Eucalypts and Grapes
Thankfully it wasn’t an infection—just the strangeness of it all, I guess, combined with my greed. One of those plates of food would be enough for two—or even four if John wasn’t one of them!
Tonight was snug and in the morning I almost felt tempted to stay. For a moment at least. What was I thinking? This id Camp Sh*t and after the weekend I think I am the site’s only inhabitant—it is time to move on. Not even the dolphins can keep me here any longer, but I leave with fond memories of sun-soaked days watching them from nearly deserted beaches. Even with all that litter, jellyfish (not a pretty sight on a sore stomach) and smoking chimneys in the distance, it was the closest to paradise I have been in a long time. One day I hope to return (and stay in the Pousada de São Filipe!).
So—on to the north and then slowly back south. There is so much to see: Porto, the old university town of Coimbra (Portugal’s version of Oxford or Cambridge), Sintra – a village outside of Lisbon which Byron called ‘the most delightful in Europe’ and the guide advises to set aside two days for &ndash, Évora with its monuments and bone chapel, the marble town of Estremoz, villages, gorges, mountains and palaces everywhere. So much—and so little time.
Just north of Lisbon we hit a wall of fog. It was as if the sky had been wiped out. At first I thought we were driving through smoke from a bushfire. The sun was completely obscured, showing through from time to time no brighter than the moon. You could look directly at it. ‘This is it’, I thought:’this is Portugal’s wet north. From now on I might as well be back in Scotland!’—and Porto was still 275 km away. But an hour later the fog lifted as sddenly as it had descended leaving the land once again under a radiant sun, although it was markedly greener here.
The landscape was dominated by pine trees and shaggy eucalypts which from a distance looked disconcertingly like giant bamboo; not what I expected to see in Southern Europe. Tiny vinyards lay scattered between the woods.
Porto has to be one of the easiest cities for backpackers. The campsite is central and costs next to nothing (under 6�), but it is also next to a motorway. However, the constant drone of the traffic soon turned into white noise. I erected my tent next to the only other in an almost deserted space of soft sand—covered with a litter of leaves of course. The whole wood next to the site is suffused with the smell of eucalyptus—this has to be the only spot of fresh air in all of Porto.
Tags: Portugal, Tag Index
Denni