Portugal...The Algarve, Lisbon and Porto

Before I arrive in Portugal, I just remembered a pretty nice event en route and to see it from someone else's eyes must have been pretty funny.

I hopped on a bus in Seville to take me to the bus station for my trip to Faro, Portugal and as all backpackers know...the two worse places to be carrying your backpack is on a bus or on a subway. So we always hope that neither are busy when we need to use them.

And to my delight, the bus wasn't full at all so I tossed my backpack into the rack and moved about 10 feet away so I was out of the aisle. But at the next stop, at least 50 elderly people got on the bus. What the hell...was I missing a euchre tournament?

And since I really wasn't sure which stop to get off at, it was nice when an older lady looked at me and said...'next stop...station...you get off' ...but how?? Maybe everyone was getting off at the bus station. No such luck. So as I tried not to knock any old people off.

I yelled at the bus driver...just a minute...but I'm guessing he didn't hear me or know English as he started to pull away. But then a chorus of about 5 people were yelling at him to stop and trying to help me to my backpack. Several people tried to lift it and pass it to me, but it was too heavy.

Finally, a little old lady grabbed my day bag, which to her surprise was almost as heavy as my big bag and motioned me to my backpack. I left my day bag with her as the red sea of old people were starting to part and managed to grab my backpack...turn without breaking any ones bones...thanked the lady who was struggling with my day bag and managed to hop off the bus... with both bags and most people smiling at me as I departed. I yelled many thanks...in Spanish of course and off to Portugal it was.

I hope I made their day laughing and helping the foreigner as they definitely made my day. Although, maybe I could of taken some Euros off them at the euchre tournament.

Whew...made it to Portugal on the bus with much less drama except seeing a house burn down along the way.

After all that excitement I was just happy to be in the Algarve. However, what I wasn't happy with...was the fact that I didn't have a map of Faro and had no idea where my hostel was. I couldn't find a tourist centre anywhere and I was at a loss as what to do.

So like usual...I start looking for people that spoke English...in which I was pleasantly surprised there was much more Engish in Portugal than in Spain. I soon found a local that pointed me in the right direction and then after asking another three locals for help...I found my way.

It was at this hostel that I met my first pilgrim. My buddy Ruby talked about doing a pilgrimage as well, so be prepared to walk Ruby...Christian (the pilgrim) had logged over 4000km walking from Brussels...zigzagging through France and all the way to southern Spain. A bit crazy in my mind, but he did tell me that he never once paid for food or accomodations for the entire time he spent in France. Who's the crazy one now?

As pretty as Faro and Albufeira were, I definitely found out they were warm weather destinations and the beach location was the main draw. And since I was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans most days and didn't see one person enjoying the beautiful beaches...it was kind of lost on me.

But I could still see the beauty in them and the locals were fabulous so a return trip might be in order.


When you hop around as many countries as I've been lucky enough to do in this trip, languages seem to get blurred. I was just lucky that the Portuguese are so friendly as I kept practising my new found Spanish on them for the first two days. And if anyone's been to Portugal before...they know the Portuguese hate the Spanish. Oops...sorry about that!

I didn't take any pictures of it, but the thing I'll remember about Faro and the rest of Portugal is the cobblestones. First of all they were everywhere, with most being less than 2x3 in inches. And since there were millions upon millions...some poor guy wasted his life away making them. However, the designs they made with the cobblestones were definitely impressive.

It was time to head for the capital...Lisbon. Once again... a little excitement, but on the subway this time. I don't know about you guys, but for me... subways in large cities always seem daunting if you haven't ridden them before, carrying a large backpack and especially if you're not exactly sure where you're going.

So as the alarm sounded that the doors were about to close and due to the huge number of people pushing to get on...I soon guessed I wasn't going to make it, but I surged ahead anyway. I was startled to see the guy in front of me hop on the subway only to turn around and knock into me as I tried to enter. I soon realized he had just snatched the wallet from an unsuspecting victim and run off. She instantly went into tears with her boyfriend trying to console her, but luckily a guard was just a few feet away and presumably called for help to try to apprehend the dude. I have no idea what happened from there, but I held my bags more closely from that time forward.

When I got to the hostel, I soon found it to be my second favourite hostel in my travels and met a couple cool backpackers. Now with everyone I talked to while in Lisbon and since, they all seemed to love Lisbon...but I hate to say it...I wasn't that impressed. Maybe once again I've been too spoiled, but it didn't seem to have anything to make it unique.

Now Porto was my kind of place. And yes, I'm guessing it had a lot to do with the port wine. I had met Alex at the hostel in Lisbon and we ended up in the same hostel in Porto, so off we went in search of port tasting. When asking around, we were told that Graham's had the best tasting venue...so of course we went there. However, we had no idea how far it was. After a good 45 mins of walking...some of it in the wrong direction...we found Grahams. It was 5:25 and they closed at 6:00, but they said we could do a tasting anyway.

They gave us 4 free tastings...a dry white, a sweet white, a sweet red and a sweet tawny. I wasn't sold on the dry white, but the rest were delicious. Then we both bought an upgrade to tasting more vintage ports. We had a 1985 Dows, a 1994 Quinta do Vesuvio and a 2005 Quinta do Vesuvio. All were excellent, but the '94 was to die for. And since we were the only ones left in the joint, they offered us up two 2007 (one tradional and one robotica...the difference being the robotica was harvested by machine) that hadn't yet been available to the public. We were told we were the first to try either outside of the employees. Kind of cool. But what was more cool...since it was past closing time and there was some more of the '94 left in the bottle...we were allowed to finish it off.

So within about 40 mintues, we each had 10 samplings...and we were merrily on our way back to the hostel. Did I mention I really liked Porto. I thought it was pretty awesome even without the port. But when in Rome...

It's now back to Spain briefly where I can practise my new found Portuguese to even the score.