May 2011 Caption Contest

Welcome to our first official Caption Contest!  To enter, write the perfect caption for the photo below.  Only entries submitted as comments on the blog will be considered for the grand prize.  Ok, there is no prize, but we hope you will play along and check out just how clever our little blog community can be (click on the "Comments" link to see the submissions).

After the contest, we will tell you what this is picture is really all about.  Enjoy!

PORTUGAL PART III - Where we bid a fond farewell to The Doenca and The Algarve

Day 7 – 29 April 2011 – Olhão and Tavira Revisited and “A Recipe is Born”

Our last day in the Algarve before we headed to Lisbon, we decided to go back into Olhão for coffees and to see what was going on in the rest of the world via e-mail and Facebook.  Café Canaloupe would be our hangout if we lived in Portugal – it is right on the oceanfront with great views of the water, all the fisherman, and the ocean promenade...and it has free WiFi.  The Olhão market is right next door; the market is made up of two large buildings, one for the Fish Market and the other for produce and Algarve specialties.  In the fish market, loads and loads of fresh fish and fishermen who will carve them up and fillet them for you while you wait.

http://youtu.be/QINLyihG6rQ

The fish at the market is caught daily, in the wee hours of the morning.  Doesn’t get any fresher than that!  On the produce side of the market, fresh vegetables abound,

as well as cheeses, wines, and other fun things, like giant bags of escargot (notice the heads of the live snails poking out of the netting…ewwwww).

We decided to back to Tavira for lunch since our first trip there was overshadowed by itching, swelling, and a visit to the Farmacia.  No troubadour sightings in Tavira that day (they were either in another city or had been arrested and jailed), but we had a delicious lunch by the river.  Rossini tournadoes of beef in a peppercorn sauce.

We angered the waitress by sitting at the farthest outdoor table from the kitchen – this made her cranky, Portugese cranky.  We don’t know why the extra distance to the table irked her so, given that we were her only patrons.  Bless her heart, she persevered, and earned a tip in spite of herself.

With full bellies, we walked off our lunch, up and down the riverbank.  We stopped to sit for a while on the edge of the river and watched the fishing boats and island ferries go by.  Then we went to a souvenir shop to buy a toothpick holder modeled after The Cock of Barcelos  (a legendary cock in Portugal and we know the tale if you want to hear it…or you can be self-sufficient and look it up on wikipedia).

With packing looming over our heads, a kitchen full of food from Pingo Dingo, and only a few hours left to deal with all of it, we decided to go back to the villa.  Once at the Villa, we figured out how to address the excess food – we cooked it all in one big pot.  It was delicious and our first “native” Portugese recipe was born:

Olhão Chicken a la Robinsons

·     1 Cooked Chicken – shredded

·     1 Head Garlic – minced

·     1 Diced Onion

·     2 Chicken Boullion Cubes

·     3 Can of Beans (we used Kidney, Butter, and Cannelini)

·     Cooked Risotto (portion determined by amount of people or however much you have to get rid of)

·     1 Pot of Boiling Water and…

·     1 Kitchen Sink, Rinsed and Drained

Really very good!

We packed, ate, drank wine,  played cards and passed out, ready to get up the next day to head to Lisbon.

Days 8 and 9 – 30 April and 1 May 2011 – Farewell Olhão and Ola Lisboa

 

Our second day of rain (not bad out of 9 days) came on Algarve departure day.  Before leaving Olhão, we decided it would be a good idea to get directions to our hotel, the Albergaria Senhora Do Monte, in Lisbon (Lisboa to the natives), before we just hopped in the car and started driving.  We knew only that it was in the Graça area of Lisbon, had 28 rooms, and was best known for its views – not much to go on in terms of navigation.  So, we headed to Café Cantaloupe in Olhão to use their wi-fi one last time.

The rain was moderate, but not too heavy, so Jon dropped Debbie off closer to the café…with the umbrella…and went to find parking.  The Saturday Street Market was going on out front so Debbie found a table and chairs inside and ordered 2 coffees.  Jon was gone quite a while and Debbie started to get a little concerned; then a lot concerned when the deluge began!  All the Farmers’ Market vendors and patrons ran inside the tiny café for shelter.  Still no Jon.  When he did arrive, he was soaked to the bone.  Because of the market, he had to park very far away and got caught in the middle of the downpour, wishing he’d kept the umbrella.

We connected to the internet and found directions to the hotel.  In the absence of a printer, we had to copy down the directions on the back of the hotel confirmation page we had in our travel documents – one full, hand-written page of detailed directions with no less than 24 different Portugese Street names…shouldn’t be a problem, right?  So, we waited for the rain to subside, said goodbye to The Algarve, and headed north to Lisbon.

The drive to Lisbon is about 2 ½ hours.  Our journey was 4 hours (due to our “excellent” directions).  We crossed the bridge into Lisbon that looks just like and was modelled after the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  In fact, Lisbon reminded us of San Francisco, with its seven major hills and cable cars.  We never saw the exit listed in our internet directions and had driven too far (completely through Lisbon).  We turned around and drove back towards the bridge, of course missing our last exit into the city center; so back over the bridge we went…on the other side, we needed to make a u-turn to get back on the bridge again in the right direction.  We had a new plan: Pay the toll, cross the f-ing bridge again, take the first exit possible, and just magically find the hotel.  Lo and behold, it was a brilliant plan - we found it in spite of Google Maps.

After having our passports held by the front desk for 20 minutes (we assume they were cross-checking our records with Interpol), we settled into our room and enjoyed those advertised stunning views.

And one interesting view

Then it was time to try the rooftop bar for even better views.  We became fast friends with Victor, the bartender, who had never heard of the Espresso Martini nor the Chi-Chi.  He now has two new cocktail recipes from his crazy American/London friends.

Victor returned the favor and told us where to go for a great dinner.  We told him we like to eat like the locals and his recommended restaurant, Satellite, did not disappoint.  We had a traditional Portugese veal steak platter for two.  Yummy! No PETA comments needed here.

After dinner, we took Tram 28 (a cable car) around Lisbon.

The streets are very steep at times and the tram very crowded.  Sometimes, the locals cheat and hang on to the back of the tram to avoid paying.  A risky proposition as the tram goes so close to the edges of the buildings, they literally take their lives into their own hands.  We snapped a photo of one such cheater (who was apparently worried we were going to send it in to the Policia):

On our way back to the hotel we wondered, “Just how much is the doggie in the window?”

and enjoyed the beautiful evening view of Lisbon:

After a nice complimentary breakfast the next morning, we turned in our awesome car and flew back to London.  Portugal gets four thumbs up from these travellers, even if some of those thumbs were swollen and itchy.

PORTUGAL PART II – Where the bugs won the battles, but lost the war

Day 4 - 26 April 2011 - Faro "with our top down" and The Return of the Troubadors

With Debbie on the path to recovery, we decided to revisit Faro in a healthy, non-emergency-room way.  As we started out the day, we figured how to go topless in the car!

We took a nice, breezy car ride to Faro to see the non-hospital parts of the city.  Faro’s old section had parts of a Medieval City, occupied at one time by the Moors.  We bought tickets to see the Cathedral and The Chapel of The Bones (as eerie as it sounds).  68 rocky stairs took us up to the observation bell tower; beautiful views of the city and marina to be seen there. 

Back down the 68 stairs, we went inside the Cathedral.  It had stained glass, lots of religious artwork, and a very old organ inside.  Then we went looking for The Chapel of The Bones.  The guide had pointed us to an area with an open door.  We went in, but there were “no bones about it.”  Disappointed, but still not giving up, we went through another opening.  Yep, there they were – skulls, femurs, lots of bones, cemented into a cross/altar with people buried underneath.

Well worth the €3 admission fee.  Aside: Our guide book noted this Bone Chapel as “the ultimate in recycling” (who writes these guide books?). 

We meandered through the cobblestone streets of Faro and came upon the same trio of street performers we had seen the day before in Tavira!  The Troubadors must have been travelling in the same circuit we were!  Another interesting thing we discovered while meandering is that storks like to build massive nests in very high places.  Why are we telling you this? Well, because we saw them…everywhere!

We stopped for lunch.  Jon had a Sagres beer and Debbie had a Pepsi Light and then our entrees came: Jon – Pork Tenderloin (which was so-so); Debbie – Steak with Mushrooms and Cream (had to have what Jon had on Sunday!).

As we were eating, guess who showed up on the sidewalk prepared to entertain the diners? The Tavira Trio of Troubadors!  They played three notes and our waiter wagged his finger at them, and they left.

We drove topless back to the Villa with a stop at the fresh bread place (not a bakery, which is why we call it “the fresh bread place”) that Martin had told us about.  We bought three fresh rolls for making garlic bread and headed home.  We hadn’t yet planned our journey for the next day, but we were certain we would see the Tavira Trio again…

Day 5 - 27 April 2011 - Tablecloths, Monkfish, and "Why did we pick Portugal anyway?"

With Debbie feeling almost human again, we set out for Lagos (pronounced “La-gosh”) near the Western coast of Portugal.  We never made it…but not for any bad reason.  We were just enjoying ourselves in the cities along the way, Loulé (pronounced “Low-oo-lay”) and Portimão (pronounced “Port-e-moung”).

Loulé was inland a bit but on our way west.  We wanted to see the market (Mercado) there, but didn’t know where it was located.  As we were walking through town, about 6 blocks from the parking garage, we saw this cool looking, almost Turkish architecture, building.

Turns out it was the market.  As Jon’s Dad always used to say, “There is no amount of planning that can replace dumb luck.”  The market was large and very clean, full of fresh seafood, vegetables, Piri Piri spices, and collectibles.

Debbie spotted a round tablecloth that was exactly what she had been looking for. It is a Provençal pattern with black olives on a yellow background, and we now own it.

Back on the road to Lagos, we stopped in Portimão, a very large beachy/resort town.  We bought a hat for baldy since we’d been driving through the Algarve with the top down and his head was turning quite red.  We walked down to the beach (Praia de Rocha) and had lunch, seaside.  The beach was pristine and the water a beautiful blue.

Jon had Portugese-style Steak and Debbie had Monkfish Kabob.  We also had some homemade Red Sangria that was amazing:

We were becoming quite accustomed to three hour lunches in the late afternoon.  As it was now almost dinner time, we decided that Lagos was too far and we opted to return to the Villa.  What a great day this was, and we were both so happy that Debbie was fully able to enjoy it!

Side Note: About two years ago, we bought the latest novel from one of our all-time favourite Authors, Alan Folsom.  Debbie read it shortly after we bought it and then passed it on to Jon.  Jon let it sit for quite some time and actually just started reading it just before this vacation began.  About 100 pages into the book, Jon noted that the main character was about to head to…Portimão in the Algarve region of Portugal.  The story unfolds with more than half of the book taking place in the Algarve and Lisbon.  As we got to talking about it, we remembered that this book was the reason we even originally looked at Portugal as a vacation spot.  Debbie read it and thought “Algarve? I’ve never heard of it.”  A bit of research and two years later, here we were.  The whole kismet part of it was that I was reading the Algarve section of the book while we were in the Algarve and shortly after the characters went to Lisbon (a couple days later into our trip), so did we.  Clearly, Portugal was our destiny for this April!  P.S. The book is called The Hadrian Memorandum and we highly recommend it (and any of the other books by Alan Folsom).

Day 6 – 28 April 2011 – Two Americans, Living in England, Staying in Portugal, Visiting Spain (aka, "You mean we drove all the way to Spain for Frappacinos and Fritos?")

We set off for Espanha around 9:30 a.m. and arrived in Seville approximately 2 hours later.  The weather was beautiful, but the closer we got to Seville, the hotter it got.  Turns out it was 93 degrees Farenheit (in April!) and a much hotter sun than we are used to.  Apparently, Seville gets to 120 in August.  No thanks!

After an unplanned  tour of the city enjoyed while we looked for parking, we ended up in an underground garage.  When we emerged from the garage to street level, we were smack in front of Seville’s bullfighting ring (Plaza de Toros).

The bullfighting season starts in April and runs through September.  There was a fight scheduled for 5:00 pm.  Decent seats were €75 up to €185 and cheap seats, €25, were in the blazing sun at the top of the arena.  Again – No thanks!

Side note: In Spain, they apparently still kill the bull in the fight; in Portugal, they let the bull live – we’re not quite sure how that works…anyway, back to Seville.

We walked through the historic district and saw the cathedral.  It is touted as being the biggest cathedral in the world (we tend to agree – this thing was huge!).

Needing a break, we saw a sign ahead showing the international symbol for respite and beverages…Starbucks…directly across from the cathedral.  As sad as it sounds, it was the perfect stop.  Cold Frappacinos in the hot Spanish outdoors, people watching, in the shade of the massive cathedral; doesn’t get much better than that.  Rested, we walked toward the shopping district which was not dissimilar to shopping districts all over Europe.

Had we wanted to, we could have taken a tour of the city by horse-drawn buggy

or open air bus.  Being the daredevils we are, we did it on foot and in our convertible!  After looking for an hour to find a specific neighborhood of Seville so we could eat, we finally gave up and stopped at a gas station to buy sodas and a bag of Fritos. 

Seville, it turns out, wasn’t exactly what we had envisioned.  A beautiful city, but we thought it would be somehow more intimate or have a more romantic feel to it.  It was a very large city and felt just like a big city.  All the same, we are glad we went and grateful we had the opportunity. 

Side note 2: Spanish is an easier language for us (especially Debbie) than Portugese.  Portugese sounds like a mixture of Spanish, Italian, French, Latin, and Russian.  Walking down the street, if you heard people speaking Portugese and you were unfamiliar with the language, you would likely assume it was Russian or Slavic…anyway, back to Spain.

We decided to go a border town of Spain/Portugal as we were heading back to the Algarve.  Turned out our destination city was in Portugal, not in Spain.  We drove through Castro de Marin, with an old fortress-type castle on the hill.

Beautiful.  We headed on to Monte Gordo, a charming seaside Portugese town for dinner.  While we were having our onion pizza (awesome),

we studied the street vendor across from the café and saw a sachel with red roosters and “Portugal” on it, that we knew (for reasons too racy to put in the blog) was perfect for our niece Robyn.  She loved it and now uses it as her everyday purse!

After Monte Gordo, we headed back to the Villa and arrived around midnight, ready for a good night’s sleep so we would be rested for the Royal Wedding from which we were escaping.

PORTUGAL – Where the men are strong, the vowels make no sense, and the weathered women beg for money.

We went to Portugal in April for a vacation.  This blog post is the first of three covering our holiday in The Algarve.

Day 1 – Saturday 23 April 2011 – Recipes for Risotto and Rashes

We arrived in Lisbon, a wet and rainy Lisbon, and proceeded to the Avis counter.  We had to wait a while for a clerk because there were those in front of us with major problems and unseemly attitudes.  When it was our turn, we told the clerk that we would be easy and turned on the charm.  It worked!  We got a free upgrade to a BMW convertible, brand new, with only 11 Kilometers on it. 

It was a manual transmission. Ok, no problem.  We left the airport and luckily found the A2 towards the Algarve region of Portugal.  We stopped at a rest area for sandwiches and soda (one of those sandwiches was a prime suspect in the soon to happen poisoning incident, more on that later)...

Back in the car, ready to head out again, we found that we couldn’t get the car in reverse.  Memories of France flooded over us.  With help form a store clerk, a mechanic, and a German tourist, we were back in business and in reverse.  We got back on to the A2 headed to the Algarve.  It was a pretty drive on the tollway, even though there were parts with torrential downpours of rain; at last we were in The Algarve.

We arrived at the Villa in the village of Quelfes, and met our host, Martin.  The Villa was spectactular - we took about 30 photos of it, but here are a few selections:

Martin offered to have us follow him on back street shortcuts to the grocery store.  The name of the store was Pingo Doce (but will forever be Pingo Dingo to us).

We bought 6 bottles of wine for approximately $10.  Not bad and the wine was tasty.  After unpacking food and luggage, we took a look around the Villa.  It was beautiful and impressive on every level.  Infinity pool, balconies out of every room, views of the ocean, amazing.

We drank wine, made mushroom risotto, danced in the kitchen to the music of Owl City, and had a very nice first night

...Then it happened!

All of a sudden, Debbie noticed that her hands were swollen and red and that she itched all over.  Some allergic reaction to something (suspect 1 – sandwich from the Rest stop; suspect 2 – Guava nectar, suspect 3 – weird Portugese milk, suspect 4 – evil Algarvian insect).  Scratch marks and blotches all over her body.  We don’t know what it was, but we were tired and after a lot of first night partying, it was time to put Day 1 to bed.

Day 2 – 24 April 2011 – Easter with The Weathered Beggar in the most Catholic Country in the world

We went into Olhão (pronounced “Ol-yowng” [sort of]) to explore our host city.  We walked along the promenade by the water and through the streets (the very quiet streets since it was Easter).

 

We ended our morning tour at a local café called Cantaloupe Café.  We order 4 café con lait between us – total €5 (about $7).  We walked along more cobblestone lanes and bought a magnet.  After much perusing for a lunch spot, we picked Casa Das Tostas (pronounced “Casa Das Tostas”).  Debbie had squid with garlic and Jon had steak with mushroom and cream sauce.

The squid was good but Jon’s dish was amazing.  Debbie always wants what Jon orders.

At the café (and again at Casa Das Tostas), this very old Portugese woman was “begging” for money – actually she was selling little tissue packets for one Euro.  She forced the tissues on us and we put them back in her basket.  She took them out again and put them on our table.  We put them back again.  She was very stubborn and even fought back with the store owners.  We showed her though, Debbie snapped a picture of her when she wasn’t looking.

We went back to the Villa and laid by the pool.  The weather was not cooperating and Debbie started feeling worse.  She was running a fever and her hands and feet were extremely swollen and itchy.  She ended up wrapped up in a blanket for the rest of the day and night.  We were leaning towards suspect #4, the evil Algarvian insect which we decided was a Portugese spider of some sort.

Day 3 – 25 April 2011 – Tavira, Troubadors, and the Hospital

After a good night’s sleep, Debbie’s swelling and rash had diminished a bit, so we were ready for our next adventure.  We decided to head to Tavira, the city with the most churches per capita in the world.  Tavira is a small town (probably 1,000 people or so) and it has 37 churches (almost all of them Catholic and named after a Saint – we hoped to find Igrejo Santo Infectica, the church of the patron saint of insect bites and infections, but alas there is no such Saint or church).  With beautiful weather and relative health, we decided to make the journey with the top down on the convertible.  This was not meant to be – if only we had a store clerk, a mechanic, and a German tourist to help us out…so, we pressed on with the top up.

Tavira is East of Olhão, just before Spain.  It is a very pretty town with a river cutting through it.  There are four main bridges that cross the river, but only one is original, the Ponte Romano. It was the only bridge to remain standing after the major earthquake of 1755.  It was originally built by the Romans (hence its name). 

We stopped for 2 coffees near the water’s edge for a break.  The people at the table next to us were Brits, and a little (ok, a lot) pretentious.  The woman was putting down South Londoners, not realizing of course that the two Americans sitting there were actually South Londoners right now.  Not wanting to overhear anymore, we said “toodles” and left.

Driven by a resurgence of itchiness, we found one open Farmacia and bought some cortizone cream for Debbie.  It was a bank holiday in Portugal, Revolution Day, so Debbie had to make do with the cream from Senor Farmacia, who agreed in broken English that it was most likely an insect bite.

On our way back to the car, walking across Ponte Romano, we encountered a local trio of troubadors – one guitarist/singer, one saxophonist, and a “virtuoso” tambourine player.

The link below will take you to their version of Oh Bla Di, Oh Bla Da by the Beatles (you may notice a slight lack of lyrics). 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaiW0xc3Hsw

Continuing to the car, we realized Debbie had overdone it for the day.  Feeling feverish and shaky, it was time to return to the Villa.  Debbie laid down for a rest and Jon drank Portugese wine and cooked a great meal of meatballs (albondigas) and spaghetti, loaded with garlic.  After dinner, Debbie’s condition worsened…severely.

We asked our host, Martin, to lead us to the hospital in Faro (the nearest big city).  Because Debbie’s condition was an obvious allergic reaction, she was seen almost immediately.  She got an injection and 3 medications to ease the swelling and itching.  The Portugese hospital folks were very good and very efficient.  Including a stop at the 24-hour Farmacia in Faro, we were back at the Villa less than two hours after we left. 

Loaded with three medicines labelled completely in Portugese, with dosing and usage instructions we mostly understood, we gave Debbie her first of four full-body skin treatments

Not exactly a day at the spa, but it seemed to help; then the anti-itchy pill and a medicated cream.  Debbie slept really well that night and claims to have had the best personal male nurse in Olhão (even if he was full of Portugese Wine).