Out into the Countryside!

We got an early start this morning, rising at 6:30 to shower and go upstairs for breakfast. Like most European hotels offering breakfast as part of your stay, there is a big room with a self service selection of food to start your day. After one false start (breakfast didn’t open until 7:30 so we had to wait a bit after our first attempt) we indulged in the same breakfast as yesterday; European runny scrambled eggs, cold sliced ham and cheese, breads and rolls and whole apples and oranges. The coffee is served in a big coffee dispenser like our hotels have except that there is a hot milk dispenser beside the coffee dispenser so that you can serve yourself coffee con leche. Lovely.

Mike has gotten quite adept at using his gift for gab to get us directions. Last night he spent a half hour with the front desk clerk during a slow period at 10:00 PM or so and learned how to use the metro and the bus out into the countryside. So, today armed with the maps and internet print-outs that his buddy provided, Mike led us to the metro which took us to the bus station. Like Madrid, the metro in Lisbon is wonderful. It makes me wonder why rapid transit in Seattle is so backward when these cities can do so much better. Unfortunately the trip between our hotel and the bus station involved many stairs, not all of them facilitated by escalators (note to Seattle transit planners: if you EVER do get a subway put in, use escalators for those rolling suitcases, PLEASE). We have mastered getting up and down the steps though. One of us takes the lead walking up, while the other grabs the bottom of the bag and lifts it up the stairs. Taking one bag at a time, we can get up the stairs without beating up the wheels on our bags or losing our balance. And…. It is such a good work-out to go up and down those stairs.

We saw an arrest being made in front of us while sitting on a bench at the bus station. Well, to be clear, we aren’t sure it was an arrest. A police car drove up to the front of the station very quickly and the two cops jumped from their car and hurried inside. The driver was a bit slower getting inside, and while beside our bench he was stopped by a man we later guessed was an undercover cop. This guy, dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt shook the cop’s hand and pulled him aside. In the meantime, the other cop came back outside and the three of them walked away and came back soon with a woman in handcuffs who the plainclothes guy stuffed into the back of the policecar. Her friends or family created quite a ruckus, yelling and screaming at the cops. Eventually one of them got into the back seat of the police car with the cuffed woman. After doing a little paperwork (the same everywhere I guess), the uniformed cops drove off and the plainclothes guy walked away. Spectators seemed to be interested in the scene and disgusted with someone in the scenario. They murmured comments to each other and to us (although what they were saying will forever remain a mystery) and shook their heads in disgust. We don’t know whether the audience sided with the cops or the convicts, but it sure was entertaining.

The cops have a huge presence in Portugal. They are everywhere, usually in gangs of three to five. They seem much more casual and less formal than the cops we are used to seeing around town. They stand grouped around a car, leaning against it gabbing with people that come by. They wave to the tour bus drivers and flirt with the girls. Last night Deanne went for an hour long walk along the expensive shopping street of Lisbon (without buying anything) and saw about five parades of cars go by led by siren-running motorcycle cops with Mercedes sedans following along. It turns out that all of the sedans were parked together along the boulevard in front of an elegant hotel with masses of cops out front. They all had placards in the window with the Slovenian flag (not that we would have known that had they not also had the word Slovenia on them) so we assume we were looking at some sort of diplomatic meeting between the Portuguese and the Slovenians.

Our bus ride from Lisbon took us two hours southeast to a walled city called Evora. What a delightful town this is. Our hotel, at the wondrous rate of only 70 Euros per night (oh, the savings we will have on this!) is funky and wonderful. Built in the middle of the Sixteenth Century, Solar Monfalim belonged to a nobleman from the Royal House, D. Gonçalo de Sousa. Later, it was passed on to the Congominhos Family whose descendents lived in this manorhouse until the end of the Nineteenth Century. In 1892 Solar Monfalim received its first guest as a hotel. The cab driver dropped us at the cobblestone drive in front of the hotel and we made our way up two flights of stairs to the front desk where we checked in with a friendly English speaking receptionist. After opening our door with a huge metal key attached to a big block of wood, you must walk up a narrow flight of stairs that twist their way to a landing with a big bathroom on one side and a long and narrow bedroom on the other side. Fortunately we have perfected our stair-climbing-bag-carrying earlier in the day and found these narrow, twisting, tiled stairs to be a snap. The room is cooled with an overhead fan and darkened against the sun with blinds and black-out drapes. The bed fits in the pattern of all our Portuguese hotels (we have a sample of two now)… hard.

We dumped our stuff, grabbed our map, walked out the front door and got lost within the first five minutes. The town has many narrow cobblestone streets that aren’t named on the map, so finding out where you are is tough, but it would be hard to be lost forever here. The old town, where our hotel is, is basically a set of spaghetti-like streets all contained within the circle created by the 15th century wall. Within the walls are ancient cathedrals and a castle, all of which we are set to explore tomorrow. We found a market full of stalls for produce sales, but we arrived too late to partake of anything but a few delicious smelling peaches that we are having for dinner tonight.

Evora is the capital of the Alentjo region, so we tried the regional specialties at lunch in an ancient, thick walled, white washed restaurant. Eating at noon, just as the place opened provided us the full attention of the waiter. We didn’t even see any other diners until we were finishing up, as the Portuguese seem to eat their meals on a schedule a few hours later than us. The waiter worked on our languages skills (so far all we could say was Obrigado- or thank you). Now we can say hello (hola like the Spanish) and goodbye, and you are welcome. That one was tough, so he wrote it out for us and presented it to us with the bill. The meal was interesting and filling, but heavy. It started out with the ever present bread basket full of sliced artisan white bread and rolls. Then, the waiter brought three dishes of appetizers which looked to be a pile of mayonnaise rich tuna salad, garbanzo bean salad and pickled chili peppers. On his next trip to the table he explained that those appetizers were there on spec, if we wanted to eat them they were 3 Euros each, otherwise they went back to the kitchen for the next diners. We passed. Deanne ordered the wine (are you detecting the pattern here?) and was pleasantly surprised both that she received the size she ordered and with the quality of the local regional wine. Our waiter recommended the veal and the duck, but we settled on the veal and the pork roast, both of which were good.

Our hotel has a wonderful little room off the lobby which has free wifi, so we have been sitting here for the past hour writing this and answering e-mail. We were able to figure out the pay phones and reached Caitie in Spain this afternoon. She is doing great and we look forward to meeting up with her in the next few weeks. It is 8:00 PM and we are going to wrap up soon. More to follow tomorrow.

Deanne