum. Was I disappointed by the items on display? Not really, it was just that there was so much of it and I found myself slowly, but surely losing interest in what was laid out before me…
As my day bag had been left in the cloak room, my Kindle wasn’t on me so I ended up pondering some ideas for our next big trip. Yes, it was back to Portugal in the last couple of weeks of September 2015, but it was probably going to be a road trip with Porto and Coimbra as two of the stopping off points as we made our way around part of Northern Portugal.
Once reunited, we had a rather decent lunch in the cafe at Museu Calouste Gulbenkian before we made our way over to Centro Arte Moderna. Most of the artwork here is by Portuguese artists, but as the guidebooks also promised the potential to view works by Hockney and Gormley, I was game for a good look around.
One or two pieces caught my attention, but that was about it. I did take in every part of the viewing spaces and looked at the items on display, but it was no use. There didn’t appear to be any kind of connection forming and if there were works by either Hockney or Gormley on display then I well and truly missed them!
Coffee and cake in the cafe partly made up for the disappointment, as did the wander around the gardens outside.
Two of life’s great mysteries were also pondered – why were the aircraft heading into Lisbon Airport always flying so low over this part of the city and what were the chances of a frozen crapsicle hitting something or someone if it left the confines of an aircraft’s toilet (I thank the writers of CSI New York for putting that thought into my head by the way!).
Given that we’d had trouble finding our way there, we decided on a different strategy for the way back to Lisbon Dreams. A visit to the major department store wasn’t wonderful and whilst there was a multiplex cinema downstairs, there was nothing showing that we fancied. So it was time to hit the Metro once more to head into Lisbon centre to find some coffee and have a siesta.
Our meal for the night was another vegetarian one. Not at Terra this time, but in the interesting surroundings of Os Tibetanos, part of a Buddhism school in the Rato area.
We didn’t have a booking, but that didn’t matter, even though the restaurant was rather busy. We’d both had meat courses as part of our lunchtime meal, so going veggie wasn’t a problem. Misplacing the receipt means that I can’t let you know what our menu choices were, but I do recall that the two of us ate well, had desserts and good coffee to round off the night…
And so to Saturday and our final full day in Lisbon.
We’d not seen much in the way of beaches on this trip, so we decided to get the train from Lisbon to Estoril, walk from Estoril to Cascais and then get the train back to Lisbon from Cascais.
Sounds easy and it was. The Viva Viagem cards worked a treat at Cais do Sodre station and passed the ticket inspector’s examination too (always a good sign) and it wasn’t that long before we reached Estoril.
Now I know Estoril as being the former home of the Portuguese Grand Prix from my days as a fan of Formula 1, but it’s got a literary connection too.
Writers Graham Greene and Ian Fleming were stationed in Estoril during World War II. The latter apparently spent time observing double agents frequenting the local casino in Estoril and this gave him an idea to write a book – Casino Royale. The rest is history…
The sign says it all!
The walk from Estoril to Cascais isn’t a long one and easily done, even on hot summer Saturdays when it’s not just mad dogs and Englishmen going out in the midday sun.
Factor 50 proved useful once more, as did the bar selling cold Coke Zero colas and equally welcome Magnum ice creams. A taste of home? Almost in both cases.
The beaches were starting to get busy as we approached Cascais, but some were already showering themselves and their rather disgruntled Yorkshire Terrier as a means of flushing the salt water away and freshening up before heading home.
On reaching Cascais, we wandered for a while before we noticed a ceremony taking place involving quite a few people in different outfits and gowns in the main square. It looked like a university graduation ceremony, but it was in fact a ceremony to celebrate the local wine producers and their respective products.
Mmm… wine…
The gentleman who informed us of the meaning behind the ceremony not only allowed us to sample a couple of different wines, but he also gave is a small insight into the Portuguese wine industry.
Although we’d sampled a couple of diffferent wines in the two visits we’d had to Portugal at that time, our main introduction to the country’s wine had come in the 1970’s thanks to the wine that ended up as a major source of home made table lamps amongst certain consumers of the product at that time – Mateus Rose…
Although we’d looked at menus at both an Irish pub and a local curry house, Jardim de Frangos came up with quite a decent piri piri chicken lunch and a bottle or so of beer to wash it down with.
At the time I was wearing a decent pair of Transitions lensed spectacles that had gone dark thanks to the strong sunlight, but that didn’t stop a street hawker who came inside the dining area from offering to sell me a pair of cheap sunglasses.
The waiters chased him away, but my somewhat direct comments afterwards appeared to amuse the two German ladies sitting at an adjacent table…
With the heat still rising, we took a look around a small festival in an adjacent park before heading back to the station for the train back to Lisbon. Packing the bags didn’t take long and neither did the discussion concerning where we were going to eat that night.
We’d discovered Ristorante da Vinci on our first trip to Lisbon. It’s not in the guidebooks as far as I’m aware, but it’s always been busy whenever we’ve either eaten there or walked past at any time of the day.
The clientele is also usually a good mix of locals and tourists from both sides of the Atlantic and whilst most are anonymous, at least one Hollywood actor has been spotted in there when Caroline and I have been customers.
Pizza for me, pasta for Caroline, desserts and either beer or wine then coffee usually round off the meal quite nicely. This was our second meal there, but since that night, we’ve made two return visits as Lisbon ended up being our in and out point on our road trip in September 2015…
After checking out of Lisbon Dreams on Sunday morning, our Viva Viagem cards saved us money once more as we used the Metro rather than a taxi to get us to the airport.
When we’d made the same journey in September 2013, it was on the night before our flight home as we ended up sleeping in the Lisbon Airport terminal as we couldn’t find a place to stay for that last night. Not a mistake we were going to make twice!
One year – July 2015 III
It’s Wednesday and it’s a rest day around Lisbon
Now we couldn’t just do nothing, but we had a lie in, a chat with fellow Brits about Lisbon and then we headed out for a wander around nowhere in particular.
The Botanical Gardens appeared to be a good place to start this day of wandering aimlessly. We paid our money, headed in and I decided to indulge in a spot of photography whilst Caroline explored the gardens.
Which was a nice idea, but my Nikon had other ideas. Fortunately my camera hadn’t died a death (which was the fate of my Lumix in 2013 and the reason why I’d bought the current Nikon Coolpix S3100 digital compact camera in Lisbon a few days later).
I’d checked the battery on Tuesday, but it was now as dead as a dodo so that potential hour of photography became another chance to read from the Kindle as I waited for Caroline to show up. The slow day was a good idea as it gave us the chance to just see what took our fancy as we headed through Principe Real, through Baixa & Chiado and onwards to Rio Tejo.
Nothing was planned. We wandered in and out of shops, had coffee, had lunch and just relaxed rather than haring off like Roadrunner or Speedy Gonzales. The information centre shop sold me some stationery items and a cotton shopping bag that could be stuffed into my day bag – Portugal had adopted plastic carrier bag charges, unlike England at that moment in time…
There were several drinks stops as we combatted the high temperatures with fruit juices, Coke Zero and Sagres Radler beer plus the obligatory bottle of water in our day bags.
After a relaxing day, we had a plan for Thursday as we’d decided to head to Sintra. An enquiry at the ticket office revealed that we could use our Viva Viagem rechargeable travel cards on trains to Sintra, something that we weren’t aware of at that time…
Siestas were declared on return to Lisbon Dreams then showers and a quick change happened before we went to The 39 Steps for our evening meal. The outdoor eating option was taken once more, drinks arrived and food was ordered, but unfortunately we didn’t expect an unexpected cinematic reference to occur.
I’d had a very good pasta and salmon main on our first visit to The 39 Steps, so Caroline ordered this for her main this time whilst I went for something completely different.
When the meals arrived, it looked like Caroline‘s order had been lost in translation. Instead of pasta with salmon, pasta with shellfish was placed in front of her.
Our waitress was very, very apologetic about the error, but Caroline decided to tackle the staring shellfish head on as it were rather than having to watch me eat my meal as she was waiting for her ordered meal to arrive. C’est la vie as the French say…
Thursday saw an early start and boy were we pleased when we got to Rossio Station and zapped our Viva Viagem cards at the barriers in front of the platform for the Sintra train. There were queues at both the ticket machines and manned ticket windows – long queues.
Once in Sintra, there was a choice to make of where to go first. We walked down to the Palacio Nacional, had coffee and Caroline paid a return visit this palace and then Quinto da Regaleira with its main building and impressive gardens complete with terraces, grottoes, fountains and the Initiation Well (which comes complete with its own entrance via a revolving stone door).
Palacio Nacional, Sintra
Whilst Caroline took a look at both of these impressive sights, I wandered around with a fully charged camera. The Toy Museum had closed its doors, so I took to the streets, explored the various alleyways and tried to avoid the midday sun….
Two views of Sintra…
As you may have guessed, I’m not one for museums, palaces or elaborate gardens. Caroline is and we have a mutual understanding that I’ll find something else to do whilst she’s off exploring historical places or galleries.
If there’s a museum dedicated to cars, flight or an exhibition on music or rock photography, I’m there like a shot, but if it’s historical, I’m with Rudge’s view on history as expounded in a memorable scene from The History Boys.
The quote’s a good one, but given that this is a free site without age restrictions, it can’t be quoted here!
Yes, I have an O level in History, but that’s from 42 years ago and my views on the subject have changed somewhat and I’m more interested in more modern history rather than what went on in days of yore…
Caroline enjoyed both Palacio Nacional and Quinto da Regaleira and was full of enthusiasm for both when we visited a very quiet outdoor cafe cum art shop on the way back into the centre. The town was quiet as we walked back to the station and so was the train, a welcome experience as the train had been crowded on the way to Sintra.
The return to Lisbon Dreams was equally quiet and as we’d had rather a good lunch in Sintra, we raided the mini market for bread, cheese and a bottle of wine for our evening meal. Rustic? Yes, but a fine way to end a grand day out.
And finally – Part IV. Museums, Os Tibetanos, the inspiration for Casino Royale and wine tasting in Cascais…
One year – June 2015
Deepdale Backpackers, Burnham Deepdale, North Norfolk
There are times when we just pack a bag and head off at short notice for a few days r & r to a place where there’s almost no mobile phone reception.
Which is exactly what we did in early June last year. Caroline had a few days between shifts and once a couple of things were rearranged, we headed pointed the car towards one of our favourite haunts – North Norfolk.
Our place of choice on all bar one of our visits to the area has been Deepdale Backpackers, a hostel with both dorms and en-suites plus a campsite, tipis, yurts and shepherd’s huts. There’s a supermarket and petrol station next door, a cafe, a few retail outlets and a couple of decent pubs in walking distance.
Holkham Hall is just down the road, as is Holkham Beach (as seen at the end of Shakespeare in Love) along with Burnham Market (if you can find a parking space and successfully negotiate other road users who make you remember a memorable Bruce Willis line from Die Hard (“Who’s driving this car? Stevie Wonder?”).
National Trust has several properties in the area and whilst we’ve been to Fellbrigg Hall and Blickling Estate before, Oxburgh Hall was a new one on us and visited as we’d just renewed our National Trust membership just before our visit.
Oxburgh Hall near Swaffham – a National Trust property
Also in the area is Holt. Bakers and Larners department store. It’s always worth a visit as it has a food hall that caters for all tastes, especially if you’re a foodie.
We’re not, but we can usually find something in the food hall for a snack, evening meal or a top up on sweet stuff such as nougat or Turkish Delight.
The kitchen department has also had some trade from us too as we had some difficulty a couple of years ago in finding decent potato peelers.
Did we stock up on three of these? Yes, even though they were flagged up as Lancashire Potato Peelers (we’re from Yorkshire!).
On the outskirts of Holt is one of the end stations on North Norfolk Railway, the other being Sheringham on the coast. Steam and classic diesel trains run between the two, giving passengers a hint at what rail travel used to be like before before Beeching’s axe fell on so many rail lines around the UK.
The beach at Sheringham, plus granite blocks to prevent erosion..
Guess why there’s rope near the slipway in Sheringham
Sheringham is another place we try to visit when we’re down there, either to wander along the promenade or do the odd bit of shopping for bags of fudge at the RNLI shop in the town.
Thankfully this was a sunny day so we could wander around without wearing two down garments (one down jacket, one down vest) each or ponder what steps to take when we spotted the Amy Bomb Disposal Team taping off the beach (the answer to the steps question was easy – bloody big ones!).
Yes, both of these had happened during a past visit – on the same day!
Caroline also likes to get out and do some cycling when we’re in North Norfolk, either on her own charger or on a hire bike. Coffee stop is usually at Holkham Hall or Wells-Next-The-Sea and lunch is wherever we find that’s worth stopping off at.
On this occasion it was a pub we’d driven past, but had never visited. It was pleasant enough place, but there were a couple of perceived problems with my meal…
When did it become almost compulsory to serve decent burgers in Brioche Buns? And when it did it become almost compulsory to slather salad with a salad dressing?
After this experience, it’s now compulsory for ask for a standard bun on a decent burger and for any salad to not be coated in salad dressing. Any that don’t comply get sent back, no messing!
Just don’t get me started on places serving roast beef or lamb which is pink, bloody or both. You wouldn’t like it when I’m angry!
Wells-Next-The-Sea
Next stop? Liverpool John Lennon Airport & Lisbon!
http://www.deepdalebackpackers.co.uk
One year – May 2015 II
Wells Cathedral
If it’s Tuesday then it must be Wells…
We’d joked about visiting Wells, largely because Caroline and I are both fans of the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost film Hot Fuzz.
Hot Fuzz can be regularly caught on ITV, but we have it on DVD for those nights when Caroline comes back in from a 14 hour nursing shift and needs a little bit of light relief.
Spotting the locations used in Hot Fuzz is fairly easy (although the National Trust shop seen in the film has closed down), but even so, taking a look around Wells doesn’t take too long unless you’re having a meal or taking a wander around the Cathedral.
I chased coffee, went to the bank and had a look in a camera shop whilst Caroline visited the Cathedral (it’s a long, long time since I went to church for anything other than a wedding).
As seen in Hot Fuzz…
With the Wells visit taking just a few hours, we headed back to Dragonfly, parked up and then went for a wander along the canal as far as the cafe at Maunsel Lock where a coffee and cake stop was declared.
Now this may have been a Tuesday, but the cafe was quite busy with people stopping off as they were taking advantage of a rather fine day. Some were walking, some were walking their dogs whilst others were cycling or taking a look at the planetary sculptures placed by the side of the canal.
After what was now a full day out, an executive decision was made not to do much cooking on the night so the car was fired up in search of food.
No, we didn’t go to the pub, but we did hit the service area just off the M5 near Bridgwater. Yes, there’s an M&S Food outlet there so it was salad time for Caroline whilst I indulged in a pack of chicken portions.
The latter may be snack food, but by ‘eck it tasted good once heated through in accordance with the instructions on the pack (I have had food poisoning before after eating chicken, one reason why I’m not rather picky when it comes to food being cooked properly – losing a stone and a half in a matter of days isn’t my idea of fun!).
And so to Wednesday.
As Caroline had Betty Bike with her, it was time to take Betty out for a ride to Taunton via the canal tow path. I took the car down to Taunton and got my bearings in a town that I know reasonably well from visiting friends in the town during the late 1980’s and a work trip in Y2K.
Although I remembered my way around town, it didn’t appear to have the same appeal as it did all of those years ago. Maybe that’s down to most towns and cities having the same shops in them which have sounded either the death knell of local traders or marginalised them to secondary locations where the rents and business rates are more affordable.
But I digress. Caroline arrived in Taunton and a light lunch in a nearby pub was declared. Once consumed, we had a wander around and Caroline got back on the bike and headed back to Dragonfly whilst I tried to leave Taunton.
With both of us back at the same destination, there was a problem. Betty had a flat and there appeared to be something up with the other tyre too. I knew of a bike shop in Bridgwater, but they weren’t able to help, so it was time to hit Halfords.
So Halfords was found, the problems explained and fixed whilst we went to top up our caffeine levels in the centre of Bridgwater. Once back, it was time to pay for two new tyres and a couple of spare inner tubes and we were on our way once more.
Whilst we prefer to deal with smaller concerns when it comes to food, bikes, photography, computers etc, on this occasion it was ironic that a large trader had come to Caroline‘s rescue.
There may have been question marks over using a big shop, but Halfords did the job and did it well, just as they have in the past with the couple of bikes I’ve bought from them in the last thirty years.
And in Part III…
A town before a festival, a motor museum and home – that’s tomorrow’s posting folks!
One year – May 2015 I
The weather was warmer than the photo suggests – then came Monday!
May 2015 saw the start of twelve months of heading off and having fun and our first port of call was Somerset for a week.
We stayed at Dragonfly 1 apartment, one of three units at Dragonfly Barn in North Newton near Bridgwater. I’d spotted the apartment on booking sites a couple of years beforehand whilst researching another trip to the South West and when it came up twice during the research for this trip, Caroline and I looked at the website, discussed it and then booked.
Our plans for the week were loose ones. Yes, there was a kind of a list of places we wanted to visit, but as Caroline had taken her trusty road bike down and we’d seen the weather forecast, we decided to play it by ear.
Dragonfly 1 was a comfortable place – ideal for the two us with an ensuite bathroom, well equipped kitchen and a lounging area where you could read, watch TV or just sit and relax.
After the long drive down to Somerset, Saturday night was a chill-out night once the car was unpacked and Caroline‘s bike was locked away in the secure bike storage. Semi-fast food was the order of the day as we microwaved a meal deal from Sainsbury’s in Bridgwater and enjoyed the bottle of wine that was part of said deal.
Sunday saw a chilled out morning with breakfast, coffee and newspapers being the order of the day. As was a visit to The Harvest Moon, a short walk away from Dragonfly 1 and a place that had a good reputation for its Sunday lunches.
We may have entered The Harvest Moon around 12.30, but the pub was already rather busy and we were lucky to get a table. Plates and glasses were filled and then emptied and whilst another pint of Guinness and a half of Thatcher’s Gold were ordered, we held back on ordering coffee and desserts because the Sunday lunch was more substantial than we realised and besides, we had a bag of our favourite coffee back at Dragonfly.
Once the recovery process kicked in, Caroline took Betty Bike out for a spin on the Bridgwater-Taunton Canal towpath for an hour or so, leaving me to have more coffee and to do the washing up.
Grey clouds were gathering later though once Caroline got back from her ride and we ended up having our own wander along the canal towpath. After this spot of wandering around it was time to head back to our temporary home in search of coffee, cake and a light evening meal and an early night.
Monday morning saw the grey clouds delivering the threatened rain so we went shopping.
Not to a mall you understand, but to Clark’s Shopping Village in nearby Street. The town is home to the Clark’s shoe brand, but the Shopping Village is a brand extension and home to small shopping units from the likes of Body Shop, Marks & Spencer, Cadburys, Lindt and others.
Shelter from the rain was sought as we wandered between shops and a few judicious purchases made. Body Shop and M&S got some business, but did we buy chocolate from both the Cadburys and Lindt outlets?
You might think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment…
After lunch in a nearby cafe, the sun came out so our rain jackets were stashed in the car along with our purchases, allowing us to wander unhindered around the rest of Street.
Bike route guides were bought from the Tourist Information Centre and visits made to the Clarks Museum, an excursion into Amnesia Alley if ever there was one as both Caroline and I spotted shoes that we’d been bought as school kids by our respective parents or had bought for ourselves once we had the cash to do our own thing.
With a day of driving and two days of relative relaxation behind us, we decided that the next few days were going to be rather busier.
Once the latest weather forecast had been seen and digested, a slightly tighter plan was hatched that involved a visit to one of the locations used in Hot Fuzz, a destination marked out by a famous Tor and several bright yellow festival related signs plus a haven for all fans of classic cars of all shapes, sizes and horsepowers…
And where would these places be?
Some of them will be revealed tomorrow in May 2015 Part II
Just back from…
A few days in’t Yorkshire Dales and a few days in and around Fishguard in Pembrokeshire.
Used the car for both trips and stayed in independent hostels too.
First part was on familiar ground as Swaledale was part of my old stamping ground in my days as an outdoor instructor whilst Fishguard and the surrounding area was new territory.
Did the sun shine? Yes!
Did it rain? Only overnight and whilst in the car on the way back from Wales.
Was the food good?
Yes, apart from the last night’s bar meal – how is it possible for a pub to screw up a plate of bangers and mash?
It was probably the worst bar meal I’ve ever had and certainly the worst (or should that be wurst) sausage and mash I’ve ever had.
There’s more to come once the bag has been unpacked and some washing has been done – it’s the photo downloads that take up the time now as there’s a new Apple in place and the photo program has been ‘upgraded’.
Oh, and there’s a software upgrade to sort out too.
Still beats using Windows…
wisepacking 
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