June 7 Evora to Lagos
Up 7:30
Good pressure shower to start the day
Can't get my shampoo to lather at all.
Did twice with mine and once with the soap/shampoo at the hotel.
Feels awful
Oh well, I won't touch it today
Beautiful outside - Ernie and I go in search of breakfast place while Shaina and Mo try to wake up
Find a recommended pastry shop in an alley.
Not open yet
Get Shaina and Mo
Return to pastry shop
Open but only sweets, no savory pastries ready yet
Go back to main square, Geraldo Praca
Sat at outdoor cafe with sort of table service (Shaina and I go inside, point out what we want then go back out to our table to wait
Puppet festival week in Evora so we just happen to sit at cafe with view of puppet show
Young children from a school are watching
The puppeteer does a show with a ballerina, an accordion playing clown, one fish, no two fish, a mermaid, then at the end a clown playing Auld Lang Syne clown
Breakfast comes.
Two spinach pastries, 2 ham and cheese pastries (we ordered one), two OJs (we ordered one), no expresso
We just ate it all
Eventually expresso shows up
Sherrie and Mo check out ATM rates at Santander bank.
ATM prompt: Multi-bank rate or take your bank rate
Choose our bank rate
Do you want fixed rate you can see or unknown rate?
We have no idea so we quit
Start our own Shaina guided tour
Head to the Chapel of Bones in the San Francisco Church
Yep - it's all made of human bones - priests wanted the people to know what is coming for them
The museum at the church has a large display of Nativity scenes from around the world
We aimlessly follow our feet which seem to keep going right
Notice many corners either missing or streaked with various car colors
If the corner is there, it is newly patched
Ziploc hung out to dry on clothesline
Just like us conserving every Ziplock we brought
Mo tries to figure out how to pick loquats 10 feet above his head
Not successful possibly due to police station on corner
Go in search of the aqueduct
It is in the local streets with houses built right into some arches
One very low arch is a passage into the next street
I have to bend over to get under/thru it
An old lady with her grocery sacks just passes thru as if it were nothing odd
Finally time to think about leaving Evora
We get takeout lunch at vegetarian restaurant.. Unidentifiable food. Hoping it is good.
Mo and Sherrie get money at Multibank ATM outside Moov Hotel.
This time armed with Shaina's Google info.
Take option for unknown rate.
Pay a fee.
Have no idea if good exchange rate, but at least have a wad of money.
Need cash since some places only take Portuguese bank credit cards.
Back to car, pull out of garage but not in direction of skinny streets.
Immediately pass old town walls into circle to leave town.
Shaina is navigating
Ernie's seat belt alarm is beeping.
I can't hear anything but the beep, so do the circle twice until I hear Shaina yell 'Exit Now!'.
I do.
Wrong road
Eventually meets up with right road.
Head to Cromeleque dos Almendres- Portuguese Stonehenge but older, 5500 bc.
Picnic on our vegetarian food at info center for the site, then...
Mo thinks he got a tick (hopefully not, or at least not a diseased one)
Drive the dirt road in search of the cromeleque.
Like an obstacle course with Swiss cheese holes
Pass many cork trees painted with a number corresponding to last number of year the bark was harvested. 1=2011. Can harvest only every 9 years. Trunk looks red after harvest then back to white.
Road so bumpy everyone telling me where to drive to avoid holes (not possible)
A couple miles seem like 10.
Shaina and Mo feel sick, driver never does.
We arrive with not a bit of damage to the car, dirty maybe but no damage
Can't say the same for the passengers
Cromlech means enclosure. 95 stones 2000 years older than Stonehenge.
A few still have visible (only to the best of eyes) carvings
Wait patiently, and all other tourists leave
Pretty amazing site, of course you have to be the type to appreciate a bunch of rocks
I'm thinking hide and seek
Head back out - somehow the holes in the road got smaller so ride out much faster
Get on road to Lagos. No traffic to start. Then picks up as we head south.
Stop for meia de leite to wake up the driver, ice cream to sweeten the driver and ruffles because our usual potato chips are nowhere in site
Traffic gets very heavy
Traffic stops
Road closed
Forced into a rest area with tons of cops writing on clip boards
We pass them, then get back on the highway
Traffic disappears
What was that all about??
Stop for gas, new brand, 2 green 2 black..95 for us no 98 for us
About $50 for half a tank (luckily Portugal is a small country)
Back on the road, very dry country, olive trees, sheep, cows
Arrive Lagos
I do a fantastic parallel parking job
Shaina and Ernie hop out to find our Airbnb and get garage beeper and keys.
I'm worried about narrow lanes and scratches on the car, but no, easy peasy
Elevator fits 2 with luggage on a good thin day.
Beautiful apartment, 2 balconies, pool, frig stocked with food, washing machine...
What more could you want
Oh yeah, Ernie cooking dinner
Someone should have told him to use the small holes side on the pepper shaker
See sign, "if water not hot, boiler probably shut down. Turn knob to reset then try again.
Ernie and I search the apartment for a water heater, just in case.
Tell Shaina we can't find it.
She finds it 2 seconds later in the kitchen cabinet behind the sign.
Eat on patio deck overlooking pool with jacket on (us, not the pool).
Everyone too tired for anything else.