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Europe Tour April 2005 Part 2 - Touring Portugal.

Tour Highlight - Braganca, NE Portugal.

April 7 2005, Thursday, Braganca Portugal. [Photo] Travelled via the old N120 instead of the new IP4 freeway and noted many small roadside parking places suitable for SONPS. In this respect the difference to the Spanish roads was striking, but it was not to last for long. Braganca has a very well preserved walled citadel, within the 15th century castle, [which is FREE to visit] although the modern town is not itself [as one may have expected from the tourist hype] a walled city.

There is a FREE campervan parking area with toilets, bins and water from a spar, but no dump point, just below the citedel. Ask for a free map at the tourist office. Unfortunately they haven't put up many street signs for the past hundred years or so, so the map which is too small to read is not of much help. Dogs that bark in the night.

The countryside is pleasent but not spectacular, not in itself something to come a long way to see. To the international tourist, bypass, there are lots of far mor interesting places.

April 8 2005, Friday. Braganca, Portugal.. Acting on directions from the tourist office, where the lady spoke excellent English, we found the GLP [Gas Liquide Petroleum] station, to replenish our supply of LPG at €0.67 a liter. Follow the white black and green GPL bowser signs. In Portugal they use the French-Italian adapter and stations have a map and listing of LPG stations all over Portugal. Most major towns have a LPG (GPL) station, and along the major freeways we noted some service stations sell it.

Supermarkets such as Fiera Nova are not in the same class as the French Carrefour stores but quite adequate for the traveller. However many items are noticeably more expensive than in France, exceptions being local Portuguese wine and beer. Local full strength beer ranges from €0.22 a bottle at Fiera Nova, and there are plenty of local wines for under and around €1.00 a bottle. I now steer clear of cask wine in cardboard cartons because it has high levels of preservatives, and my last experience with trying Spanish carton wine bought in France in September 2004 left me with a splitting headache.

There are LIDL stores in Portugal, in most medium sized towns. They carry a reasonable range of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as refrigerated and frozen meat and other essential supplies. For a better selection look out for Carrefoure or Continente super mercados.

The country is a big garbage tip, from one end to the other, no exceptions, all along the roads wherever you can stop there is mega garbage, not just "lightweight litter", this is landfill stuff often by the truckload. If they are as irresponsible in disposing of toxic waste as they are with this visible littering, there is a very serious environmental problem in Portugal.

April 9, Saturday. Venda Nova lakeside. There are numerous SONP's along N103 between Braganca and Braga and no problem finding water from the numerous spring fountains at the roadside. One of the best is between Sapiaos and Cervos.

Nearing Braga the density of population greatly increases and the availability of roadside parking decreases as most of the land that is at all flat enough to build on is developed with housing, and in the towns there are numerous high rise blocks of flats. Thus the traffic density greatly increases.

Leaving our pleasant Lakeside SONP I found a Portuguese sex magazine with what were obviously swingers adds, and lots of nice hard core pictures and adds for porno movies and DVD's, maybe the the little used lakeside old road is a favorite spot for the local Romeos to go for some fun. It seems that the Portuguese are catching up with modern times rapidly.

April 10, Sunday. Porto. We drove all day, few good SONPS along the roads now, but found a good one on the outskirts of Braga where water was available from a tap, shade and tables. No bins, the whole country is a rubbish bin. Portugal is the most littered country in Europe that we have visited, at every roadside stop garbage and building waste is dumped, often by the truck load. After driving all day through Guimariaes which proved to be uninteresting compared to Braganca, we finally found a park like parking area on the northern outskirts of Porto where we spent a quiet night. Service stations and supermarkets are open Sunday.

April 11, Monday. We drove through Porto which we thought is generally a rather dreary drab and dilapidated city, so we drove through without stopping. Of course it has its old churches etcetera that are hyped in tourist literature, but in Europe such minor historical features are a dime a dozen, and to us there just doesn't appear to be anything of particularly salient interest. The river has some pleasant views as you head out of town along N108, but overall it is readily apparent why Porto is not a noted international tourist destination. In fact the same could be said for Portugal in general so far. We omitted Portugal from our Europe tour in 2000, as other places seemed more interesting, and they were, and if you need to prune your European tour, I'm sad to have to say that Portugal would be my first choice to cut.

The roads have few parking and viewing points and most towns do not appear to provide any special facilities for camper vans, which perhaps explains why we haven't seen many in the last few days, except for around Braganca in the north east of the country.

Drivers have an unnerving habit of drifting over the center line on blind corners, and people wander along the roads on the traffic lanes obvious of the traffic danger. With things like this and the ever present litter and major garbage along the roads in some ways Portugal seems to be partly a "developing" country, but without the often charming compensations of the truly primitive. These people ought to know better than to make such a mess of their country. The generally dilapidated state of older buildings also makes me wonder about their sense of civic pride.

Modern supermarkets are rare compared to France or even Spain and you have to look carefully to find the small shops.

The N222 is marked scenic on the Mitchelin map, and while there is sceenery, it isn't anything spectacular, and it is an almost continuous suburbia, sprawling from village to village, with every avcailable scrap of land that isn't almost vertical being built on. There is also a sameness about the scenery and the appearence of the villages.

The N321 SE from Cinafes to Castro Daire is a better road and gives some pleasent vistas of terraced hillsides dotted with rural villages, and one gets more of an impression of being out in the country.

The city of Viseu is undergoing a vast reconstruction of its streets, with new roads and roundabouts on a massive scale, somewhat like the city of Vitoria in Spain, where thousands of high rise flats are under construction. Who for? It has to be immigrants, to be cheap labor for industry to fuel the economic might of the EU, the EU after all is footing the bill for a lot of the development in Portugal. The vast new major road network that is being constructed is everywhere sign posted as EU funded.

In Viseu we find our first real supermercado in Portugal, a "Continente" hypermarket, where we stock up on supplies and settle down in the carpark for the night. Of course we sample the Portuguese wine and find that you can get excellent wines for anything from under
€1.00 a bottle. The specialty sausages are worth trying too and there is a very extensive variety. Our earlier impressions are confirmed that things are dearer in Portugal than in Spain and France, but not by a lot.

April 12, 2005 Tuesday. On the road to Guarda. Spent the night in a roadsise quarry. Quiet road. Guarda proved to be a huge modern city not at all a small mountain town, and after a quick look, we bypassed it too.

Roads in Portugal are generelly excllent, far superior to Australian roads as far as major intercity highways are concerned. Traffic is often very light and on the lesser used regionbal roads extreemly light. Even many of the "back roads," N" routes, are of a high standard, comparable with the best interstate highways in Australia. However on some stopping places can be few and far between.

We have decided to shorten our planned route somewhat and to not go to Lisbon and surrounding areas. It isn't renowned as a major international tourist destination, and if Porto is any guide, there would be litle of interest to us, as we aren't into urban decay and grot on a large scale. So we head south along the new "I P" roads, four lane freeways that seem to have been largely constructed since Portugal joined the European Union, and no doubt largely paid for by EU funds. The traffic is so light that it seems difficult to justify all these high standard new roads. I'm left wondering what is the purpose, is Portugal to be the recipient of large scale immigration to provede cheap labour for the EU, as we see more towns such as Viseu undergoing massive expansion with new roads blocks of flats and factory areas.

We stop in Castelo Branco for lunch and to visit the LIDL supermarket for some more Portugese wine and other supplies. Again we note the higher prices (other than wine and beer) in Portugal compared to France, and it seems it is mainly due to lack of competition as LIDL is often the only modern store in the smaller towns, suplemented with the od Carrefoure or Continente store in the bigger regional cities.

We have found some excellent Portugese wine in the price range of €0.80 to €2.00 both whites and reds and commend that you try them. LIDL have a good selection.

Tour Highlight - Elvas, Extremoz, Evora, Beja.

April 13, 2005 Wednesday. Elvas. The most notable historic feature of Elvas is the largest aqueduct in Europe dating form the sixteenth century. It is four tiers high in places and many kilometers long. The city is a fortified town with 17th and 18th century fortifications similar to Belfort in France, but not kept in as good repair. The old town is alive and surprisingly spacious within the fortifications. Walls isn't an adequate description for this style of fortification, and is more applicable to earlier medieval town walls such as those found in England or along the Romantic Road in southern Germany. These fortifications represent a more sophisticated level of military engineering than mere town walls, and there is a whole, now archaic, military nomenclature to describe the various design features.

There is some information available from the Tourist office (Posta Tourisimo) in the center of the old town, but it does not describe either the military architecture or the major historical feature, the aqueduct, very well. Lacking detail and being only partly comprehensible because at least one of the brochures in English has been so poorly translated that it reads like a 1960's Japanese electrical appliance instruction manual, sort of Chinglish! The tourist office staff that assisted us, while pheasant and helpful, also had very limited English and seemed to have inadequate knowledge of the town.

While the city is clean within the walls, and there are some obvious attempts to beautify the surrounds they have a long way to go to preserve and well present this unusual historical treasure.

I commend Elvas to the visitor, it is a small city of manageable size, you can park nearby to the aqueduct just outside one of the North West entrance to the city in your campervan for free, although there is no water, rubbish bins or dump station nearby. There is a campsite but the Posta Tourisimo couldn't even tell us if it were open at this time of year or not, nor advise clearly on where to get water.

April 14, 2005 Thursday. Elvas. We spent a pleasant day exploring the fortifications and the old town and after lunch took a walk along the first kilometer or so of the aqueduct (at ground level you can't get up on to it). Apart from the small section on the edge of town, immediately outside the fort, access is very poor. There are no walking trails or cycle paths along the aqueduct (nor anywhere else in Portugal that we have seen) and you have to walk on the narrow roads as there are no footpaths. Nearly broke a leg on the rough road edges, now I know why the Portuguese walk all over the roads, the risk of getting run over must be less than the risk of a broken ankle from trying to walk on the rough roadside!

April 15, 20005 Friday. Evora. Leaving Elvas early we drove along the road beside the aqueduct following it for several kilometers before loosing it. Then we proceeded to Villa Vicosa which may be the neatest cleanest small town in Portugal, and it too has a castle of somewhat older vintage than the decencies of Elvas. We stopped for lunch at Estremoz another fortified town where there is a large central square within the old town where you can park a camper overnight if you wish. However there are no facilities for campervans, and we moved on in the afternoon to Evora. There are LIDL stores in Elvas Estremoz and Evora, which is handy to know as modern supermarkets are few and shopping at markets or small shops can be difficult if you don't speak Portuguese. Very few people speak any English in Portugal.

Arriving in Evora we found a SONP in a large parking area near another large aqueduct, and then explored the town. Tourismo has a map and excellent free guide book in English and the town is one of the most interesting we have visited. The town is of manageable size and has plenty of parking all around outside the walls. Fourteenth century walls are well preserved and there are even Roman ruins in the form of the partial remains of a temple, with a number of standing columns, located in the middle of town. Squares with street cafes and some "tourist stuff" shops add to the atmosphere. There is a campsite and LIDL and Modelo supermarkets. We were able to get water at the BP Servo when buying fuel.

April 16, 2005, Saturday. Beja. After leaving Evora in the afternoon we headed for Beja and on the way came to the small village of Portel, which has a small picturesque castle, which some may want to explore, if you aren't getting castled to death by now.

The Santana rest area, off IP2.

Thre is also a good SONP near Santana, signposted off the IP2 on a side road, which has water, tables, bins and quiet parking. It is very unusual Portugal to find such a relatively well equiped rest area, except for those along the major new freeways. We stopped to shower and do washing, to take advantage being able to refill the water tank, before proceeding on to Beja.

In Beja we found several large parks, planted in Australian Eucalypt trees (commonly called Gum Trees, common name for a myriad of related species of Eucalypts) where there were toilets and a separate building with kitchen sinks for picnickers to wash dishes, (with hose taps) plenty of tables and a parking area that makes a good SONP. It also makes a good track for Evil Kneval to do wheelies on his motorbike, and we moved up the road, but later in the night found the location noisy and decided to move back to Evil Kneval park for the next night.

April 17, 2005, Sunday. Beja. Saturday was a noisy night, local traffic and the area seemed to be a meeting point for locals after mifnight, although no one bothered us and we saw the Police cruise by. There is an interesting tower which is open (except Mondays) at the castle in Beja. The town is rather run down and littered compared to Evora and Elvas, but is worth a stop if touring this way.

We explored the Castelo and it's interesting tower, which seemed to be free on Sunday, and in the afternoon went cycling along the cycle patk along the IP2 road.

Cycle paths are a rarity in Portugal. "Eval Kneval" park prooved much quieter Sunday night, Eval must have worn his tires out on Saturday!

April 18, 2005, Monday, Aljezur. Heading SW toward the coast we noted a number of possible SONP's along the N123 and N266, after leaving IP2 at Ourique, and passing through the mountains around Monchique. There are several fountain springs providing good water along N266 one several kilometers NE of the Portela das Gorchas and another near Casais. Pleasent views to the coast can be had from several points along N266 as it passes through the Sierra de Monchique. The road is in a poor state of repair, rough and potholed in several sections, and is winding and narrow.

At Aljezur at the junction of N120 we saw several campervans parked and discovered an area in the village right off N266 immediatly before the bridge where you can fark free. There are toilets with water available from hand basin taps. The village has a small castle and a few shops and restraunts and makes a pleasent overnight stop. Five campervans parked for the night and we made friends with a Dutch couple who provided us with advice on a number of good free SONPs along the coast, and also a list of LPG service stations in Spain.

April 19,2005, Tuesday. We explored Aljezu with the ruins of it's 11th century Arab castle, and headed south to explore some of the smaller side roads leading to the ocean. The coast has rugged cliffs around 100 meters high with occasional small beaches where rocky ravines lead down to the sea.

While substantial parts of the coastline remain unspoiled, intensive house and flat building is taking place around Vale de Telha, and it won't be long before the area becomes just another overdeveloped beach slum. The cliffs are generally treeless and windswept, and the main scenic features are the rugged coastlines. The small beaches are popular with surfers as huge waves roll in from the Atlantic. Much of the area south from Aljezu to Cabo de Sao Vicente is classed as a Nature Park, so perhaps there will be some curbs on overdevelopment totally despoiling the area.

In the afternoon we visited Ponta de Sagres where there is an eighteenth century fort which charges €3.00 admission, but we found the rugged coastline to be the better interest, and then proceeded to Cabo de Sao Vicente which is the extremity of Europe, and so attracts hordes of tourists in both busses and cars. There is a light house which was being renovated and was as a result closed, and again the principle interest is the rugged coastline. The area is frequented by numerous stalls and food peddlers and is very inadequately developed for the crowds that go there.

It must be a fascination with extremities that draws people to such places, for the same sort if thing is found at Land's End in England. Perhaps extremities have a phallic fascination for many people, and they just have to go to get the feel of the place, so to speak! If that's the inspiration, maybe it explains the rhythmic squeaking of the springs on the German campervan parked next to us, in the early afternoon at Ponta de Sagres. The phallic fascination of the geographic extremity had prompted the desire for phallic satisfaction of the anatomical kind.

Whatever the cause, they were really going at it, long and hard! Must have been trying to be quiet though, as we couldn't hear any moans of ecstasy. Which made me wonder, knowing just how clever those Germans are, was it some kind of active alarm system, which on sensing the presence of passersby, by means of infrared sensors, played squeaking bed (or campervan) spring noises, to make any potential thief think that the van was occupied by a couple in the act of passionate sex! What's your guess?

Several parking areas along the roads to Cabo de Sao Vicente are signed no caravans or campers between 20.00 Hrs to 08.00 Hrs, so we returned to a SONP at a picnic area on the road to Castelejo out of Vila do Bispo, which we had noted earlier in the day.

The interest of the area is limited to its geographic peculiarity as an extremity of Europe, and the rugged, but by no means unusual coastline. To the international tourist, a place of nothing very special, that can be safely overlooked.

 

April 20, 2005, Wednesday. Pedras d'el Rai. Travelling east on N125 we stopped at Lagos at the Intermarche supermarket. We had formed the opinion in 2000 that Intermarche was not as good as other types of supermarket, and felt the same still applies. Goods are cheaper at LIDL or other big supermarkets. The area abounds with English migrants, and the supermarket even sells English beers for €2.60 a can, when perfectly good Portuguese beer is available for €0.25, a fool and his money are soon parted.

Near Lagos east of the town on the road to the golf course is a large parking area by a beach where a number of campervans were parked. No facilities, but a nice yellow sand beach, and it would be a good SONP.

From Lagos east the development of the coast is more intense, and proceeding at a frantic pace. As is usually the case much of it seems badly planned and poorly regulated and many of the "resorts" have in my opinion become already high rise urban jungles. We explored several of the beach suburbs and found the same thing at each one. At present in the early season the resorts are not crowded and only a few surfers in wet suits are seen using the beaches, but with the huge numbers of high rise flats and houses clustered around every point of access to a beach, in summer they would have to become unbearably crowded.

Further east past Portimao at Arnacao the high rise flats are so dense, with not a tree or an area of grass in between, that it is truly a ghastly urban jungle. We are just passing through, and I could not imagine a more unpleasant place to spend a beach holiday. As I have observed before in this series of notes on campervanning in Europe, beaches are with very few exceptions unattractive because of intense badly regulated overdevelopment, and of absolutely no appeal to Australians. The foreshores in this area lack any landscaping or public facilities. There are often no paved parking areas, no or too few toilets. Australia's Gold Coast in Queensland is regarded as overdeveloped by Australian standards but the quality of public facilities and attractiveness of the developments is incomparably superior. This is yet another confirmation of my opinion that Europeans are so desperate for beach resorts that they will flock to this kind of "sardine can" resort in their infinite thousands. Yuk!

After visiting Albufera and finding the LIDL store to buy some more Portuguese wine, (because the range of reasonably priced wine at Intermarche in Lagos was poor) and noting the same sprawling rampaging development, we decided to bypass the regional capital Faro, and keep inland until reaching Tavira. We found no good SONPS along the N270, and decided to try to find a SONP near Pedras d'el Rai by a "nature park" that had been mentioned to us by a Dutch campervanner we met at Aljezur a few days ago.

When we eventually found the place, with the help of a German campervanner, there were 35 campervans parked there. A large flat open parking area beside a tidal swamp, which is the "nature park". There are bins but no other facilities and no shade. The German pointed out the sewage dump point, which consists of a broken manhole cover on a drain, covered with a broken slab of concrete with a piece of string around it to act as a lid. Quiet, but not really a very attractive setting, but it must be the best for a long way, judging by the large number of campervans.

Later we were informed that it is the best free campervan park in the entire Algrave area, and the next night there were forty campervans. So with the primitive facilities, which I have described, that tells you something of what expect in campervan facilities in Portugal. They have a long way to go.

There is a narrow gauge railway to take commuters across the tidal marshland to the beach, about a kilometer away from ethe campervan parking area, and the beach must be the attraction, which we will explore later. At least the area is quiet and at present it isn't too hot, so we will rest her for a day or two. We are are a long way ahead of schedule because we have found relatively few pleasant places of interest to stay in Portugal, and obviously we will be spending more of our holiday in Spain and France than originally planned.

April 21, 2005, Thursday, Pedras d'el Rai. The day was spent doing an oil and filter change, painting the wheels with zinc chromate paint to stop rust, general relaxing and a long walk to and along the beach. The area does have a magnificent white sand beach. Stretching for kilometers in both directions and with deep sand dunes. As long as it remains a nature park it will be safe. Behind the dunes is a broad expanse of tidal marshland.

The beach is almost deserted at this time of year, too cold for swimming, although there is the occasional sunbather. The inevitable formal set up of beach chairs and umbrellas is laid out on a small section of the beach ready for the occasional hardy soul, but it is today unoccupied. Mercifully most of this beach is still free from such commercial intrusions, unlike the "horror beaches" of the Spanish and French coast in peak season.

It is difficult to find places to simply relax and enjoy simple pleasures in Europe, often we stay only a single night because there is nothing appealing to keep us longer, and although this is a very poor example, in comparison with the plethora of opportunities we have in Australia to enjoy the natural environment, in a million locations far more pleasant than this, in Europe this is as good as it gets. Hence the 40 campervans staying tonight, where the occupants will spend days, or even weeks, just sitting in the sun. It may be a far cry from a tropical paradise, but at least its away from the bleak winter conditions of northern Europe or England.

We are here because we are just passing through, and we agree this is the best place around these parts, but I wouldn't recommend that you come a long way to see it, unless you are from Holland maybe, they seem to love it.

April 22, 2005, Friday, Pedras d'el Rai. A bike ride into Tavera with lunch at a local cafe on Sao Pedro Sta. Luzia filled in most of the day. Sardinas grilled were delecious, also the grilled pork served with salad and local style chips.

April 23, 2005, Saturdy, El Rompido Lighthouse. Spain. Good SONP at small village of Fabrica. LPG at Villa Real Sta. Antonio and LIDL. Crossed into Spain. Stopped at Playa Hoya, dusty SONP, nice beach. Moved on to El Rompido lighthouse, SONP near boat ramp.

April 24, 2005, Sunday. Punta Umbria. Along the road to Punta Umbria there are several good SONPs and bicycle paths over several kilometers. Punta Umbria itself is overdeveloped, in the older style with buildings obstructing beach access, but between El Rompido and Punta Unbria the foreshore has been reserved and there is good access to wide white sandy beaches.

Lunch at a Punta Unbria cafe was a tourist meal disaster, tasted greasy and was bad value. Lesson, eat where you see mainly locals eating, well away from tourist areas, where often prices are high and quality low. The contrast with the delightful meal in Sta Luzia a few days ago couldn't be more striking, there all the customers were locals, no tourists, and the quantity was lavish, the cuisine authentic and the quality superb. Today, plenty of tourists, crap food and miserable servings. We cycled back to the campervan to flush our mouths out with fresh manderins, and get rid of the greasy tase of the crappy chips, cooked in sump oil, served with the meal of a miserable helping of small prawns and fried calamari, and a fried egg.

"The ignorance of the masses is profound." - DB Philosopher B. 1944.

"Prophesy - To observe that which has passed, and guess it will happen again." Elbert Hubbard American author and publisher [1859 - 1915]

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