I don’t even … I mean … soooo tired! Or better just drained. Normally, we would take it slow, but we had decided already to go to another of the lovely rustic campgrounds near Tomar. So this is a travel day. We decided super last minute what we would do and got going later than expected.
By the time we reached Peniche, it was already pretty warm. And reasonably late. Well, at least late enough that we could go for the earliest possible lunch. Once again, we sat down as the first patrons at the Restaurante a Sardinha. An old fishermen’s tavern turned restaurant still known for good grilled seafood. But since it has gone through a good bit of touristification, it also catered a vegetarian dish for Nina. This lunch was a bit of a consolation prise for the reportedly excellent seafood we missed at Ericeira last night. It was good and the rugged old waiter (who looked like he would have never dreamed of catering well off tourists in this place) melting to Number 3’s charms was a sight to behold.
I strong
armed exhausted Nina into a bit of a detour around the peninsular. The jagged
limestone cliffs and views out to the islands off to the west were worth it.
Even so, still a little more fuel out of the tank.
The town is
primarily known for its surfer beaches. We decided to give Number 3 one more
round in the sand before heading inland for a good while. It was nice but
brutal out in the midday sun. Next time, we will have to see to get some kind
of shelter packed so that the little one can enjoy the sand for a little while
longer.
Knackered we gave it a final push for the day and strolled a bit through the inland town of Óbidos. We managed to sneak in to the medieval old town just before the biggest wave of tourists arrived. That made our little stroll a lot more bearable. Well, actually, we did kind of like it. It was definitively touristy, very much like Carcassonne. The three same things in all shops: Booze (the local version of Ginjiha made from sour cherries), books and chocolate. That’s the things mentioned in the guidebook, that is what you get 😉
In the end,
we chose a camp close to the sea – we thought we might get one more shot at
this west coast sunset. Turned out it was not close enough, but we were glad nonetheless.
Warm showers, cheap and a shady spot for us. Time to rest once more.
Well, bad
is the wrong word as nothing bad happened. Just a couple of annoying
situations. But we’ll get to it in time.
Today is
Mother’s Day, in Germany at least. In Portugal, it was last weekend but I’m
still going with the German date. It is the day we leave Lisbon, a city we
really enjoyed and hope to be back in, and a camp ground which was so noisy Flo
wore noise-cancelling headphones. It is the day, we pack up and leave to have a
second breakfast at Ikea. XD
To be honest, I’ve had the idea when we first arrived and saw the giant “IKEA” sign on the other side of the motorway. So today, after packing up, we went on a bit of a shopping spree. First to Decathlon (brand of big box sporting goods store) to look for shoes and a kid camping chair. Flo’s shoes are thoroughly worn and Number 3 occupies my chair at the moment. It was so hard to get him to eat properly without a chair that we swapped. He’s in my chair, I’m on the chilly bin. A kid-sized camping chair would be better though. We bought none of these things but left with kiddie sunglasses and a new shirt for Flo.
Ikea was
the next stop. We’ve been on the road for about a month now and it was great,
plain and simple, to walk into an Ikea where just everything is familiar: The
layout, the furniture, the restaurant. Breakfast still has a national twist as
you can get a pastel de nata, a croissant and a coffee for 1€ here.
Back on the
road, we went into exploring mode. Instead of taking an inland route, we
cruised along the coastline and saw what Portuguese people do on the
weekend…they all flock to the beaches close by. We didn’t stop but I tried to
get a couple of pictures of the thousands of umbrellas in the sand.
The road led us to the western most corner of mainland Europe: Cabo da Roca. As could have been expected, the place was full of locals and tourists alike – plus motor bikers to boot. Sweating in their gear, they took pictures in front of the memorial plate, reminding us a LOT of ourselves when we were on the road for a year.
The
western-most point of Europe looks a lot like New Zealand actually, just rocks
dotting into the sea and then a whole lot of ocean. No seals though. 🙂
After a couple of pictures, we drove off, further inland. Sintra was supposed to be a good stop even if the Lonely Planet warned of masses of tourists. A couple of kilometres on our way, we came past a weekend farmer’s market. There, we bought fresh bread, veges and fruits as well as cheese and jam. Blue George filled to the brim, we stocked up on butter and alcohol-free beer in a small shop and where all set for a roadside lunch.
Which
didn’t happen. We just couldn’t find a nice place to stop and it was getting
later and later for lunch. And then, we were in Sintra. Sintra is a labyrinth
of small roads with most of them being blocked off for everyone except
residents. That’s pretty awesome…just not when you are driving through it and
the satnav doesn’t know you can’t go where it wants you to go. Plus, everybody
and their dog was out and about, blocking roads, stressing from behind when we
didn’t know where to go….it was stressful driving.
Also, there wasn’t any recommended café or eatery here, most being expensive or touristy. The next recommended restaurant was another 30 minutes away and we just didn’t have the time to get there. So we made the decision to park and find food here. Not so happy with the choice to begin with, we sat down in the least sucky place and ordered.
It took forever for them to prepare our food. I was just about to dig in when I realized that my spinach quiche, listed under “vegetarian options” on the menu, actually had chicken in it. Bleh! They were apologetic and I got my spinach quiche straight away but the meal was kinda ruined.
By now, we were
completely over Sintra. Not to make it even worse I, at least, queued to buy
the local sweet treats. Once we acquired them, we hurried back to the car and
left.
Only the camp ground was still on our list for today. Ericeira is a surfer’s place so there is a big camp ground there. We actually managed to get in for a decent price and found a lovely place under trees to give us shade.
Putting our
washing in proved to be a bit too late. First, you had to walk all the way back
to reception to buy a token to wash and it felt like 1 kilometer in 30 degrees
and no shade. Then, the washing mashine was occupied. So we hung our washing in
the evening, knowing it wouldn’t dry before bedtime. Too bad as we had put most
of Number 3’s sleeping stuff into it.
The sun set amazingly over the ocean shining right into our tent. Flo took great shoots of the natural beauty while I fought Baby who was entirely against sleeping in a hot, bright tent. Baby won. He went to bed at 9pm, leaving me exhausted and frustrated.
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