Last time I was in Porttugal, it was the weeks following 9/11. Everything felt a little fraught. I was feeling homesick, perhaps because I was lonely and a little frightened by what had happened. I was travelling with a 4 year old on my own, so my tiger Mum was uncertain about whether travelling was the right thing. In fact, we would be home by late November that year.
Yet despite the angst, Portugal was kind. I have beautiful memories of Lisbon and Sintra. I stayed at a friend's in Lisbon, well, a friend of a friends whose lover was Portuguese, and kindly allowed us to stay in his apartment in the city. I had my 30th birthday drinking capirinhas by the castle with a lightening storm crashing around.
And one of my most treasured memories was staying at a farm near Sintra with the waves crashing and me and Jarrah picking figs, ants crawling over him as he clambered up the tree to pick them.
But today I'm older, travelling across the border in an old Series Land Rover with my husband. At first we are unimpressed - the beginning of that end of the Algarve is all ex pat apartments and motorhomes. Exhausted after hours of driving, we stayed in a motorhome park, kindly allowed despite the fact we didn't have an onboard toilet. They let us use the staff ones.
The next day we visited the famous Bolingil Caves, where a huge limestone cavern is fed from the sea. A party boat full of techno and semi naked people boomed it's presence just over the cliffs, someone one sold orange juice, and tons of tourists begged a hopeless glimpse over the cliff top. Needless to say it wasn't our thing and besides, if we were going to be twats about it, we had better caves at home without the tourism. Ugh.
We put a shout out on a Facebook group and were quickly helped out. A local guy gave us some suggestions on the other side of Lagos where we wouldn't be bothered.
Sure enough, we found a 4x4 track where we parked the car near some ruiens and went for a walk along the beautiful cliff tops. Spring here is just remarkable - the wildflowers are stunning.
Still, it was early in the day, just after lunch, so we continued on to another spot, a disused ruined fort overlooking the sea.
It wasn't all ruins around here - there were also some pretty stunning houses overlooking the ocean.
The beach below was called Praia Figuelo, and there were a few vans parked up but still we thought it was a bit exposed for camping.
I'm sure we could have had a secretive camp at the fort, but again, it was too early. Instead, we had a sleep on the beach and moved on to what would be the perfect camp for a couple of days - but you know what I'm.going to say, don't you?
That's a story for tomorrow.
With Love,
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Scary times weren’t they. I could talk a lot about that and the experiences we had in the uk looking on at what was happening in New York with absolute horror and I can remember travelling to Austria less than a year after, everyone was wary. Humanity had been dealt a gut punch.
Portugal is a gorgeous place and its people are a breath of fresh air. Always enjoy spending time with Portuguese people wherever I meet them.
Lisbon is fabulous. Only been once. Have been to the country dozens of times itself, love the Algarve.
Yeah I have a ton of stories too. I actually watched the towers collapse on the ferry to Dublin which was frightening as this Irish guy was telling everyone to buy a shortwave radio and head to the hills. When we got to Dublin everyone was crying in the streets (so many American tourists) - it was incredibly unsettling.
I remember being in Spain in some park and it was tipping down rain so we ran for this small shelter where a couple of other tourists huddled. My little 4 yo innocently asked them where they were from, as he'd learnt to do as we travelled. When they said America, his little eyes grew big as he said 'OH DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE BUILDINGS THAT EXPLODED?'
😂
I love the Portuguese. They're always so kind.
I was working for a company in Winchester, Hampshire with American clients, as well as pretty much every other country. My Managing Director was upstairs in a meeting with a top financial firm and on the phone they had some US colleagues, who were inside the Twin Towers at the time, luckily for them on the ground floor, they got out. I had emails from my parents, best friends pop on my PC, saying watch the BBC news, something fucking terrible is happening in New York, a plane has crashed into the WTC. WTF? By this point everyone in our office were gathering in the middle of the room, looking shell shocked, everyone was desperately trying to get onto the news site but the server had crashed. Our MD came downstairs with the customers in tow, he had tears in his eyes, at the time I didn't know who the guests were nor the fact they had colleagues in the impacted building, that all came to light in the days that followed.
The company I worked for produced software for the Stock market industry, I think the big client were PWC.
The industry took a big hit at the time and as a result a lot of people lost their jobs in the wake of the attacks, including myself and that was the catalyst for me going conracting for twenty years or so, until Covid forced me to close it all down and return to a normal salaried job.
A good friend of ours visited Ground Zero last year when she flew over to New York.
how beautifully you captured the contrast between past and present experiences in Portugal, from the core memories of solo travels with your child to the current adventure with your husband in it. The vivid descriptions made a sense of nostalgia. I have heard they are very kind people, what do you think as you have already visited Portugal twice?
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