The First Twelve Days...

This blog is to record our six month stay in Central Portugal from September 2009 to the end of February 2010. We'll do a potted history for the preceding 11 days and then start trying to do daily entries.

We drove from home to Plymouth on 30 August 2009 where we caught the ferry. The ferry crossing dropped us in Santander on 31 August and we drove down through Spain to Vallalolid. This was where we experienced our first TomTom adventure. The satnav placed us on the opposite side of the river to our campsite and there was no bridge. So we drove around for what seemed an age to try and find a campsite, any campsite, by now we didn't care about our 6 euro deposit! In the end, surprisingly enough for a man, Jon stopped and asked for directions. Fortunately the young lady knew enough English to put us on the right track. So, gleefully, we eventually found the campsite, which had a bar! First stop was the bar, for two ice cold Super Bocks. The campsite was mostly empty as the holiday season is mostly over, so we could take our pick of where we wanted to pitch. We found a nice little pitch with some grass. The next day we set off for our final destination, ie the place we have rented for six months in Central Portugal.

Our journey from Vallalolid to our rental home was straightforward. But as soon as we entered Portugal it was clear as the landscape changed, much more green, whereas Spain was parched and yellow. The border crossing was just like going through a big toll booth, but we weren't stopped. Our passports etc were checked when we arrived in Santander off the ferry, and apart from that there was no other check made.

When we arrived at our rental property, we followed the directions given by our English landlady, and without them we probably would still be looking for this place! The property is situated approx half a km from the road, along a dusty track (our car is barely visible through the dust on it). We unpacked on our first afternoon, and though other towns were slightly closer to us we chose to drive to Tabua as we were more familiar with this place and knew exactly where to get our vittles from. Tabua boasts a Lidl and an Ecomarche right next to each other, and they complement each other very well, as what you can't get in Lidl you can most certainly get in Ecomarche. Ecomarche is also splendidly equipped with a bar. And having spent our first few euros on bog rolls and biodegradable toilet duck cleaner we felt obliged to have a deliciously cold beer in the bar.

On Wednesday 2 Sept 09 we ventured into Coja as we had heard that we might be able to buy sim cards for our unlocked mobile phones, so that we could use a Portugese phone network called Uzo (this meant that local calls would be cheap), our Orange sim cards would be too expensive.

We didn't know Coja very well and went inside a supermarket to try and make ourselves understood. Immediately four people in the supermarket began speaking ten to the dozen amongst themselves, we watched wide eyed. Then one of the staff led us outside, down the hill, down the high street and indicated a very small bar. We ventured inside and Suze tried her pigeon Portugese. The bar man reached up and started pulling socks from a basket. Hmmm, perhaps her Portugese needs more attention, we thought. But no, attached to the snazzy socks was a sim card. Can you believe we only paid 5 euros for the sim card, the socks came for free, and we also got 5 euros credit on the phones! To top up we think we will need to go back to the bar and get them to "recharge" it.

Local text messages cost 9 cents.

The coverage is usually fine but not when we are in the rental property, unless we move about on the balcony or in the field next to the house.

Thursday 3 Sept 09 we went to Arganil. We knew the market took place on Thursday mornings but we didn't know where it was located. We also knew there is supposed to be a Lidl in Arganil but we didn't know where that was either. The town was busy and we followed some people, who looked like they might be English (don't ask us why, we're not sure). Anyway, they were going to the market. We bought some plants ie 20 cabbage (couve), 10 leeks (alho frances), 20 lettuce (alface) and they cost us 2.75 euros for the lot.

There were a couple of days when we stayed home and chilled. There was of course the drinking of the gin and tonic etc at regular intervals.

We are trying to ascertain how many neighbours we have. We know the shepherd and his wife, as we see them moving the goat/sheep herd up the tracks a few times per day. The jangle of the bells on the animals is lovely.

On Sunday 6 Sept 09 we visited Tabua market to get more plants and provisions. We bought some beetroot plants and broccoli and some carrots for about 2 euros.

We visited Gois on one day to find Caminho do Natural which is a health food shop. We managed to buy some vegetarian provisions such as stock cubes etc that seem to be hard to find otherwise. In Gois we had some soup (sopa) that we think was cabbage soup and swilled it down with beer, for about 4 euros. After a stroll around beautiful Gois we headed back, and as we went back through Arganil we spotted the Lidl and bought some puff pastry as this is another item we have not seen anywhere else.

We weren't here for more than a few days before we realised we had a mouse, or two. So far we've disposed of six dead mice and the traps are still out just in case.

The house cat ran off when Suze pointed at the place where the mice are resident - obviously over fed!

We have now done a couple of geocaches, one was a "FTF" or "First to Find" - both very local. There is a little cluster of geocaches in nearby Coja that we intend to do in the next few days.

We visited Bobadela where there are some Roman ruins, there is some stonework that was to the forum apparently, and there is quite a large ampitheatre. After our visit we realised that there is actually a geocache there as well, and as with most geocaching there was a wealth of information about the place. We intend to go back and do the cache and visit the museum to look at some of the artifacts.

Geocaching info

Today we've been mainly chilling, doing washing and other bits and bobs, refining our viewing list. We even had our first rain shower since we arrived, it lasted all of five minutes! Our washing didn't even get wet from it.

Our internet connection is Sapo and is a bit intermittent. We are being cautious and disconnecting the internet and unplugging our electrical gear during thunderstorms, just in case.

And also today, we decided to start a blog. Sorry this was a long entry but from now on it should be a bit more brief.