Loving Lisbon!

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So when we last blogged we were heading for a night out in Lisbon. Well that was good fun, although quite subdued. As some of you will know, people down in these parts don’t go out until late. Most bars don’t get busy until much after midnight, with clubs open till 7am. It was quite different to a night down at Queens or The New Penny – especially ringing doorbells to get in. We think we ended up in the wrong bar when we were confronted by a room full of teenage goths!

The next day, as we were suffering somewhat with a mysterious headache and Charlie had finished her Dick Francis, we decided to head for some of the spots in the surrounding area. Praia do Guincho near Cascais to the west of Lisbon was our first destination where we found a lovely campsite near a small deserted beach. This was our first chance to dig out the shorts, bikes and barbeque. It was perfect; we’re sure the neighbours didn’t mind the smoke billowing in through their front door! It was so nice we stayed for 2 nights (nothing to do with the hangovers!).


Some of the campsites we have stayed on have had wi-fi hotspots, which is great. This meant that on Mothers Day we were able to call home via Skype, and see the whole Ellis tribe crowded round the laptop on the dining room table, which was really lovely.

We spent a couple of days investigating Sintra, a hill-top town near Lisbon influenced by various monarchs trying to stamp their style on it over the years. It’s quite an amazing place. The Castelo dos Mouros is fantastic; perched on a rocky ridge over the town, the castle was built by the Moors during their occupation then taken over by Alfonso Henriques in 1147 with the help of Scandinavian crusaders. The views from the top were stunning, stretching for miles in every direction, as you can see from the photo.


The Quinta de Regaleira, a house and gardens just outside the town, is a fantastic place. The designer was theatrical set designer Luigi Manini. Everywhere you turn there are amazing follies, fairytale grottos and secret passages at the bottom of spiral staircases that go deep underground.

Both of these attractions would have been declared a health and safety nightmare in the UK. This is one of the things we’ve particularly enjoyed in Portugal so far, the laid back attitude to health and safety. If you fall off a castle wall and break your neck, well you clearly weren´t looking where you were going!

After Sintra we spent a couple of nights camped right by beaches famous in Portugal for surfing.

After a quick stop at the Mouth of Hell, where wild Atlantic waves crash into caves in the cliffs, we headed to the south side of the river Tejo. Our first stop was Cristo Rei, a statue of Jesus inspired by the one in the city of Rio and promised to god by the local church if Portugal was spared from the horrors of the second world war. It was, so this monument was built in the 50s and stands just across the river from the city of Lisbon, providing amazing views from the top on a clear day.


Next we visited the favourite beach resort of many Lisbon residents – Caparica. We had hoped to spend another night camped by the beach, but after stumbling across ... well let’s just call it a dodgy beach car park!... we decided to stay in the safety of a local campsite!

The next day we drove back across the amazing ‘25 April’ bridge, which connects Lisbon with the south side of the river. If this looks familiar, it’s because it was designed by the same people who built the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco. When it was opened in the 60s it was named after the dictator of the time – Salazar - but it was quickly renamed to mark the date of the regime’s fall in 1974.


The following three days were spent exploring the centre of Lisbon, a city we have completely fallen in love with and would highly recommend. As we write this (23/3), we’re still unsure if we’re moving on tomorrow as we could happily spend a lot more time here. Rather than bore you with details of every attraction we’ve seen, here are a couple of highlights. If you want more detail, we´ll update the photo album shortly – you should find a link to this further down the page on the right hand-side.


The centre of Lisbon is spread across several hills and valleys but it has an outstanding public transport network that links the different districts. The trams, funicular railways and lifts that work so well have become tourist attractions in themselves. Flying up and down tiny, narrow, winding streets on tram number 28 was definitely one of our highlights. We could have spent the whole day going round on this!

It is a very attractive city with many interesting buildings and sunny squares full of character where people enjoy watching the world go by with a friend and a drink. They certainly have the weather for it; it’s been about 18 degrees, making it the perfect time to visit.


The Rough Guide says ‘it’s hard not to see the city as an urban funfair’. We’d certainly agree and if we do leave tomorrow, we’ll certainly be coming back at some point.

Episode VII, in which not a lot happens... apart from Spain

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Greetings reader! Have you still not had that baby? / Don’t you usually have a gin around this time? / Here’s your beef tea Derrick! (please delete as appropriate).

So when we last spoke we’d just arrived in Biarritz, one of France’s many style capitals - cue photo of us looking stylish on the beach in Biarritz...

This was just four days ago and the main thing that’s happened since then is about 1000 kilometres. Oh and Spain! We passed through it so quickly, we barely had time to find a wicker donkey for Dan! (maybe later Dan, sorry!)

On Tuesday (or was it Monday? – it’s amazing how quickly you lose track) we passed into Spain and on Thursday, into Portugal. The first thing that struck us on both occasions was the lack of, well a border really.

Now we’ve not done this sort of European trip before. We suspected we probably wouldn’t have to flash our passports as we were waved across the border. But we at least expected something vaguely resembling a border, with a little hut and barrier manned by a couple of armed policemen perhaps. And to drive passed with that ever so slight feeling of guilt, like you get when going through the ‘nothing to declare’ channel at the airport, even when you genuinely have nothing to declare – half expecting/dreading/hoping to be pulled from the queue and strip searched!

Not a sausage! Not even a sign reading ‘Welcome to Spain’ and telling us that it’s twinned with Wales, or was awarded the Country in Bloom award in 1987. Disappointing.

The second thing that struck us was the language. The only clue to us having changed countries was the shopfronts being in a different language. Now we’re obviously aware that different languages are spoken in different parts of the world, but we felt we were quite well prepared, what with David being an MFL teacher and all (that’s Modern Foreign Languages for those who don’t parlay the teaching lingo!). Sadly David’s MFL’s don’t extend to Portugese, which is quite, quite different to Spanish... we’ve discovered.

This only really presented a problem when the third thing struck us. Unfortunately, this was a stone kicked up by the car in front which shattered our windscreen when we were in the middle of nowhere! We can laugh about it now... nearly. International Rescue was very good. We were soon directed to the nearest autoglass that had the right screen in stock by the lovely Anna who was ‘somewhere in Portugal’. And with David’s other MFLs, we (or rather, he) managed to get it all sorted quite quickly.

So we arrived rather later than planned at our first stopover point in Portugal, a Baragem or reservoir near Nisa. It was dark when we stopped, but we woke the next day to temperatures of 15 degrees and a crackin’ view!!



We’d had snow the day before in Spain, so we decided to stay another night and spent Thursday relaxing (apart from Charlie who spent most of it swimming).



On Friday we drove on to Lisbon, and it’s there that we leave you again dear reader. Our plan is to hit the town tonight (Saturday), apart from Charlie who’s having an early night with a Dick Francis. We’ll then go further south at a more leisurely pace and (hopefully) enjoy some of the warmer weather.

Do keep your messages and comments coming. We love hearing your news and gossip. What news from Corrie? Has the Apprentice started again yet? Who will replace Margaret we wonder!

A couple of quick responses. Juliet wins a prize for knowing that Corsica is France’s largest island. I’m afraid your only prize is the knowledge that the sewing kit you gave us has saved us from certain drafts – in other words, a couple of the safety pins are holding together a troublesome zip on our sleeping bag! Thank you!

Adeus

Au Revoir France!

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Well, that’s the Bisto put away for the night; a taste of home! We’ve spent the last few days heading further south. We particularly enjoyed the Charente area; Cognac and Angouleme.

We spent a night in luxury at a campsite on the Ile d’Oléron, France’s 2nd largest island (a prize for those who know the biggest!) This area supplies 60% of all the oysters eaten in France. It was great to have the pool to ourselves and relax.



The day spent in Cognac was really interesting, especially seeing a bottle of Cognac on sale for €7000! If ever you find yourself in the area it’s worth knowing that all the museums are free on the first weekend of the month – lucky for us! This meant our trip to the international comic book museum in the beautiful town of Angouleme the next day was also free; all very nicely done in a really cool building which looked very sci-fi. Sadly there wasn’t much in English, so we read a few comics and Alex bought a Tintin book! Then we had a quick stop at the paper museum. This seemed to focus on the production of cigarette papers and how babies and children were shown smoking in adverts for them – all very politically correct!




On the way from Charente to Spain we decided to go to the Dune du Pyla; the biggest sand dune in Europe just next to the biggest forest in Europe – a bizarre sight that very much confused the dog who couldn’t work out where the sea was! Over 100 metres high fact fans, and plonked in the middle of nowhere. We think they had the sand shipped in to create a feature!




Things have all been going great in the van but the cold weather has meant that we’ve decided to head to Portugal, and Lisbon by the end of this week. It’s not just Britain that has balmy weather. We had snow this afternoon, bright blue skies this morning and icicles on the beach!

So, upon leaving France, a few observations:
- France is massive; huge areas with absolutely nothing in them.
- The French, as a rule, don’t believe in indicating!
- Wine’s cheap – and, at times, nasty! But you get what you pay for.
- There are a lot of motorhomes around, but many places close for the winter.

And finally... Monday morning; you were at work, and we were doing this...



...it's not all glamour!

Cognac anyone?

We have travelled inland slightly to Cognac today. Think you can guess what we'll be doing tonight!

Hope all's well - bright blue skies here. What's the weather like at home?

Journey South (remember them?!)

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Two disasters this week. You may have seen that a severe storm hit the west coast of France in the early hours of Sunday morning. We’ve seen some of the aftermath on our travels this week and it looks just awful.

We left Chris and Helene’s in Normandy on Sunday lunchtime and headed south. The storm clouds cleared just as we approached Mont Saint Michel 2 hours later. We had a wander around the cobbled streets before driving on to our overnight spot.




On Monday we headed to Dinan, a beautiful medieval hilltop town. The river in the valley below was inches from bursting its banks and some of the shops there were already pumping out their cellars. We continued our mission to get to some warmer weather in the south, stopping a night in Nort sur Erdre where we found 3 bottles of Merlot for €4.50... bargain!





On Tuesday we arrived in the area known as Marais Poitevin, or Green Venice. It reminded us of the Norfolk Broads – an area of fens, criss crossed by canals and dykes. Apparently, many of the farmers use punts to get around as their land can’t be reached by road. We had a long healthy walk here – followed by an unhealthy three course lunch with wine! Whoops! Then we saw a beaver in a dyke!!





On Wednesday we arrived in La Rochelle. The towers were closed due to storm damage and some of the shops were being pumped out, but we loved the place and would definitely like to come back at some point. We stayed in a car park close to the town centre! The hospital and the station were quite close by, which made for an interesting night of sirens, trains and platform announcements!



On Thursday we headed on to Rochefort for a quick look at their rope factory (as interesting as it sounds, and also closed due to storm damage!) Finally we arrived at our base for the next day or so – Ile d’Oléron.

Everywhere we’ve been to so far has been so quiet, we have to keep reminding ourselves that it’s only March. There are very few people on the beaches, in the restaurants and campsites that have remained open for the low season. We almost feel we have places to ourselves. This suits us just fine, especially as our last campsite on Ile d’Oléron had a health spa and pool complex attached..... but you had to wear Speedos! Don’t expect any photos of that!

Thanks for your comments. Tom Tom got us around La Rochelle just fine Dad; I’m afraid the jousting outfit only came in kids sizes Mum; and Daxa – keep us posted! It’s time that hairdo was locked up!!

The second disaster? Oh yes, we’ve run out of Hob Nobs!

Raining chats et chiens!

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Well after a week abroad we’ve seen our fair share of rain!

We crossed the channel on Monday morning and then drove in torrential rain down the coast of Northern France to stay the night at Fort Mahon-Plage; a deserted holiday resort.


To be fair the first few days consisted of eating cheese, drinking wine and sleeping, although we did stop briefly to consider buying a nearly new Citroen!




After this we headed to St Jacques de Néhou to visit Alex’s brother Chris, Hélène and family. They enjoyed such luxury foreign gifts as Marmite, Bombay mix and Yorkshire tea; and we enjoyed their fabulous hospitality as ever. The kids also enjoyed the inflatable jousting set we gave them, we give it a week before the dog has a go at them!




We’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the forth member of our team; Grandad. Grandad Ellis is pushing forward through France, much as he did in 1944, only this time he’s made of wool and hanging from our rear view mirror!


So what' going on in Blighty? And most importantly, has Gail been arrested for Joe's murder yet?! - bound to happen - can see it coming a mile off!