Day 62. Friday 9 May.

We are knackered after several days of walking – with lots of stairs. Today will be a rest day but T is hatching the plan for next week.

Early afternoon, we set out to explore some of the local area, starting with investigating some official signs seen about fishing. We thought this might be useful information for Phil, should he ever return.

The signs directed towards a designated fishing site on the river. It is very formal: mostly concrete slabs for each of the 40 sites, although a couple were slabs of slate. The water was pretty murky: not sure we’d want to eat anything out of this stretch, as it’s below the sewerage treatment plant, that also provides a distinctive aroma, but this is actually a catch and release (obrigado) section.

Drove to Campo to check that town out – turns out we have been in Campo all along. OK. The merging of Porto-outer-Porto-urban sprawl is a familiar thing but the townships seem to retain a named identity. Next destination was Alfena… marked on the map as another discrete urban area, but contiguous, that seemed to be an industrial spread. Our impression is that Portugal is a country of small-scale industry and business. D has wondered about the absence of Bunnings equivalents for hardware. There are at least six big supermarket chains that we see regularly, often right next to each other (Aldi, Lidl, Intermarche, Continente, Mercadona, Pingo Doce) as well as thousands (millions) of tiny ‘corner stores’. Perhaps this arrangement keeps more folk employed? 

We swung back to Valongo for a stroll through our local municipality. Traffic was constant, so detoured into an Aldi to park (and to shop in due course), then walked uptown, just filling in time.

This was pretty much our first time just ‘being’ in the town rather than driving through (enough times now that D didn’t need to consult Doris to get home).

Valongo was busy. Parking is always a challenge and the routine is ‘if you need to have a chat, drop someone or something off, pick something or someone up, just double park, wack on the hazard lights and all will be well. It doesn’t matter that a bus needs to get around or that the road is completely blocked while ‘vital’ business is attended to.Buses were continuous, as were the cars, the latter obeying the Portuguese road rule that says anything goes, as long as you put on the hazard lights. There has been little road rage: drivers seem to accept the haphazard (pun intended) approach perhaps because they know, in these narrow streets, they’ll be next. 

We were intrigued by a couple of signs/statues of significance to Valongo. 

First was the city sign. We could understand what biscotti was, but what is regueifa? Google advises that is a ‘sweet bread’ for which, along with the biscuits, Valongo is famous. And a statue in the middle of a roundabout had us baffled. Was it a scampi? A cockroach? It was a trilobite, a marine arthropod that lived more than 500 million years ago and represents one of the most important groups of organisms in the fossil record of the Paleozoic Era. https://www.cm-valongo.pt/descobrir/marcas-de-valongo/trilobites

As we walked T commented on the tiled facades; D remarked that they were mostly blue, yellow or green, but no red. Almost immediately we saw a house covered in red tiles, and not much further, a shop! And as we continued, every shade and colour you could imagine, including more red. This stretch was of heritage value, since much seemed to be unoccupied and some a bit derelict.

We idled for a couple of hours, as our rental was having a mid-term clean (mainly to make sure that when we left it wasn’t such a big job, given that there would be an immediate changeover of customers). T dropped into a few fashion stores to check out the ‘look’; sizing is interesting, being lots of ‘tiny’. In a liquidation business the rack of pants T browsed at were all for dolls…the manager directed T to the rack of ‘ big girls’ pants’! T exited, empty-handed. There was a quiet moment in the simple mid-town chapel.

Arrived home at around 1800, to find two workers still onsite. One of them was our host, Aida( gardening) and her fantastic cleaner Paola. Aida later mentioned that Paola was delighted, reporting to her that these people are so clean and she’d had so little to do (she had brought in and folded our dry washing, and moved the drying rack under cover).

Aida spent a bit of time finishing her tasks in the garden, then accepted the offer of a cup of tea before the drive back to her home in Porto. Conversation resulted and continued and continued.  Aida was born in Angola, her father was Portuguese, (mother Angolan?) had returned to Portugal in the 70s then, as an 18 year old, she had studied in Holland. She had worked for a very long time with the UN in Peacekeeping, in such places as Liberia, Sudan, Kosovo, and more (she rattled them off, but some just went by). She then decided it was all farcical, people didn’t want reconciliation or peace, so she resigned/retired (now does the occasional key-speaker stuff). She bought this property in 2008 as a ‘ruin’ and took 5 years to make it habitable. Now is fighting with bureaucracy, as there are a couple of additional and separate rooms (demountables) that the authorities say should be demolished, as the main house (mill house) is heritage listed, dated 1802 and is in a ‘nature reserve’ and the additional rooms are not compatible with its heritage/nature classification. She has a Finnish partner, and a daughter in Holland, and grandchildren….would have interrogated her more but we got on to the Israel/Palestine situation, birth rates in Portugal, race relations, shitty Aussie tenants (not us), colonisation/decolonisation, menopause, heritage listings, local bureaucracies, racism, her library, are we on the brink of WW3?…and this terrific book by Robert Hughes, ‘The Fatal Shore’ (not in English)….Aida hadn’t finished it yet,  but loved what she had read so far and offered  it to us…D declined the offer, as we already have it (in English). Aida departed for home (only a 20 minute drive!!!) and T got into the kitchen ( still avoiding bacalhau…)

Dinner. Chicken Orange Rosemary (COR) Blimey – chicken slices marinated in orange peel and juice, leek, garlic and rosemary, with steamed potatoes in rosemary and oil, and big flat green beans. Not bad at all…but we still haven’t had that sauna!