Day 48. Friday 25 April.

ANZAC Day in Australia was pretty much over by the time we arose, and Essendon humbled by Collingwood. We were expecting significant disruption due to the 25 Abril commemoration, but this did not eventuate.

We had the luxury of a later check out (which D had not divulged to T) so while he caught up with the news she bustled to get out. But the pay off was a lovely chat with one of our hosts, Carlos.

We took a detour on the route to Lisbon to revisit Arraiolos and the tapestry interpretative centre that was closed when we were there on Tuesday. It was closed again – today is a public holiday ‘to celebrate freedom, so it’s a free day’ a shopkeeper in a store that was open gleefully told T.

After sampling the espressos and empada at the same delightful cafe as last time – they remembered the request for extra hot water – we drove up to the circular castle. It was a ruin, not inhabited, but we could freely walk around. D could picture such a castle in the Napoleonic era, when castles were besieged and stormed: it was very reminiscent of descriptions of sieges in the Bernard Cornwall ‘Richard Sharpe’ novels.

So, onto Lisbon via the slower route. Just had to stop for the roundabout statues that were, on first glance, so life-like.

As we neared Lisbon, within about 30 km, it occurred to both of us that if we’d been heading to any major Oz city we’d by now be deep in suburbia/urban development. It wasn’t until we were about 10 km from our destination that we became caught up in city density – a lot of it, of course, being high density apartments. And the little white cottages with colored trims were gone. We were in modern urban environs. But the traffic throughout was light, and surprisingly was sedate.

We arrived at our destination and parked outside. We’re in apartment blocks built for the Expo in 1998 and subsequently sold up. So far, so good, but the messages D had sent last night and this morning had no reply, so we had no idea how to get in nor how to access the on-site parking. D rang the contact: ‘you haven’t received the advice?’ Apparently there had been a computer issue (of course). Instructions arrived via WhatsApp, so we decided to walk the route before moving the car. First instruction was to press the ‘key hole button’ and insert the code. What key hole button?

Eventually worked that out, got into the apartment, picked up the remote and decided to recce the parking. Found two access doors from the street: which one? D, a bit slow, eventually pressed the remote: presto!

Back to the car, entered, found our spot, parked, unloaded, headed for the lift, up to our fourth floor: wrong block. Back to ground floor, cross to our lift, up to fourth floor: all good.We’re a travelling circus with bags of food and wine unloaded at each destination. D does a fine job in keeping up the supply of cumin seeds and wine.  (D later went back to find that our lift from the parking was in a different block. But the intrigue didn’t end there: there was a code, but where was the key pad? The code was entered on the numbers of the lift – duh – trial and error.)

So, we were in. Spacious, seemingly quiet, and very close to the train line into the city centre. 

Needed to get milk for the morning cuppa and ‘something to stitch together the leftovers from last night’….something would jump out at T  (and it did) so headed off via Apple Maps to a Mercado which was in fact, we think, wholesale, but was close to a Lidl, so we came back with far more than milk and the ‘something’ (zucchinis on special, 1 red capsicum, 1 potato, 1 purple onion, 1 small eggplant, a can of tomatoes and a jar of chick peas)….tomorrow night’s meal is already programmed.

The zuccinis made a delicious soup and last night’s pork & apple became a salad, with rocket and a bit of that capsicum. We’re far from starving. T reckons it’s time to get brave and actually commit to a piece of salted, dried cod, the National food (and it’s in every shop). Having tried this in a fancy restaurant in Norway some years ago, we’ve not been inspired to repeat but this time, if T finds a jar of red curry paste, then maybe it will get a run.

Dinner. As above.