Portu-gals: Ladies in Lagos & Lisbon

Quick everybody! Grab your bikinis and boarding passes and get down to Portugal. Surf’s up and even by Australian standard this place has some first class beaches. But don’t worry, in case you have real life commitments/ a real life and can’t just nip off to Portugal, Renee and I have done some exploring on your behalf. I report the following diligently.

Lagos coastline. 
Will the Victorians among you agree that it looks a little like the Great Ocean Road?

Technically speaking, our first stop post-Morocco was Spain, Servile to be exact. We hung about in the sunshine and visited the Alkazar, which is kind of like a baby version of the Alhambra in Granada. I'm qualified to make that assessment 'cause at this point in my travels I've been some fancy tile work than "Frank Walker from National Tiles".

           This beauty of a bathhouse was apparently constructed by the sultan/king for his mistress so that
            she could slip out of his bedroom and bathe in peace. Not a bad arrangement. It's sort of what I
                            envisage the 'light at the end of the tunnel' to heaven would look like.

                           Welcome to the Spanish region of Cesca. Narcissism over history!

                                                        The Servile bullfighting arena.


And then we were on our way to Lagos, Portugal.

Scientific fact: pretty flowers make long bus trips better. 

We met up with Flo and Kate quite by accident in Lagos (which is pronounced ‘Lagosh’ if you want to be Portuguese about it. As in ‘Oh my gosh this is an awesome place!’) so naturally we celebrated with a cocktail.

Stations of the cross lined the hike to the lighthouse.

 

 And the cliff face was pretty righteous too.

    I wasn’t quite brave enough but Ren and Sam (a fellow Aussie backpacker we met in Serville) went scaling the rocks. 

 The next day I WAS brave enough to join Renee in Raposeira for a two day surf camp to keep our Moroccan surf skills sharp. By the end of the day the surfing the score was:
Me: 1
Untamable Portugese Ocean Break: 237

The rip tides managed to wash away any shreds of self confidence I had in the surf, but hell, I had fun.

         Afterwards we went/semi hitch-hiked with some friendly german fellows to Lisbon. I'm happy to announce it was my favourite city in Europe so far (not including Amsterdam of course). Why did I love Lisbon so much? It was colourful, collapsing, cheap, morbid, wild and fashionable.

Rainbow mailboxes = Exhibit A.

Hidden theatre in the city centre. 

Our walking tour guide was a super chiller and he took us here for a midmorning shot of ‘Ginjinha’ which was an impressively strong local berry liquor. Small failure on my part that no Port was sampled in Portugal. There is only so much I can do, ok?

The old man that owned this bar was even sweeter than the alcohol he served.

Fado is the local music of the region. It’s usually sung by a melancholic lady, backed up by a guitarist or two. Basically they sing about this fabulous, untranslatable concept called ‘saudade’ which is, if I understood correctly, the feeling that you had something special in the past that you lost (usually through your own fault) and you know you will never get it back again. The Portuguese culture is preoccupied with poetic tragedy. Maybe if Bon Iver were into city planning they'd concoct something similar.

But Lisbon knows how to party too (they have a huge, dirt cheap, street bar district called Barrio Alto) and for the whole month of June the city celebrates Saint Anthony with concerts, confetti and people will turn their houses into restaurants, concert venues or pubs and welcome the world in. Above are some left over decorations.

More reasons why Lisbon is the greatest: So much sunshine!

 So many pastel buildings!

 So many crazy castles! 

This is actually in Sintra about a half hour trip out of town. We took a stroll around this mansion that a rich, bored Portuguese gentleman dreamt up. He had a 'mystical' well and a labyrinth grotto and a secret lab and everything. He was like a nineteenth century batman. I spent a good deal of my time playing in the flowerbeds. Renee humoured me.

I eventually climbed out of the Hydrangeas and sadly packed my things for another bus trip, this time to Madrid. Man was I sad to part ways with Lisbon. One might even say I felt saudade. ;)  Portugal wins the 'most unexpectedly awesome country' award and two suntanned thumbs up.