We arrived back in Lisbon at 12:55 today. Why is the time important? We had to have the car back by 13:00 or pay a huge fine, more than just one additional day of rental. We drove 300 km on really lovely highways with almost no traffic until reaching the outskirts of Lisbon. Average speed was just about 150 km per hour, or slightly less than 100 mph. I do enjoy a nice Beamer now and then!
Tavira is a lovely city and we enjoyed long walks along the salt flats as well as visits to the market filled with fish, meat, vegetables and all manner of local salt. However, we would never consider returning due to the fact that the Brits have taken over this little town as well as almost all the others in the Algarve. Local cultures can’t compete with hordes of Brits so they just adjust to keep the money flowing. All of the menus are in English; you can ask for one in Portuguese but they have to look for it. All of the conversations are in English; the Brits of course will not make any attempt to speak Portuguese so the locals all speak English. Whereas in other parts of Portugal restaurants will not open until 19:30, they are open at 17:30 in the Algarve. Since they have to cater to the lowest common denominator, the quality of the food and service can suffer. Our hotel, which we now know caters to Brits, had a breakfast that you could have had in Surrey, London, Manchester or Liverpool. Lukewarm eggs, lukewarm greasy bacon, baked beans, blood sausage, red sausage, fried bread and lukewarm broiled tomatoes, all served buffet style so you had to make sure you were not trampled as they brought out a new item!! We made the most of it but we were very happy to depart - and as I said, we’ll not go to that part of Portugal again.
We had asked the staff at our wonderful hotel in Évora the best way to drive to Tavira and they told us the scenic route was just lovely. What they really meant to say was that the scenic route was lovely for the passenger! Half of the journey was nothing more than switchbacks and slow speeds. They have an ingenious system for slowing down cars as they approach little villages, of which there are fourteen. They post the approaching speed which is 50 kph, and if you are going any faster there is a red light that comes on and stops you dead. Took me two villages to figure this out and after that it was easy, but slow. Cindy assures me that we went through really cool countryside with lakes and forests and all manner of picturesque vistas. I’ll take her word for it.
As you approach Lisbon you go over a really interesting bridge known as the 25 de April bridge, which looks a lot like the Golden Gate. As we crossed we could see our ship in the cruise port, which was very reassuring. We depart tomorrow and will have seven days at sea, one day in St. Thomas and two more sea days arriving in Ft. Lauderdale the day before Thanksgiving. We’ll rent a car and drive to North Port to have Thanksgiving with the kids and grandkids. On Black Friday, we’ll meet dear friends from our Germany days for lunch before heading back to the Tampa airport. So, we may be out of touch for awhile and we hope that all is well with everyone. Best wishes, Cindy and Wm
PS. In parts of Portugal, particularly Évora, restaurants offer small plates of starters that already are on the tables when you arrive for dinner. We found that to be very appealing and noticed that all the diners around us had the same offerings and were eating with gusto, so we did the same. I mentioned some of these in the previous blog, e.g., shredded rabbit in vinaigrette. At the time I had noticed that some of the starters were also listed on the menu with prices alongside, but thought nothing of it.
Until the next evening at a different restaurant in Évora - same drill, lovely offerings on the table already - but the waiter explained that these were optional and we would pay only for the ones we ate. Well didn’t we feel like rubes!!! This time we carefully pointed out the ones we wanted (including the best octopus salad ever) and dismissed the ones we didn’t - e.g., a kind of sausage that looked too much like pepperoni. The bill reflected our wise choices - and come to think of it the previous night’s bill had reflected the opposite!
We usually combine our names and refer to ourselves as the Embees, but at times like this we are definitely the Dumbees.
Links related to our latest adventures:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavira
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/25_de_Abril_Bridge
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