Portugal Daily Life

It started as a simple idea: reserve one day each week for unstructured exploring with no rigid plans, no must-see lists, just a loose sense of direction and a willingness to follow whatever catches our eye. Somewhere along the way it became Adventure Day — open maps, open minds, a few happy accidents, and always worth the detour.

August has arrived with an influx of vacationers and elevated temperatures. It is also when we get alerts for potential river flooding, and increased fire risk. We have no choice but to take it in stride. We have learned the roads are a bit more treacherous with hurrying tourists and walking into town is a decidedly sweatier endeavor. It's the season for two daily showers with at least one of them frigid cold (and loving it).

Estou a estudar português but I still get tripped up by the word no sometimes. Looking at a menu the other day, I saw the words no pão and automatically read it as no bread. I shrugged thinking it was probably a good thing to cut back on carbs anyway.

We drove to a lot of obscure points of interest in the past few weeks which leads us to a new blog segment: Driving the Backroads. Perhaps more appropriately, the "are you sure we should be driving here" series, where the driver says it'll be fine and the passenger's knuckles turn white.

In a world where you can be anything, be a person who is enamored by peafowls. The peafowls you see in Portugal, including those in Évora's Public Garden, are Indian peafowl introduced during the Age of Exploration. They became a status symbol, placed into gardens of palaces and estates. If I had knew this before visiting Évora. the surprise I got when encountering them wouldn't have been as delightful.  

We arrived in Sintra with no plan, just curiosity and a train ticket from Lisbon. As we stepped into the chaos of buses and tuk-tuks waiting to scoop up tourists, one unassuming man was standing nearby: Miguel. No logo, no hustle, just genuine Portuguese. We introduced ourselves: Pam, Tómas, Ricardo, Juliá. Miguel nodded approvingly at the Portuguese names, so I quickly re-introduced myself as Pamella. He shook his head and said, “We’ll call you Rita.” And in that moment, I knew it was going to be a great day.

Having a freebie day once a week has been a lot of fun. This week we went to the town of Monchique which is situated north of the coastal town of Portimão. Monchique is a mountainous region of the Algarve known for thermal springs, amazing views, and medronho liquor.

If it felt like Tavira Day was more than one day, it is because it was. The summer solstice celebrations focus on two things: the popular saints (Santos Populares) and the day of the city (Dia da Cidade).In Tavira, the saint celebrate was São João.

When you see black pig lizards on the menu, there's only one right answer - order it! This week has been heavy on adventures in eating and furthering our understanding of the portuguese health system. Let's go!

Landing on the other side of the river, we plopped down the bags we came with mixed with the items we accumulated over the past months. Let the construction of furnishings commence! The bed was built, the sofa came up in pieces, and lots of flat-pack furniture was assembled. The living space was arranged and rearranged and it's debatable whether we found the ideal layout or fatigued in the process.