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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