March 18th: Granada 1

Granada was the last stronghold of the Moors and held out until 1492 when King Fernando and Queen Isabella of Spain expelled them. Apparently Fernando was the handsome part of the duo and Isabella did the thinking. The picture shows the outside of their tomb: we went inside but there are no photos allowed. It is very grand and impressive with a massive carved marble tomb, intricate gilded altar and wrought iron altar screen, but lacks the beauty and harmony of similar tombs we saw in Italy last autumn.
Isabella died in 1505 and left instructions that a candle should be left burning for her in perpetuity. Being the acclaimed heroine of all Spain, this wish was followed to the letter- that is, until some time in the 1980s, when an electric light bulb replaced the candle! Despite numerous protests, it took 10 years before the candle was restored.

This is Convento de San Jeronimo, a beautiful building surrounded by orange trees. It was founded by Fernando and Isabella but not built until after their deaths. It is still an operating convent today. But hang on, I’m puzzled here, and I know the spelling is slightly different, but wasn’t Geronimo an Apache Indian chief?

This is one of the many guitar shops in Cuesta de Gomerez, or “Guitar Street” as it is known. They are not just shops but workshops and make the guitars on the premises. They have a reputation for high quality. The shops were closed as it was early afternoon (i.e. siesta) so I couldn’t go in for a closer look, but the lack of price tickets in any of the shop windows indicated premium prices.

March 16th: Arrival at Granada

The site is 10 miles from Granada and fairly new. It is terraced and has stunning views over the Sierra Nevada, Spain’s highest mainland mountain range. Although the camp is at an altitude of about 3,500 feet, as you can see it was warm enough to sit out in summer gear and admire the view. That’s a sapling, by the way, not a fishing rod at the side of Jane.

The site organises a free trip into the local Natural Park once a week in 4 X 4’s. This was the day after we arrived, so we went. The 4X4 took us along some dirt roads with sheer drops but lovely views over the mountains and ended at an abandoned quarry. The rock mined was stark white as the photo shows and was turned into gravel chips for a multitude of uses including road building. The whole area underfoot comprised these gravel chips making it look like a pure white beach.

March 16th: Portugese Odds and Ends

Here are the few odd items that didn’t fit into the other blogs.

Chapel of Bones

In the town of Alcantarilha was a chapel with walls, floor and ceiling made of human bones. These were dug up from the church graveyard several hundred years ago when it became full. As far as I could discover there was no more to it than that. It made a gruesome sight, but the occupants all looked happy enough and I did check the photos afterwards for “red-eye” in case one of them gave me a cheeky wink.

Cork Harvesting

The last inland walk took us past lots of stripped cork oaks. The number 8 in white indicates that these trees were de-barked in 2008 so the grower knows they need doing again in 2017, i.e. every 9th year. It seems that, despite the plastic revolution, the market for cork is as strong as ever and we saw in the local shops cork wallets, shoes, handbags, skirts even. It’s obviously a more robust material than you think. The heap below is a typical pile of cork bark.


Ajulejos

This is an example of Portuguese blue tile panels found everywhere, azul being the Portuguese word for blue. You may recall the photo from the disused nunnery in an earlier blog. The tiles are still being produced in a great variety and most houses seem to have at least one feature block of them, usually quite a classy enhancement. They also appear in volume in souvenir shops where the artistic value is more questionable.

Portuguese Language
In written form the vocabulary is similar to Spanish so you can make a fair stab at the meaning if you know some Spanish. There, the similarity ends: the pronunciation is nothing like, and sounds more like Russian to me than Spanish. The main sound effect is caused by the letter “s” being mainly pronounced as “sh”, for example 6 coffees= seis galaus, pronounced “saysh galawsh”. Fit your teeth with anti-spray guards before attempting!

On the whole Portugal was very interesting, especially the walking where we were lucky enough to be included in an experienced group. Parts of the coast are like Spain, very touristy. We could have been luckier with the weather but I think that would have applied to most of Europe. And now back to España.

March 15th: The Last Walk

No, this isn’t a piece on capital punishment: we’re leaving Portugal tomorrow for Granada, and this is our final trek. The walk starts 40 miles inland and well away from the tourist coastal strip.

You see we’ve bonded into quite a team! We made stepping-stones four times to get across swollen rivers and on only one occasion did anyone get wet feet. The problem was that stones lying around on the riverbank are mostly irregular in shape, so the “stepping-stones” are really piles of wobbly small rocks.

This was a typical settlement, part of which has been modernised. The number of derelict buildings behind housed people who eked out a living on the land in former times. With a view like this I'm sure they will eventually be restored as second homes

At the highest point of the walk was a former windmill that is now a Buddhist monastery. The flags are prayer flags written in an indecipherable script – presumably Tibetan? There was also a shrine where fruit offerings are left each day. We didn’t however see any monks, only a digger making a bigger accessible area around the fruit shrine. From the monastery, the rough path ran straight down steeply to the road where we had parked the cars.

March 12th: To the Top of the Algarve.

Foia, at 902 metres, is the highest mountain in southern Portugal and was our destination. The walk started from Monchique, a small spa town, and we sallied forth on a steep cobbled path leading past an abandoned nunnery.

Actually, the nunnery wasn’t abandoned at all because it was occupied by squatters: friendly squatters who invited us inside for a look. It was in a ruinous state, as were the squatters, but handsome in its’ proportions as the following photo shows.

One feature unexpectedly still nearly intact in the nunnery was this blue tiled panel. Blue tile scenes are found everywhere in the Algarve including churches, but ancient ones do have a second-hand value and it is surprising that the squatters hadn’t sold the panel on Monchique market. Still, it’ll be a nice feature for our bathroom.

We were treated to some wonderful views as we progressed upwards. Foia isn’t part of a mountain range, so the view is virtually 360 degrees from the top with both the south and west coasts of Portugal visible.

As a consequence of it being the highest summit, the top is crammed full of masts of every description and an area of military aerials that was off-limits. The big mast in the centre could almost be a rocket. Also at the top were a modern hotel, restaurant, café and gift shop and a big car park: not everybody is daft enough to walk to the top.

We went down a different way, through lots of brambles. The photo shows one of the easier sections and, as you can see, Jane and Derek are in good spirits. There were numerous wild flowers out, like irises and banks of primroses, so there were compensations for the scratches!

And bringing up the rear: a picturesque waterfall. When we arrived back in Monchique, Derek popped into an ironmongers to buy a mousetrap (not sure why he needed one). After paying for the mousetrap, the proprietor wouldn’t let him leave without taking a glass of the local jungle juice, a potent 90% proof spirit called medronho.Evidently this week’s special offer, with every mousetrap.

March 10th: The Long March

The idea was to drive to Lagos, an ancient walled town and port, catch a bus to Burgau 12 miles the other side, and then walk back to the cars at Lagos. The walk leader said the bus times had changed and now weren’t suitable, so we drove on to Burgau, leaving one car at Lagos to do the retrieval. Well, I know what I mean!

We stopped here for lunch, at Praia da Luz, around the half-way stage. This resort is quite developed, but with a pretty old quarter and promenade area where we sat and had lunch. It has quite different and sad associations these days, as just behind the large villa on the photo is the complex from which Madeleine McCann was snatched.

Leaving Praia da Luz, we climbed a steep hill that gave us a panorama of the town. The picture shows the view but also more sinisterly the soil erosion caused by the recent heavy rains. That’s the big crack in the foreground. Large sections of cliff have fallen since last year right along this stretch according to people on the walk. KEEP AWAY FROM THE EDGE!!

The last section of the journey took us past a headland full of spectacular weathered rock arches, blowholes and pinnacles that ran nearly all the way back to Lagos.
Lagos was the headquarters of Henry the Navigator in the early 15th century. Sadly, nothing remains of Henry’s headquarters or his school of navigation at Sagres nearby because in 1587 both towns were sacked by Sir Francis Drake. He is still referred to in Portugal as “the English pirate”.

March 2nd: The Package

We decided to order a book from Amazon, a Scrabble dictionary. The Amazon website made it easy: just fill in the delivery address, the site here in Portugal, and it will arrive in about 4 days.

From day 3 on we started calling into reception to check the parcel deliveries. A week went by and no parcel, but one morning there was a slip, addressed to us, from GTW the parcel delivery firm. Reception unscrambled this slip as a “Failure to Deliver Parcel” note, because we weren’t there to sign for it. We’d not realised it needed signing for or that reception don’t sign for campers’ parcels. No problem, we thought, we’ll pick it up from the GTW depot as the slip requested. Reception gave us directions to the address on the slip, Station Road, about 6 miles away, with a final reassuring, “You can’t miss it.”

We found Station Road ok but not the GTW parcel depot. We asked pedestrians in Station Road, in bars, workshops and shops. Nobody had heard of GTW. Finally, a shop manageress thought there might be a new business in Station Road and directed us to where she thought it was. We found, exactly where she said, the tiniest nameplate for GTW. It was actually a shop premises and peering through the plate glass window we observed that there was a desk but no other furniture, shelves or carpet. It looked like they’d moved in the previous day. A scribbled note on the door said, “Closed for Lunch”, i.e. an extended Portuguese lunch.

So we also went for lunch, in a snack bar where we had asked directions, and very nice it was too. So at 2.30 we entered the depot/shop to pick up the parcel. The parcel wasn’t there. Still on the van, we think the lady said, and if we go back to the campsite at 4.00 pm the parcel will be delivered. At 4.00 pm we were waiting. A van stormed into the camp parking area and a chubby driver got out, with a face like thunder. Clipboard→ sign→ parcel thrust into hand→ van roars off. And that’s how Jane spent her birthday!