Sunday, March 31, 2019

Portugal 2019 - part eight



The back of the ‘traffic cop’ means we’ve returned to Lisbon.


Waiting in the airport departures area, I spot multi-coloured saints (€38.50) ...


… and Fatima Madonnas (€19) for those who just can’t get enough.


On board a passenger spots liquid on the port wing. He calls a flight attendant who brings the captain. The co-pilot goes to check …


… and says it’s a puddle of water. 

We depart Lisbon half an hour late. I now regret my puerile Protestant amusement at religious kitsch and hope there are plenty of devoted Fatima pilgrims on board. 


Goodbye to Portugal. Oh, and there will be one more post of what I consider to be my best pictures from the trip.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Portugal 2019 - part seven



Not so long ago, if you came to Portugal you’d see hundreds of windmills with canvas sails. 



Now you’re more likely to see windmills on tiles than the actual thing.


This rather sad structure speaks to the general state of Portugal’s windmill heritage.


In  the village of Carrapateira, I wonder if this windmill is a replica.

However, if you enjoy chimneys, then the Algarve is the place for you.



Even the hard-to-impress author of my 1875 Murray is complimentary: ‘... the manner of building their chimneys is quite peculiar and by no means untasteful (sic)'.




Something I didn’t expect is an enthusiasm for kitschy roadside advertising … 


… as with this somewhat faded lady hoping you’ll visit her pottery shop …


… an extraordinary display promoting a - what else? - dish shop …


… and unlikely pirate touting a seaside souvenir store.

The Algarve also lets me add to my collection of signs.


The spiffy waiter is a touch out-of-place at an unpretentious, small town eatery.


Sagres is a popular Portuguese beer.



And when did you last see a shop, one that's open, advertising film?


Cobblestones are as Portuguese as pastéis de nata.


I spot a likely looking cobblestone for a Portuguese ‘souvenir’. Cobblestones have long been favoured by European rioters. Ferg suggests a new Toronto business marketing genuine Portuguese ‘riot rocks’, although I fear Canadian customs might not look kindly on such an import. And anyway, the Portuguese, a gentle people, are not known for violent demonstrations. On the other hand, Portuguese doorstops may present profitable possibilities. This provides for much speculation. 


(April 27 - My 'borrowed' cobblestone is now in Toronto. It may occasionally find use as a doorstop or perhaps a paperweight. Or perhaps it will just sit in a drawer and, when I’m dead, those clearing out my effects will be flummoxed by what exactly it is.)

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Portugal 2019 - part six


From my 1875 Murray Handbook for Travellers in Portugal: ‘Algarve is so seldom visited by strangers that the traveller will probably find himself an object of great interest there’.

Not now …


… although in March cafes can feel deserted. Staff keep a hopeful eye out for patrons …



… and that means one’s likely to get morning coffee muito rapidamente.


You can have a castle captured from the Moors in the 13th Century to yourself…


… with wonderful view over town and countryside. This is Aljezur.





Portugal is experiencing depopulation of the countryside. The young are leaving for larger towns and cities …


… and village demographics can skew to the old (Portuguese and wintering expatriates), which away from the coast adds to the out-of-season tranquility ... for lack of a better word. 





Bustling it ain’t … 






… photogenic it is.

'The common practice is to paint the whole of the outside of the building in a pastel shade ... the slabs of luscious, almost edible colour pleasuring the eye like the rectangles of an abstract painting'.


(Oldest Ally  Peter Fryer and Patricia McGowan Pinheiro  Dobson Books  London  1961)



Perhaps I should add, yes, the Algarve is photogenic if away from what has been condemned as overdevelopment of the central and eastern coast. In drives along the central motorway leading to the Spanish frontier, one catches distant, depressing glimpses of clustered tourist towers in places such as Portimão. 

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Portugal 2019 - part five



Roads less travelled …


… take us into the Algarve hinterland.


Wonderful ‘mystery flowers’. If anyone knows what they are, please let me know.

(April, 2019 - back home I chanced on a picture and found that these are Rock Rose or Cistus ladanifer flowers. They are native to Iberia, Southern France and parts of North Africa.)




And storks. I haven't seen so many before and now know the collective for storks - a muster or mustering of storks.


There is still some green …


… although often signs of 2018’s terrible fires. Two years ago, more than sixty people died in wildfires in central Portugal. 



Spring flowers and fire charred trees on the way to Foia in the Algarve’s high country. Already there are concerns about early wildfires this year.

_________________________



In Luz I have found another place on morning walks. An unpretentious spot called the Café Jasmin where I usually have an Americano and pastéis de nata. With one or two other early patrons, I watch the morning TV news trying to make sense of the Portuguese. That’s easier than …


… this jumble I pass on my way back to the holiday home. What’s the collective for signs? Perhaps a ‘confusion’ of signs.