Confessions of an Author

Lisbon to the Algarve 1 Breakfast. Boys only 10 minutes late. We did a quick trip to the supermarket. After the trip to E.coli Service Station, everyone is a bit sensitive about where our food is from. Bought a range of breads and crisps and plastic looking cheese slices. My bread rolls have a use-by date of Jan 2019, so I’m not convinced they have much that’s natural in them. But hopefully that includes bacteria. Left the Sheraton, Lisbon, at 11:30. The resort in the Algarve only had a P.O. box address, so Husband looked on their website and entered the town name—Praia da Falesia—into the SatNav. All seemed fine. After driving for about an hour, the SatNav directed us off the motorway. J checked, and said he thought it was probably avoiding the traffic queues which were ahead. The roads grew smaller and smaller. When we were directed down an unpaved road, we began to suspect something was wrong. Could the SatNav have been tampered with by a gang of criminals, who w...

A Day in Lisbon Lisbon in a Day (because everyone was ill for the other days!) Everyone was better, so we caught a metro into the city. We walked through the old part of the city, saw some squares, found the castle. J couldn’t find a fridge magnet that matched his set. I couldn’t find a cork cushion cover. We did however, find a queue. We weren’t sure what the queue was for, but we’re British, we joined it. Turned out it was for the castle (8 euros) so all good. The castle had great views of the city and very long lines for the washrooms. We walked back along shiny cobbled streets, trying to not slip. Flat summer shoes are bit of a problem in Portugal, as they tend to have slippery soles, and most of the streets are shiny cobbles. Heels would be worse. I think the best footwear would be wellies really. We ate lunch at Comidas de Santigo. When we sat down, they brought us bread, olives and fishcakes. Luckily, we noticed on the menu that each item, including the but...

Arrival in Lisbon 3 Left the Sheraton Porto after breakfast, and drove down to Lisbon. Husband had helpfully brought a supply of CDs to entertain us during the journey. There was no obvious CD player in the car. We stopped en route at a service station. This was later to have great significance. It looked clean, so we decided the food hygiene would be okay, despite the rather disgusting toilets. Portugal has a lot of disgusting public toilets. In my travels, most countries have cleaner washrooms than England, but not Portugal—wear shoes and take your own paper, and try not to breathe in. Arrived in Lisbon and booked into another Sheraton (Husband gets different perks with his  travels too often with work  card, so we like them). One perk is the use of the hotel lounge, so we dumped our bags and I sat in the lounge with the boys, drinking free beers (them, not me) whilst looking across the city. David and Rebecca went swimming. We caught the metro into the city,...

A Day in Sintra 1 A Day in Sintra. On a clear day, you can see Sintra from Lisbon. Husband suggested that we spent a day there, but a quick perusal of his guidebook, and we all declined, as it looked boring. The following morning at breakfast, M said his Portuguese friend had said we should definitely visit, and he’d checked on the internet, and it looked really interesting. He showed us exciting pictures of deep wells you could walk down, and fairy castles, and we all decided to go. Husband said very little. Most online reports about Sintra said you shouldn’t drive, as there is nowhere to park and the walk to the palace is very steep. However, most online reports were written by tour companies, who earn their living transporting people to the palace, so we ignored them and drove. Parking in Sintra was something of a challenge, because although there was a massive car-park (where a person could lose their car for several days) there were not many spaces. As people ret...

Porto, Portugal: Family Holiday Diary 2018 Porto – Sunday Woke 7am. Weather is cloudy—hope no one notices. Metro into Porto. Wandered down to the river, which is very pretty. Crossed the bridge to Gaia after lunch. Eating here is very difficult, as all the restaurants seem to be fully booked or closed. Which then makes you wonder why the ones with vacancies have vacancies. On the bridge a young man was standing on the balustrade, wearing swimwear, waiting to jump. Gradually, a crowd gathered, waiting to watch. Would he plummet to his death? Be run down by one of the large pleasure boats passing beneath the bridge? Or dive spectacularly and emerge on the bank? I think none of the above. When a fairly large crowd had gathered, a group of his friends passed amongst them, asking for money. I never saw him jump and I think it was a scam. Later, a different young man was standing there, waiting to jump. Perhaps I should have pushed him in. The Gaia side of the Douro riv...

Portugal 1 Family Holiday 2018—Portugal We had planned a family holiday for the last two weeks of August. As the date grew nearer, the whole of Europe was gripped in a heatwave. We watched as temperatures in Portugal went over 40, and saw wild fires on the news. All rather a worry. Saturday We met R at the airport. J had been helpfully sending her updates on our progress (wrong airport, earlier flight, left already) but we managed to meet her at the bag drop. All good with the flight. I sat next to M/factoid boy, and therefore knew lots of facts about Portugal by the time we arrived. Some of these were interesting, for example, did you know that the Romans called the region known as France and Spain ‘Gaul’ and we were going to the area that was the main port, hence ‘Port-o-Gaul’? Or that, an exploring nation, the Portuguese discovered Newfoundland? However, after trying to establish a colony there they left, saying there was ‘nothing there’—hence name ‘Ca nada’. We ...