Rocky Road

One thing I got to see thanks to the "Let's Show Steve the Algarve Tour" was Praia de Rocha, a very popular Portuguese beach. Beaches are usually pretty simple concepts: sand, water, sun, towels, and fun ensues. Easy combination, not much to it. So it’s tough to get excited about one. But this one was pretty nice. Praia de Rocha (which literally means “beach of rocks”) has a reputation in Portugal for being pretty touristy and it is located in a fairly fancy schmancy tourist area. So we got up early one morning and made the trek to see what all the fuss is about.


It definitely lives up to its name. There were boulders in the sand and in the water, which strangely, made it endearing. When we left, I had a hard time coming to terms with our neighbourhood beach with its gaping lack of boulders in the water. I was never the same.

A boulder in Praia de Rocha. You can see how high the water rises in the winter

My sister Jen and I

Momma Mendes

The Edge of the World—or at least Europe

This trip was also Steve’s first trip to the Portuguese mainland, so we did a bit more exploring than we usually would. One stop was Sagres, home of the famous Portuguese beer and to two famous tourist spots. There’s the remnants of an old fort some people say was home to a navigation school led by Henry the Navigator himself. As for the ruins, there’s not much too them, but there are some really fun views of the cost.

View of Cabo de São Vicente from the navigation school

Showing off the guns

The gorgeous cape and water
(In the distance is one of 2 lighthouses)

My mom picked this plant and smuggled it back to Canada

Awesome photo of Steve nearly falling off a cliff

Across the ocean (and a 5 minute drive away) is Cabo de São Vicente, the most Western part of Europe. It’s marked by a still working light house that due to our late arrival time, we couldn’t see. But I’ve been to Cabo de São Vicente already and the lighthouse is cool, but by no means
necessary. Never to be deterred we took more pictures of the coast.

Lighthouse at Cabo de São Vicente

My parents

The (Mendes) family

The Fruits (or Cake) of our Labour

A few days after that fateful Saturday, we went to dinner with some cousins. After a great meal of seafood, we had dessert. And what was on the menu but a cake made out of alfarrobas.


My mom ordered it because she'd never tried it. The rest of us were eager to try something from the tree we'd suffered and maimed ourselves for.


It didn't taste like chocolate, but it wasn't bad either. The same can't be said for Steve's cheesecake. Not so much cheese as gelatin.

Carry a Big Stick

My grandmothers are two of the toughest women I know. One is the finest lady I know and I’m sure could make a gangster feel ashamed of his profession. The other, in her 80s, makes her own cinder blocks and wakes up with the roosters. These are strong Portuguese women and I’m very proud to come from such strong stock.

But, there are just some things that an 84 year old women shouldn’t do. One of them is picking alfarroba. For those of you unaware of what an alfarroba is, don’t worry, it’s a Portuguese word. The English word for it is a carob tree. I’m not going to pretend I know what they are. I didn’t know there was an English equivalent and I still don’t know what is. All I knew was that they could be used in chocolate and that my grandmother picks them and then sells them.

Alfarroba's aka carob pods. The black kind play the starring role in this story.

That’s how it started. My mom’s mom has a house in the country. She spends her days in her garden tending to her flowers, plants and doing other upkeep. She also has a giant carob tree on her property. Lucky for us, our time in Portugal happened to coincide with the time of the year when alfarroba’s are ripe for picking. Not one to actually come out and ask for our help, my grandmother spent two days subtly (or not so subtly) hinting that she'd like us to help. We would ask her when she’d come to the beach with us. She’d sigh heavily, look out the window point at the carob tree and say she had so much work to do. Keep in mind that there is no real obligation to the tree—there is no law to pick the tree. But it was on her property and she wasn’t going to neglect it. So we made a deal: she would come stay with us for a few days and we (me, parents, my sister and brother-in-law, Steve) would devote our Saturday to picking this tree.

“It’ll take a morning, probably less with all of us helping,” my dad assured us, himself a veteran of the task.

We began early: up at 8am and after a wake up coffee for the oldies (Jen and Steve I’m talking to you) we were off. Our task was to get the alfarroba pods off the tree and collected in sacs. In some cases this was easy. Some had fallen off the tree and all we had to do was pick them off the ground.


Others were not so accessible. In order to get at them we resorted to different tactics. The first was to use giant sticks to smack at branches of the tree. This would send pods falling to the ground and usually hitting whoever was picking them up— in this case me—on the head (imagine raw lima beans smacking you in the head).

In order to get at the hard to reach branches, some of us would climb the trees to smack at the branches with our aforementioned big sticks. This was both a test of balance (standing on the branch) as well as coordination (using the stick to smack the branches).


But perhaps the most efficient way was Steve’s, “making it rain.” It involved Steve climbing the tree, going deep into the brush and with each hand holding a different branch and either jumping or shaking the branches. This would cause the pods to cascade to the ground in large numbers and “making it rain.” It proved quite successful as it maximized the amount of alfarobas and minimized the effort of everyone—except maybe Steve.

But it was not without its dangers. There were a few times when Steve neglected to tell us it was about to “rain” and those on the ground—me and Jen—where assailed with bean shaped missiles smacking us in the head from great heights and at greed speeds.

In the end, collecting all the alfarrobas took a full day. To amuse ourselves we sang out loud—Pretty Woman, Bon Jovi and others. By the end, we were exhausted, full of back pain and covered in battle scars.

Scraps and scuffs from the carob tree

And to add insult to injury, my grandmother welshed on her bet. She never came with us to the beach.

B-I-L Steve and I in a tree

My sister Jen

My tough grandmother

Me and the parents

Sightseeing in Sintra

On one of my last days with my cousins we travelled to Sintra, a spot 20 minutes outside of Lisbon. I'd been to Sintra when I was little, and it was, and still remains, one of my favourite places in Portugal. There are several castles around the city which are the city's biggest draw. Tourists love to climb to the tops to soak up the scenery and the beautiful castle interiors. This time we were too late to go inside the castles. Instead we had some pastries and took a walk through the city. Here are some highlights.

The British poet Byron was a frequent visitor of Sintra (and this restaurant)

Street in Sintra (my cousin Rita is in purple)


Those buildings on the hill is one of castles in Sintra

The fairy tale style castle I went to when I was young.

Just for fun

Doing the Electric Boogaloo to Medieval Castles

Next was a visit to Alfama, the oldest district in Lisbon. To get there we hopped on the 28 elétrico or 28 Electric tram. These trams were imported in 1901 from the United States to replace horse drawn carriages as the prime mode of transportation in Lisbon. While the rest of public transportation has been revamped—and quite nicely I might add —these little relics have endured as both a tourist attraction and a piece of local history. It's one of the secrets of Lisbon (it wasn't in any of my guidebooks). It’s only €1.30 and the 45 minute ride takes you through the gorgeous historical district and back in time. If you’re lucky to go in June, you’ll get to experience Portuguese fado singers accompanying passengers along the route. One tip though, hold on when the tram comes to a stop. Brakes from 1901 don’t provide for the smoothest—or quietest— journey.

The 28 elétrico

The hills of Lisbon

The long and winding road

A peak inside the electric (apologies for the fuzziness)

That day we got off at the entrance to Castelo São Jorge (Castle of St. George), a castle built on the largest hill overlooking Alfama. The castle dates back to before the Middle Ages. It was used to force the Moors out of Lisbon during the Siege of Lisbon in 1147. After that it became the Royal Palace and was the site of a reception for Vasco da Gama which celebrated his discovery of a maritime route to India (thereby starting the spice trade and empire building. This era would be one of the richest periods in Portugal's history).

Courtyard of Castle

The Castle

Watchtower

Cousins Freitas (left to right, Anna, Manuel, Rita)

Today the castle is a major tourist attraction, not only for its history but because it offers some of the best views of Lisbon.

View from the courtyard (River Tagus)

Lisbon from the courtyard

Lisbon from the Castle watchtower

Cheira Lisboa--Smells Like Lisbon

As nice as Belem is, I was ten times more excited to go to downtown Lisbon. It is a gorgeous city. But be warned, it's made up of seven hills. Good for a thigh and bum workout, not so much for tired feet.

A Parisian store in Lisbon. It may have the flair of Paris, but we're in Lisbon baby.

My tour guide for this leg of the adventure was my cousin Rita and she was absolutely invaluable in showing me the sights and explaining history. We started our tour in the Chiado district of Lisbon, a trendy area home to charming boutiques, cafes and poets, especially Portugal’s Fernando Pessoa.

Fernando and I

Then we walked to Carmo square and over to the Santa Justa lift (which was made in 1900 by Raul Mesnier de Ponsard, an apprentice to Gustave Eiffel, of Eiffel Tower fame). Only, we didn't actually take the lift, we took the stairs.

Santa Justa Lift

From there we got a pretty good view of the streets of Lisbon that were redone after the 1755 Earthquake. Up until then, Lisbon had been rocked by a few earthquakes (eight in the 14th century, five in the 16th century and three in the 17th century) but this one was particularly bad. It destroyed 85 per cent of the city and killed 60 to 90, 000 people.

Lisbon, and that area on the hill is Alfama

The River Tagus

View of the Rossio square, one of the most important squares in Lisbon

As a result of the destruction caused by the earthquake, Lisbon had to be rebuilt. Instead of rebuilding according to the old plans, the Prime Minister at the time, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the Marquis of Pombal, rebuilt using modern urban planning. As a result, the streets in the Baixa Pombalina (Pombaline Downtown) area are grid like and symmetrical.

Straight streets are a trademark of Pombaline design

Beside the elevator was the Carmo Convent, a Gothic cathedral. The Convent was mostly destroyed in the 1755 Earthquake, except for its arched frames. It also has a modern significance. In 1974, it was the headquarters of dictator President Marcelo Caetano during the Carnation Revolution that removed him from power (via a military coup). A year after the coup, Portugal held its first free elections since the 1920s and restored democracy to Portugal (Caetano's Estado Novo, or "New State" regime was the longest authoritarian regime in Western Europe). The convent still shows the bullets used to "encourage" Caetano to surrender.

Convent do Carmo

Bullets from the attack on Caetano's headquarters in 1974

Now, it’s used as an archaeological museum that houses two Peruvian mummies (it was closed when we visited).