A Portuguese marathon

I have titled this a marathon, so for those with limited time to spare I will précis. We stayed at a site to visit Lisbon from, it had a nice beach after a long walk. The maps they give you for seeing Lisbon are NOT to scale and we walked a lot. It rained a lot. When we went to the beach we got very wet! (see picture) At Fatima Joan took part in a candlelight procession. Also at Fatima we witnessed some incredible sights at the children’s festival. Somebody’s van lock was damaged. We left. It rained, we left Portugal and it got very, very hot in Spain, the end. J&B X

6th – 11th June
Costa de Caparica had certainly started well, and by the time we had relaxed and been to reception for details about getting the bus to Lisbon we thought a trip to the beach was in order. This turned out to be a very long walk but when we got there it was well worth it. What we saw was a huge expanse of sand with breakwaters and real breakers thundering in, as far as we could see in both directions, there was a promenade and we wished we had brought the bikes. It being a beautiful evening we continued to wander along and went back to the town to find the bus stop we would need in the morning. Having located it we returned at a reasonable speed so we would know how long it would take tomorrow, (20 mins). Finally as we walked into the site Joan insisted we buy an ice cream, life is hard at times.

Oh dear, I was awakened Saturday morning by the rain pounding on the roof at 6.30am and had visions of the small one being not too happy and wanting to move on. However by the time we awoke properly and got up, so had the sun, great. We got the bus on time and all seemed well until suddenly the bus driver had his wipers on and when we got off it was hoying it down! NOT happy. By the time we had put our coats on and located the brolly in my pack we were standing there alone. Our intention had been to walk into the tourist info at the bus station and get all the directions of various things to see. As it was, all we could see through the rain was a dodgy looking market where it soon became obvious nobody spoke a word of English, and worse did not give toss unless you wanted to buy something. So using our brains we set off towards what looked like a big hotel. It was, and more importantly the chap at the desk was so helpful and as if he was approached on a daily basis by a couple of drowned rats, produced a map and book which told us all we needed to know. He also directed us to their metro which was very good indeed. Buying a ticket seemed to require a degree as even the locals seemed to be struggling. It could have done with the instructions being in some other languages or perhaps pictures! Joining the queue of people at the help window we eventually got the woman inside to come out and give us all tickets, magic. By the time we came out of the metro at the centre the sun was shining and apart from one other little short burst of rain it stayed out. Our first and most important job was to post Joe’s birthday card. Then it was lunch time and we had an excellent meal in the square watching the world go by. Apparently when you eat here one of your more serious needs is a pair of sunglasses, and we spent quite a lot of our time showing the many looky looky men that Joan already had a pair, ON! After that we wandered around the older part of the city and did the tourist thing.

At this point I think I should point out that the maps they give you are definitely NOT to scale. So when we decided we would return, I suggested that as we would have a 20 minute walk from the bus stop back to the campsite we should carry on down the hill and over a bit to where the ferry port was and get the ferry back then catch the bus from the ferry which stops very near the campsite. Joan agreed this seemed like a plan and off we went. Two hours later having at one point jumped on a bus for a few stops, we finally saw the ferry in the distance, with a ferry approaching. I will not tell you what the small one replied when I said hurry pet or we will miss it, suffice to say we caught it and she did eventually forgive me.

Although the next day started not too brightly it was quite warm and by mid morning and the sun was out so we headed for the beach. The waves were a bit rough and the only people in the sea were several groups of surfers. As we could not see any sort of a flag we approached the edge of the water with a view to possibly chancing a little wave jumping. Hopefully after this is published I will be able to put the picture in that tells the story of what happened next. The observant amongst you will see a very wet Bryan whose trousers and shirt are absolutely soaked and Joan’s shorts on a rock drying out! We realised it was far too rough for us, the small one remarked that even holding Pam’s hand it would be very dodgy indeed. So we settled for just sitting and watching the world go by as being a Sunday it seemed the entire population was walking along the promenade. That night it started raining and became quite cold so we decided that enough is enough and next morning left for Fatima.

For those who don’t know, this is a place of pilgrimage for Catholics and we had intended dropping in when we got this far. Our intention was to check out the free Aire and if it was nice stay overnight. What actually happened was incredible. On arrival we had a bit of a job finding the place for campers and being used to the campervan places being stuck out of the way, imagine our surprise to find it was right next to the church. It was spotlessly clean and had hot showers and toilets provided, all free. As we arrived we parked in a large dedicated motorhome space with our own stone table and benches next to a couple of Dutch women on one side and a really dinky little caravan on the other side which was owned by a very friendly Portuguese couple, again each in their dedicated spaces. Having checked with the others we were ok to stay, and that it was really free, we went to see the church and chapel.

It is a huge amazing place all very modern and polished marble, with a service going on either at the chapel or the church, or at times both, from 7am until 11pm. It is all very well run and we were able to get information about the services in English for Joan, plus apparently there was a candlelight procession every evening. As a mass was about to begin in the church I left Joan to enjoy it and returned to the van, where there were a few more vans setting up, it is supposed to hold ten. By the time Joan returned it appeared there were at least 30 and all the car parks (there are several huge ones), seemed to be filling up. That night Joan and I attended the candlelight procession, me as a camera man and her to walk around with her candle. I thought it was quite impressive 300 odd people walking around with candles led by a huge cross and half way along a statue of Mary surrounded by flowers carried by 4 priests. The end of a nice day, and so to bed.

The next morning cars full of people and children kept arriving. They parked on every space and then put up tents and in some cases just tarpaulins on rope strung between trees. That night as we went across for the candlelight procession all the pavements and areas between the trees had tents etc. By 2am when we went to sleep we could not believe anybody else could possibly get in, but they did! The Dutch couple told us it was a special service for children tomorrow. We felt really guilty as we were taking up a fair bit of space but we had no idea what to expect.
When we awoke cars etc were still arriving and I told a car load they were welcome to park in our space behind us and shortly after they were joined by a van. The cheeky buggers nicked our stone table. What happened next was incredible, more and more cars, vans and caravans kept arriving and finding places to park. It is difficult to describe fully but even the pathway to the toilets had cars parked on it, they just drove down the path, parked and went off to the square. All the stone tables had tablecloths on them, these we discovered acted like towels on a sun bed, amazing. With all this going on we never saw one bit of bad feeling in fact it was all done in a carnival atmosphere and absolutely free. Just imagine if this happened in Britain what all the police/council officials /parking wardens etc would do?

As I said everybody was making for the main area which when we got there was pretty spectacular. It was basically one huge outdoor mass for children to celebrate their first holy communion. There were hundreds of children dressed with different coloured baseball hats for each separate group. Some of the little ones had rope they were all holding on to so nobody got lost, and even although there were thousands of people there nobody minded if you sort of pushed through, so it was moving all the time. At the appointed time in the service for people to receive the host a long line of priests and lay people spread out from the dais and were accompanied by someone holding a large white umbrella. All one had to do was attract their attention and they came over to you. This was especially good for some of the old people who had been brought in and sat on seats to enjoy the spectacle. When it was all over everybody returned to their table /car boot/ picnic hamper and consumed vast quantities of food and drink, mostly we discovered, iced tea but some wine and beer. Then people started to leave and it began to clear.

Then we discovered that a couple of motorhomes locks had been tampered with. The Dutch ladies next door and a chap further along. As far as we could discover nobody lost anything, but it was a bit upsetting. I decided we should leave right away as it was mid afternoon and we could get to a campsite near the coast by around 7pm. It was a shame really but I knew the small one would not rest and would probably spend the night sitting by the door with my mallet at the ready. This would result in a very tired and grumpy person next day, so we left. (I can be soo masterful at times!).

Hopefully some of the spectacle will be apparent to you if I can upload a couple of the photos we took on the still camera.

The camp site at Praia de Mira was to be our last stop-over in Portugal, it was not spectacular, in fact it was pretty one star. The first thing that happened was we were warned to be careful where we parked as some of the pitches were all soft sand and we would sink right in. Then we went to find the beach and it was approached by a very dodgy track plus a climb over a sort of rickety wooden stairway over the dunes. Couple that with the fact that several young people turned up about 9pm and put some tents up just as it started to rain and sat outside chatting in the rain.......................... until 2am !

We left at 9.30 and set off for Salamanca in Spain. As we crossed the border the sun came out and it got hotter and hotter, it was incredible and by the time we reached the campsite the temperature was in the high 30’s at 6pm.

That must be enough for now as I have writer’s cramp!!

Lots of love
Joan & Bryan xxxx