Days 17 - 23 (15th to 21st Sept) Arouca, Costa Nova, Coimbra, Obidos to Sintra

Day 17 (15th Sept) (10.17 km) Porto to Arouca to Costa Nova: After checking out of our accommodation, we lugged our luggage about 1.2 km to where we would hire a car. We had a Toyota Yaris hybrid for the next 5 days as we headed down to Sintra.

Pete managed the first day driving beautifully, especially considering we had to travel on some narrow,  winding roads. Our first destination was supposedly the Arouca Geopark. I had read about this place of international significance but what I didn't realise is that I had read about just one place in a huge area,  with more than 300km of walking trails! We drove around a fair bit and if nothing else realised the huge extent of the eucalypt forests here. It is so sad, but the economic interests of burning land and other forest to make way for easy-to-harvest eucalypts is having dire consequences for native species,  flora and fauna. 

We went for a bit of a walk - it felt like walking in Australian granite country,  just with fewer species. 

We had heard about a massive suspension bridge that I was keen to walk across but the only tickets available were for 5 o'clock - too late for us.  Nevertheless,  we decided to go and have a look at it anyway, necessitating another 2.2 km of up hill and down dale walking (I don't think there is any other type in Portugal). A man at an information centre had said that we might be lucky buying a5 o'clock ticket but being allowed on earlier.  We weren't. 

The walk was lovely anyway.  We saw,  up close, different types of granaries and barns to those we'd seen in the Peneda-Gerés region. Note the slate roofs.

The suspension bridge was pretty impressive although it is now only the second longest, at 500m, pedestrian suspension bridge in the world. At its highest point from the base of the valley it is as high as a 50-storey building.

We didn’t get to go on it, but it was still cool to see. What we did see though was the Geopark Museum, a private one run by the man who did most to save the area.

This area is a UNESCO listed world heritage area because of the slate. Although it has been used for hundreds of years (probably more) as a building material,  it is the fossils held within it that are the true treasure.  Here is the home of the world's largest known trilobite, the largest species of which is between 75 and 90 cm long. Here,  a previously unknown fact about trilobite was discovered - that they exhibited group behaviour.  Of course it is not known how often or for what reason they did this but instances of head-to-tail movement and of group huddling have been found. Some suspect they travelled head to toe for migration like lobsters do now. Others think they probably gathered in numbers to avoid predation. Maybe they are both right.

The  pictures here do not do the wonderful collection justice. Even more special for me was to see the enthusiasm and passion of our guide, the son of the museum’s founder. 

Some trilobite fossils found here are small likevthe one above, as big as the first joint of my finger. Others are much larger as shown against my hand in the picture below.

The above photo shows the head-to-toe grouping behaviour. The next photo shows a different type of grouping.

And finally, this is one of the monster trilobites.

Despite our lack of awareness concerning what this region of Arouca had in store, we had a good day. After Arouca we headed down to our coastal accommodation at Costa Nova.

Costa Nova had a very different vibe to Porto. There were lots of people enjoying, the sun, surf, fishing and beachside

We were there in time to enjoy our first sunset over the Atlantic Ocean. There had been smoke about from fires, so the sunset was quite red.

After a meal at a beachside bar/restaurant, we headed to bed. The photo below shows what a couple of the beachside bars offer during the day.

Day 18 (16th Sept) (7.3 km) Costa Nova to Coimbra: Today we woke up to looked like hell coming. At first I thought the cloud was indicative of a massive storm,  but then I realised that it was smoke from fires,  very close by. The first photo was taken out of our bedroom window, the second one just down the road in the centre of the old Costa Nova.

The fires were close, but we were a little ahead of the fires so managed to have a nice morning exploring the old town of Costa Nova which has a really bright,  vibrant character.  It is famous for its striped and colourful houses and with the dark fire clouds behind and the bright sun shining on them,  the buildings looked amazing.

There are also some examples of sympathetic new additions to the streetscape.

In the newer parts of town though the housing is either low hi-rise or ostentatious McMansions. (This example of a McMansion was our accommodation. One side of it was set up with four en-suited bedrooms with a shared kitchen and lounge downstairs.)

Costa Nova is set on a spit of land with the beach to the west and a lagoon/wetlands to the east. In some parts seaweed was being harvested.

The sky was looking clearer to the south so we decided, with my hand at the wheel this time, to head towards Figueira da Foz, stopping in at places if the whim so took us.  Fortunately it did in a place called Praia da Mira where we, completely by chance, timed our visit to coordinate with the sardine catch being brought in! What a spectacle! There were gulls everywhere, there were people buying sardines, the fishermen, the onlookers like us.

We watched another netful being brought in.

This was enough.  Soooo many sardines, so many gulls. Mind you, I couldn’t resist a photo or two of the gulls.

Sardines are a hugely popular food here and tinned sardines can be found everywhere, including the discarded tins on hiking tracks … grrr. In Porto and other places there are shops devoted to tinned sardines in particular, but also every other variety of tinned seafood.  In Porto you could even buy tins marked with your birth year!

We then meandered along slow roads towards Figueira Da Foz where we explored the beach and had lunch. It would be interesting to see here when it is busy. There are football fields, picnic fences, basketball courts, a little pool, all between the road and the actual ocean. There is a large flat area of sand behind the dune. 

One beach seemed slightly more conducive to swimming.

I had seen advertisements for a photographic exhibition in Figueira da Foz about Mário Soares, who is said to be the father of Portuguese democracy, so we found our way to the building that housed it. Some great photos. 

Portugal is only a new democracy. Its dictatorship that succeeded royalty was overthrown on 25th April 1974 (I'd been wondering why I'd been seeing avenues named for this date), and after a few kerfuffles, democratic constitution finally passed parliament on 25th April 1976. This was when Soares became Prime Minister. He had another term later, then became President later on.

The photographic exhibition was to mark the 100th anniversary of Soares’ birth. The reproductions here are terrible but I did have a few favourites in the 100 photos on display.

This last photo shows him and his wife in 1974 when the dictatorship was overthrown in what was called the Carnation Revolution (almost no shots were fired and soldiers were given carnations by some restaurant worker). As a very active republican, Soares was exiled to São Tome and Principe in 1968, then to France in 1970.

After having our history lesson for the day,  we drove on to Coimbra, a 12th century capital of Portugal and Portugal's best known university city. 

Our accommodation here has a wonderful view over the Mondego River across to the old city - well it should have had but there were fires very close by and the smoke was horrendous. We were hoping it would clear up while we were there.

As Aldi was just down the road we opted for a cheap heat-up meal with salad and bought some breakfast for the next few days. 

Day 19 (17th Sept) (11.2 km) - Coimbra: Again, we struck a place at the right time. Not in terms of the smoke haze of course, but we arrived during orientation week for the new students of Coimbra University. There are many traditions at this university.  Usually wearing black capes, the students here are said to have inspired JK Rolling and her Harry Potter characters.  Maybe the Lello Livraria connection isn't so far- fetched. 

During this orientation week,  new students in faculties or colleges go through an initiation process where there are made to do so silly,  sometime downright stupid/ dangerous things to 'earn their cape'. Everywhere we found students chanting on street corners,  being made to do silly things (eg drink what looked awfully like urine out of a large bottle; walk around town in a line with others with bunny ears, head hanging shamefaced) and generally having a wonderful time.  The new students are dressed in red. 

The university is the 10th oldest in Europe being established in 1290 in Lisbon to start with but later moving to Coimbra. It is famous for its library which you can visit but only for about 15 minutes. Housing 60000 from the 16th to 18th centuries, all of which are still available for academia to use. It doesn’t take you long in the visit to this university to understand what privilege education can bring. Back in the 16th and 17th centuries this would have been so pronounced. How lucky are we to be able to have a good education so easily now? It is still a privilege though and we shouldn’t forget that.

The first floor we visited was full of prison cells, dating from when the university was allowed to run all of its own affairs including law.

The next floor up was much better. The ceilings were amazing! Pete wants them for our place at home - even after all that work we recently did!

The university must have known I was visiting because on one of the floors there was an exhibition of maps of Japan ranging from the first ideas ( when the Portuguese heard about the place from China) to later more accurate maps.  Fascinating stuff. 

No photos are allowed in the main section so I bought a postcard.  Unfortunately,  it overemphasised the red carpet so here are a couple downloaded from the university website.

All the bookshelves are made from oak, which apparently has a smell that is a deterrent to lots of insects. Then, surprisingly, the library houses a colony of microbats that also help with any insect problem! Who would have thought! The caretakers have special covers for any horizontal surfaces that they place every evening so the furniture is not damaged by the bat poop and wee! Everything that looks like marble in the library is, in fact, timber just painted to look like marble, the arches for example.

After that we found Pete's college.

We then visited St Michael's Chapel, very ornate but smallish and rather lovely even with its outsized organ of about 2000 pipes! I'd love to have heard it being played. The semi-circular section shown on one of the photos is where the royalty sat when Portugal was still ruled by kings and queens.

This organ was completed for another church in 1737

Our next stop on the tour of opulence and privilege was the Royal Palace built at the end of the 10th century as the residence of the then Muslim governor. In the 12th century it became the residence of Portugal's first king, and then in the 16th century it became the university when it was transferred here from Lisbon.

This room was once the throne room. Now it is used for graduation ceremonies.

Under the gaze of these clergy members students used to take their exams, an oral exam with only the student and their teachers present. A little intimidating!

After such royal surrounds we needed a step back into the real world so had morning tea in one of the student cafes. A typical student joint except that many of these students were wearing capes.

We then visited the science part of the University, looking at a number of museums, the Chemistry Laboratory, Cabinet of Curiosities and the Academic Museum. They were smallish, but well worth the visits. On our way there, Pete noticed the markings on the footpaths and concluded that whoever designed them had foot racing in mind.

The Chemistry Laboratory had one exhibition on the Jesuits and their contribution to education and proselytising overseas. Fascinating. The other exhibition was on light and matter - a modern exhibition with lots of interactive exhibits.

This is an astrolabe. These devices, 3 feet in diameter, were what the early Portuguese sailors navigated the world with.

Here in Coimbra, the Jesuits developed the Conimbricenses, a course in philosophy, ethics and physics, based a lot on Aristotle’s work.  This became widely used throughout Europe.

Also, in the Chemisry Laboratory were interesting exhibits on the evolution of laboratory equipment. The following photos show the changes from ceramic to glass equipment.

Next, was the Cabinet of Curiosities, an eclectic mix of things collected in the name of scientific study. This collection being housed in a semi-dark space for preservation purposes, I would guess, gives a very other-worldly feel to everything inside it.

Here are some examples of what could be seen inside. We only had access to the bottom storey.

We lunched at another uni Cafe, having an 8€ 3-course smorgasbord lunch. They asked if we'd like red or white wine and then brought out a whole bottle! As if we could drink that between us, especially in the middle of the day.  Hope some poor students got to enjoy it at the end of their shift. 

Main course and drinks. No wine glasses because the terrace gets too windy and they've lost too many!

The Academic Museum wasn't quite as interesting so we skipped through that fairly quickly. One thing worthy of note was that we saw a cabinet full of trophies but the only one out on full display was a winning one from 1929! Must be a long time since any win of any note!

We were going to visit the Botanic Gardens but they were closed because of the threat of fires.  Instead we wandered down to the river from the University which is,  of course,  at the top of the old city. 

We passed a market where the fruiterers were selling strawberries by the kilo.

We passed interesting buildings new and old.

We saw a half-size electric bus.  We’ve seen quite a few electric buses but none this small.

Heading home for a break sounded good so we spent a few hours snoozing and reading before a respectable evening hour arrived to wander back into the city.The smoky skies cleared up a bit, giving us a glimpse of what our view could have been.

We had hoped to see another Fado show (Coimbra is meant to be one of the origins of Fado) but we were either too late, or too early. We walked into the city across a new pedestrian bridge and in doing so we came across a sport we hadn’t seen before. It looked like kayak polo ...

Once we discovered that Fado was not going to be possible, we sat and people-watched for a while then decided to go home for a light meal of salad, left over from our Aldi shop. We probably needed a rest from sightseeing anyway!

Day 20 (18th Sept) (10.4 km) - Coimbra - Óbidos: We left Coimbra earlyish so we could make the most of the day driving down the coast again. First stop was a little beachside town called Praia de Paredes da Vitória. We did a short clifftop boardwalk to look at the views.

There were a number of beachside flowers out and soooo many snails!

We continued onwards down the coast until we arrived in Nazaré, home of the world’s biggest waves. The view from the town up to Sítio, the cliffs above Nazaré, is pretty spectacular though I wouldn’t want to live near the edge up there!

While it is a very touristy place, we enjoyed our ride up a funicular and then walked out to the famous point. 

The funicular stations had rather lovely murals depicting the different town themes.

The walk along the clifftop had great views back to the town and along the cliff edge.

We arrived to a very flat sea.

Nevertheless, it was interesting to see a museum of the people who are mad enough to attempt these waves when they are ‘pumping’ and their surfboards. 

After lunching in Nazaré,  we headed to our final coastal destination, a place with wonderful limestone cliffs and an interesting boardwalk that has been designed to protect the fragile cliffs while still providing visitors with plenty of viewing and sitting spots.

There have obviously been efforts made to regenerate the clifftop vegetation and we saw flowers and birds.

Farewelling the coast for a while, we headed to the old town of Óbidos, a walled city. Of course there is a new part too, and in the morning you can see the crowd of workers arriving from outside, but there are still some people who live in the Old Town. We found our accommodation easily, had a rest, then set out to explore. 

You can walk all around the old town on the city walls. There are no safety barriers except for the actual parapet wall, so some people were finding it a bit scary. I certainly wouldn’t want to try it if it was raining - I’m sure the old cobbles, smooth as they are, would be very slippery.  It was a lovely walk. You cannot enter the castle bit unless you are a paying guest of the hotel it now houses. I must admit I am curious to see what it is like inside.

While walking the wall, we found building with a very distinctive date on it.

I took a particular liking to the view of the roofs of Óbidos. 

After descending from the wall, we wandered the town, listened to a man singing classical songs in the main city wall gatehouse, and found a number of cute buildings.

Day 21(19th Sept) (10.76 km) - Óbidos to Sintra: Again, we decided to go along the coast for a little while before dropping our hire car off in Lisbon.

We started at Peniche, a town with stunning limestone cliffs and wonderfully interesting looking beaches. I would love to have explored more than we did but there was no time. We did walk out to a lookout where we were able to look more closely at the rock and at fishermen on the beach - it looked as if they might have been collecting shellfish off the seaweed.

Further along, the rock formations were amazing. We had a little time to look around.

The next town we dropped into was Praia do Novo. At some stage someone has tried to make this into a resort town, but the monstrosity of a golf hotel didn’t look too well-cared for. We climbed up to a viewpoint on wooden stairs that are not going to last much longer (so many boardwalks around here are built with timber that already is aging badly), just like its predecessor!

We passed a really pretty bay before heading to what would become our lunch place and the site of our first swim in the Atlantic - Praia de Formosa. Such a pretty little spot.

The weather was warm enough and the water clear enough to feel like a dip, but it was cold! Neither of us lasted long in. But once out, we were not cold, so we explored around the rocks.

Pete actually diving in despite the cold water!

Finally, it was time to brave the Lisbon traffic and drop our hire car off at Lisbon airport. The final roundabout was a bit hairy with 4 lanes of traffic and GoogleMaps suggesting a change of lane once in the roundabout, but we were obviously not the only clueless ones and somehow we managed to negotiate our way to the correct lane. Portuguese drivers, on the whole, are very patient and considerate and even on the toll roads rarely seem to drive at maximum speed.

We then hired a Bolt (Uber) to take us to Sintra. Poor driver. By the time we arrived at Sintra, I think the forecast time of the journey had just about doubled. However, like all the drivers we have had, he was patient and informative about Portugal and things we were passing.

At Sintra we met up with Pete’s sister Gill and brother-in-law Rod with whom we’ll be spending the next few weeks.

We wandered the hard way (down and up again - thanks Google) into the centre of the Old Town, looked around, had dinner, then found the relatively flat, much easier walk home.

The Moorish Castle lit up for the night

One of the main roads into town is lined with a range of modern sculptures.

We had decided to have a day in Lisbon the next day so exploring Sintra more had to wait.

Day 22 (Sept 20th) (10.19 km) - Lisbon: Our first day in Lisbon (we will be back after Madeira) began with an all-stops train trip from Sintra. I love how a suburban train ride, because that is really what it was, gives you an insight into different neighbourhoods in a way you often don’t get when travelling by road.  As you would expect in a country that packs 10 million people into an area only one and a half times the size of Tasmania and where much of the mountainous, dry country is habitable by only a few, there is a lot of high density housing. The further out from both Sintra and Lisbon, the poorer looking the neighbourhoods. There was a LOT of railside graffiti.  Black African/Portuguese lived in some districts with African grocery stores and restaurants close to the station. Also, many people of African heritage got on and off at these stations.

This type of graffiti ran almost non-stop along the tracks.

Once in Lisbon, we decided to explore the Alfama area first. On our way there we pass through a plaza with dazzling tiles that made you a bit unsure of whether the paving was flat or not.

In the fountain was another university orientation activity happening. This time the older students were not in capes but kilts and they were pouring buckets of water on the newbies.

Continuing on from the fun and games we walked up and up.

Finally we reached the castle but we decided not to go in since we had three castle/palaces planned for Sintra the next day. The walls were still impressive.

Instead, we followed a suggested walking tour going from lookout to lookout. There were lots of people around and lots of interesting things to see. We saw amongst many other things a beautifully tiled house, the River Tagus, a few of its bridges, a huge cruise ship, and an archway in which someone has depicted a brief history of Portugal in comic style.

We kept walking until we reached the Convento da Graca. We had a look inside the rather beautiful church,  one beautifully tile hall and a cloistered courtyard.

Gill and I then decided to pay to go up to a terrace on the roof, where we were given a small glass of a cheap rose. The boys meanwhile had a small glass of beer each in one of the zillions of street cafe/bars just below us.

Gill and I also visited, in the Convent, a terrible exhibition of religious art by contemporary Portuguese artists. Fortunately, by going through that we were also able to see inside the church from a higher vantage point. 

While walking through Alfama we noticed many doors, some more suitable for Gill than others.

We had bought a transport ticket that entitled us to transport all day within Lisbon, so we decided to put it to use by going up and down a funicular near the convent. It was not massively interesting or exciting and we ended wasting quite a bit of time down the bottom because it seemed there was a change in shift and it didn't go up again for ages. There was a bit of street art/graffiti - make what you will of those.

We the found our way down the crowded streets, crowded with people and cars, to one of the old trams that runs through impossible routes down to the city centre, basically back close to where we had started walking uphill.

The Santa Justa Elevator was next in our sights, another ride included on our Lisbon transport card, so we headed towards this unusual sight, an outdoor elevator built in 1899 to connect a low and high part of town. 

At the top were good views of the city (again) and an old ruined church, inside which they appear to hold events. One show that is on now looks interesting - we might go when we return to Lisbon. 

After returning down on the elevator we headed to the river and the Rua Augusta Arch, an,arch built to celebrate the end of rebuilding after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 that destroyed most of the city.  The arch was completed in 1873. It is pretty impressive.  

We had fun at the water's edge.  It must have been close to high tide and the water was coming up over the paving on what looked like an old boat ramp.  People were constantly getting surprised by the periodic large waves. 

The train back to Sintra was,  by this time,  looking quite appealing so we trudged back to our 40 minute ride to home and a nice meal out. 

Day 23 (21st Sept) (16.24km) - Sintra: We knew we were headed for a big day today because we had booked tickets to three of Sintra's biggest attractions,  Quinta da Regaleira, Pena Palace and The Castle of the Moors. As it turned out, the three places were very different.

Sintra has long been the holiday destination for the rich and royal in Portugal. There are ‘palaces’ around every corner in the historic centre.

Quinta da Regaleira was the brainchild of an ultrarich Brazilian who ended up living in Portugal. It was his house and his fantasy - the gardens are beautiful and whimsical. He used an architect and artists to fulfil his dream. He was interested in art,  he was a Freemason, loved books and was an entomologist. The estate, or Quinta, had belonged to a wealthy Portuguese family before him but what we saw was the product of his imagination. It was finished in 1910 and is now UNESCO heritage listed.  The gardens are magical,  the house impressive.

One impressive feature of the garden is a well that was constructed as an initiation place for Freemasons (in particular the Knights Templar).  In the middle of a queue of people we were able to descend the stairs of this incredible structure. 

There are tunnels everywhere apparently. We had to use one to get out of this place. I went up another to see an unfinished well.

There were grottos and castle-like towers appearing out of nowhere.  

There were beautiful gardens that would be magical when in bloom. 

There were also many garden sculptures, many showing his love of nature.

Finally, we explored the house/castle. Some of the woodwork was amazing. 

With our tour of Quinta de Regalaria sadly completed, we decided to take the trek up the hill to Pena Palace on foot. The signs were deceptive as they were really just to the start of things.  The first sign was to to the entrance of the Moorish castle and Pena. The next was to the official start of Pena Park. The next was to the base of the Palace and finally the actual entrance to the Palace tour.  This was probably fortunate because we might have been put off of we'd seen the original mileage at the start!

The actual walk was very attractive and just as we needed to catch our breath, there was a throne to sit in. Just for once, I was Cinderella. The throne fitted me perfectly.

Unlike some others ...

It was just as well the walk was nice because it felt like a long way up.

Pena Palace was once home to the royals in Sintra. The outside is impressive.

The inside was, of course, sumptuously furnished and decorated. Some rooms were lovely,  others completely over the top. But all of it fascinating.

The Pena Park is basically a Botanic garden and we only had time to explore a tiny fraction of it.  We did enjoy the huge cypresses,  groves of camellias (unfortunately not in flower bar one flower on one plant), and lagoons that the waterbirds were enjoying.

We walked through this garden until we reached an entrance close to the entrance to the Castle of the Moors.  This castle is a ruin from the time the Moors ( a Berber tribe from what is now Morocco) ruled Portugal. They ruled from the 8th century for nearly four and a half centuries. 

This castle was severely dilapidated,  but one of the last kings of Portugal saved it from utter ruin and restored much of the walls. Many things of archaeological interest have been found including remains of people (buried under a cross since it was acknowledged that no man could tell a Muslim skeleton from a Christian one so it was up to God to make judgement), foundations of old dwellings, various bits of pottery, a 600 megalitre water storage facility and many old stone silos for storing grain. 

Old stone silo for storing food

We climbed many stairs to reach the highest part of the wall and gaze upon where we had started at the Quinta da Regaleira.

The stairs back down to Sintra from the entrance to the castle were not tempting,  so we caught a tuk-tuk back to the centre of town.  Our joints thanked us for that end to the day.