Walking in wine country (Pinhao ~ Portugal)

 29 August

Walking in wine country - stunning scenery but stinking hot. Start of walk it was mid 20's and by end at lunch time at least  mid 30's. The walk itself was part of the RL20 so was nicely sign posted with yellow and red makes showing the route.

Wasn't till we were heading back down that I took a closer look at these and realised that the bulk of the fence posts were made from solid stone (schist).

The country side is highly reminiscent of Central Otago with schist stone walls, and rocky hillsides. Feeling more than a bit knackered after this day's walk we opted for a lazy afternoon followed by the obligatory trip up river in a Ribaldo (traditional boat used for ferrying wine barrels down stream).

Everywhere you look from  the boat are terraced hillsides covered in either grape vines or olive trees.

Pinhao - a pretty little town, not overly touristy even though it's definitely on the Riverboat Cruise itinerary (two cruise boats were moored here at any one time).

Our accommodation was a bit rough and ready but still quite nice but the star was the fact that it included breakfast. Breakfast was delivered in a small basket dropped by our door every morning and comprised of fresh eggs, bacon, freshly baked bread, cheese, jam and butter. So brekkie was scambled eggs wth bacon.

We arrived here on a Sunday and found out that most restaurants are shut on Sunday so we ended up at a slightly more upmarket place than we normally would have. Even then mains were about low $NZ 20's and a litre of house white was less than $NZ 10, and as you can see portoon size is generous.  I went for Iberian Prok "Plumas". Must admit before ordering it I googled what Plumas was and found out that it's a plume shaped cut of meat from the pigs necks (and not something else that comes from a pig and is plum shaped).

Next step is to hire a car for the next ten days and get up to the northern parts of Portugal. Hiring a car as buses are few and far between (if at all).

Pirates of (Penzance ~ England)

 Third week in August

Spent a very relaxing few days with Liz and Bill (and cats) who have retired to Newlyn (next door to Penzanace) and have a had the foresight to buy a place with great ocean views and on the bus route to a large chunk of Cornwall.  First outing was a bit of a walk in  Poldark Territory - with the third photo below being used as a backdrop for the Wheal Leisure Mine.

Next day opted for what was planned to be a shortish walk along some of the Cornish Coastal Path starting in Zennor. 

Zennor is a tiny village and has one claim to fame and that is a Mermaid Chair, that is some 400 to 590 years  old, in the local church. According to local lore, in times long, long ago a beautiful and richly dressed woman would occasionally attend services at the church. She would appear from time to time over the course of many years, but never seemed to age. Locals noted her beauty and her lovely singing voice, but no one knew where she came from. Eventually, the mysterious woman came to fancy the churchwarden’s son, a young man named Mathew Trewella. One day Matthew followed her home, and the two were never seen again. 

We were about five minutes into our walk and out of the corner of my eye I could see something hovering and must admit my first thought was, "sodding drone", but wasn't till I looked properly that I realised it was a Kestrel hovering. Quite amazing as body was moving about in the breeze yet the head was perfect still.

Suffice to say the walk took a bit longer than expected and was a bit, OK quite a bit, more strenuous than planned.

On the Cormwall peninsula is a small village called Porthcurno which is famous for being the starting point for various intercontinental submarine cables, the first of which was laid in 1870! Spent a good few hours wandering around PK Porthcurno the Museum of Global Communications. A few fun facts - 97% of all communications traffic, phone and internet is via physical cables - 25% of all communications traffic still goes through Porthcurno.

The world as we know it would not be were it not for John Pender. He's the man that combined cable manufacture with Gutta Percha (tree sap that was a durable insulator) and took major investment risks in laying multiple cables. Having said that he was not a well like man as most caricatures of him present him as a octopus with grasping  tentacles. 

The number of cables in existence in 1894 is astounding. 

A small selection of the types of cables in existence. 

Maps (tea towels) showing the extent of the cable network.

You can't visit Cornwall and not check out some standing stones and Cornwall has a good number of them. These are known as the Merry Maidens and are said to be a group of dancing maidens, and two minstrels,  turned to stone as punishment for dancing on Sunday.

Men Scryfa and Men an Tol. The first literally means stone with writing as has an inscription on it that commentates the death of Rialobranus son of Cunovalus.

Legend has it that passing through the hole in the centre of the Men an Tol stone will cure all ills, well all except obesity as the hole ain't that large.

The last set of stones we  visited was Lanyon Quoit. This dolmen dates back 2,500 to3,500 years ago  the trouble is even though it looks great it has been a bit messed around with over the years as at one stage it collapsed and was rebuilt - which meant it was shortened and rotated by 90 degrees. Even so it still looks very cool.

OND or Ordance Newlyn Datum is measured in a small red and white building at the end of a wharf in Newlyn and is the home of mean sea level for mainland Great Britain. For six years between 1915 and 1921 the sealevel was recorded here at one hourly intervals - this data was used to determine mean sea level and even today every level in Britain is based on the zero point recorded here.

From Liz and Bill's house you can see Sardine boats fishing in the harbour pretty much every night. This of course means that fresh fish, particularly sardines, are available. Fresh sardines means BBQ'd sardines.

Whilst shopping for sardines we found a v tasty treat, imported from Turkey, and that is smoked anchovies! Smokey, salty, fishy and chew - very tasty.

From Penzance it was back to Warminster for a few days. In Warminster we tied up loose ends re sending back stuff we didn't want to carry etc, a trip out to Laycock Abbey and a farewell dinner for us was planned on our last night in the UK, to be paid for by Doris who had had a major win in bingo a couple of nights earlier.

Laycock Village and Abbey are quite cool and on the must visit place for fans of Downtkn Abbey and Harry Potter and the streets of the village are used in various episodes of Downtjn and the abbey's cloister used in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone.

Dinner was booked at an pub called The George, and one that we had been to in the past, and niece Emma along with Maple the dog made a special trip in from Taunton. However rhe dinner was memorable but for the wrong reasons.  Warning signs were when the waitress was v slow and had no idea what she was doing, but weren't to worried as a place that has a entrees comprising of pork sausages,  pickled onion and mustard can't be that bad.

After waiting for over an hour for mains and being told no eta as the kitchen was slammed (and they were still seating fresh customers) we, and other tables, walked out. Plan B was Chinese takeaways back round at Phils. Think the happiest one at the table was Alfie the dog.

Next stop Porto in Portugal -  be interesting to see how much it's changed in the 20+ years since we were last there.

Oporto (Porto ~ Portugal)

26 August 2022

We're definitely getting soft in out old age as our flight got into Porto at about 8:30 and rather than use the metro to get to the centre and then manhandle our bags about a km to our hotel we opted for arranging  a driver to pick us up. 

The flight was fairly painless even if it took 45  mins to get through security and seems like the budget airlines have given up with the whole "must wear a mask" an announcement was made along the lines of "masks are your responsibility and stewards are not your mother's." Suffice to say most people didn't bother with masks.

Our accommodation turned out to be a converted warehouse with some serious walls and ceiling  beams and the view wasn't to shabby either. Things have definitely changed a bit since we were here last, about 20+ years ago  as back then don't recall the other side of the river having anything other than Port warehouses and definitely don't recall party boats that were active at 3:00am

Having said that main memories of previous visits was that it rained/drisseled for three days solid. That and food& wine was v cheap. Well shortly after we had accommodation sorted went for a bit of a walk and yup food and wine (and beer) is still really cheap. Opted for burgers and a 1/2 litre of the local beer. Burger was v pink, so much so that I  NZ would think there would be a 50/50 chance it would be sent back. Here not so much - seriously moist and tasty.

Next morning headed up to the train station to  check out times of trains to Pinhao, our next destination in a few days, and en route looked for coffee and found small bakeries double as cafes (as long as you don't mind drinking your coffee standing at the counter. Coffee is great and pastries (particularly Nata, Portuguese Custard Tart, are amazing). This hole in the wall place became our got place v quickly.

Train station is a piece of art in its own right as the walls are decorated with large hand painted tiled motifs. The other great thing is that since we're now seniors we are eligible for cheap (1/2 price) train tickets in Portugal.

With tickets sorted we had a good wander round and checked out Porto. Massive amounts of development and restoration work has gone on since we were last here and the restoration has been done incredibly sympathetically with masses of tiles everywhere building frontages. Plus all the stonework has been cleaned so the place looks great.

Not a huge amount of fast food restaurants about, which is nice to see, and the one we did spot was quite impressive. 

Dinner that night was at local, slightly out of the way, restaurant called "O Caracas" which had a limited menu i.e.

Which translates as 

Roast veal

Roast fish

Fried fish

and that was it. Opted for the two fish dinners which were really tasty. Since then have come to realise that restaurant food in Portugal comes well seasoned and as such salt and pepper ain't on the tables.

One of our goto web sites when travelling is Atlas Obscura as it highlights interesting and odd things  to look at, such as this place. 

Here we have the Carmo and Carmelitas churches. The first being built in the 17th century for Nuns and the second in the 18th century for Monks. Now for reasons no one knows it was decided to fill the 1 m gap between the two churches with a house. That thin sliver of a house was occupied up until the 1980s.

The south side of the river used to comprise of warehouses and not much else, nowadays it's got a nice promenade complete with tourist tat shops and restaurants and moored in the river are some traditional ribaldo boats (use to be used for transporting barrels of port and wine) advertising various Port Companies. 

Nestled away in the back streets of this area is a very cool bit of art -  it is a giant sculpture made of trash as a critique of society's wastefulness.

Visible on the skyline from all around Porto is this amazing clock tower. Contemplated going to the top for the view but was feeling a bit knackered from all of the walking we had been doing plus I really, really do not like heights.

In the square below the clock tower is a restaurant (part of a chain) that celebrates one of Portos iconic snacks. The "Pastel de Bacalhau" which is a salted cod, stinky cheese and potatoes croquet. Had a quick look inside and opted to pick up a couple of Pastels from  a local bakery at half the price.

From Porto we head upriver (by train) along the picturesque Duoro Valley to Pinhao. Did this trip last time and all we can recall was the weather was crap but near the train station found a BBQ restaurant that sold great steaks and really cheap red wine on carafes.