Day 52. Wednesday 30 April.

Time to hit the beach? Well, at least stand on the sand at Nazaré and measure that big surf. It was about an hour up the road from Lisbon and a diversion from D’s time/location plan (but he accommodates it graciously).

A couple of guys were on body boards (we didn’t bring ours and T’s tape measure wouldn’t have done the measuring job anyway); a bunch of spectators on the shore had camera phones poised. It was a beautiful beach and marvellous grey sky. And those guys put on a performance: we wouldn’t have ventured in

Into Nazaré for morning coffee and a stroll. Wandered into an area very obviously targeting tourists, but T picked up some nice figs.

After the regular Portuguese tart and espressos, and navigating some more cobblestone streets, we were back on bitumen, D zooming in and out at 120 km/hr – but not all the time, mainly obeying speed limit signs (which marked him out as non-Portuguese) and T wishing it there were only 80 km/hr zones. Only one driver really bothered D, flicking his lights, wanting to overtake in the fast lane when it was impossible, as a truck, bus and other cars were ahead occupying both lanes….D said a few words to himself and flicked the Peugeot hazard lights at him – he backed off. The main issue is the merging: often cars traveling at 70 km/hr will simply pull over into traffic moving at 120 km/hr (or more). 

Rain set in as we moved along…Doris’ instructions were clear for a change: ‘for about 85 kms go straight…’ Phew! It’s so good when she’s in that mood.

Over the Douro bridge at Porto, through rush hour traffic and a bit later we were at our destination…or we thought so…

A phone call to the host’s representative, Eugenio (no English) was interesting, especially as the tractor was just doing repetitive tractor things with sand and there was nowhere to go. D got out of the car (with umbrella) walked around the bend…road totally dug up ahead, we could go no further. Came back, abused by the workers, in Portuguese, so he just assumed they thought, with his unkempt hair, that he was Trump. Eventually, T confirmed with a voice at the phone end that we had arrived and there was a tractor…ah! ‘Roadworks’…’Just wait, we come to you’ and then Eugenio arrived in a little blue truck and signaled for us to turn around and follow him. Which we did and came to this ‘tiny house’ with tight parking undercover at front door! We have no Portuguese, he has limited English – parlez vous Francais? Qui, un peu. OK. Merci, beaucoup, est tres beau! So far, so good.

Eugenio says,‘demain tout ira bien’. Not sure what that means, but we trust his judgement. But that’s about it, although through gestures and pointing we got a pretty good introduction. And this little place is magic.

We have a couple of resident cats, and a rooster (not D).

Dinner: An oven thing on a cold evening – should have been spare ribs from butcher section of supermarket (in soy & marmalade marinade) but the ribs were tres spare…more like bacon strips..oh well! Warm & tasty, once D got the oven going (Q: why does every oven and stove top have different ‘drive buttons’?) 52 days, 52 WTF. (WTF = Which Thing Functions, or something like that)