Or a cottage. Or a rural B&B. To immerse yourself in European culture, think small. As we learned, all it takes is a little time, a bit of patience and (sometimes) courage.
By Cindy Loose
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 10, 2002
I've ordered the pork and clam entree at Tasca Do Celso not because the combination appeals to me, but because I feel obligated to try the signature national dish.
Minutes after the food is served, Antonio Costa Jose, a worried look on his face, walks in and asks if everything is good. "Fabulous," I tell him honestly.
A look of relief passes his face. Smiling broadly, he leaves. Apparently, having recommended the restaurant, Antonio has felt a grave and troubling sense of responsibility.
It was just one of the many kindnesses of strangers that we encountered on a recent trip to Portugal. But then again, we were not exactly strangers to Antonio and some of the other people who took us under their wings. Having settled down in one small town along the western coast for most of a week, we became at some point in our journey familiar faces.
Even the neighborhood dogs got used to our being in Vila Nova de Milfontes and ceased barking when we walked the narrow alleyways of this seaside town of 4,500 residents. By the second day, the clerk at the store near a castle pulled out all of the English-language newspaper options as my husband approached the door. By the third day, the clerk saw him coming and had the London Times and the Daily Mail ready to hand over.
We had deliberately decided to try the immersion technique in Europe, where we generally visit large cities or multiple villages, rushing from one attraction to the next. But this seemed a time for quiet, for escape.
We found the perfect setting in the Alentejo region of Portugal, with its groves of olive and flowering almond trees, its pastures dotted with grazing sheep, its beaches shadowed by towering red and yellow cliffs.
The town we chose is lovely, with cobblestone streets lined with distinctive old houses painted in bright shades of blue, gold and pink.
Even so, the guidebook daily tempts us with promises of even better things. What about Tavira, a tuna fishing port and resort town near Spain, in the eastern section of the Algarve? The small town has a seven-arch bridge built by the Romans, tombs of crusading knights who captured the town from the Moors in 1242, a Renaissance church, a church with a baroque interior, castle ruins, a ferry that takes you out to a huge sandbar.
I'm thinking that if we drive just over two hours from Vila Nova de Milfontes and spend the night in Faro, another coastal town, we could leave the next morning for Tavira, checking all the beaches on the southern coast along the way, then the next day maybe head inland and catch the crafts market at historic Loule before heading to towns in the north.
Or should we stick to our original plan to settle in at Vila Nova, with its one main street and farms at the edge of town along the cliffs? We have planned a couple of day trips, but even so, I'm feeling as if I'm following a diet at a smorgasbord restaurant.
Even the tiniest towns beckon with promises of art and megalithic burial sites left by Stone Age people, of medieval walls, of castles and cathedrals.
Portugal over the ages has been visited or conquered by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Iberians, Greeks, Romans, Moors, Spanish, French and English. Since Portugal was neutral during World War II, treasures those civilizations left behind escaped the bombings that destroyed so much elsewhere in Europe, and I want to see them all.
Finally, we decide to stay put that first full day in Vila Nova and see how things feel as time goes on.
We'd arrived the previous night, after dark, to find that addresses don't mean much in a town with a maze of narrow alleyways that turn and change names every 50 yards or so. We stopped a non-English-speaker to ask directions. He went inside to ask his wife. Soon the street is filled with a large extended family debating in Portuguese how to explain. Finally, one young man motions that he will get in his car and lead us there.
Antonio and Idalia Costa Jose, owners of the B&B where we've arranged to stay, are standing at the wooden gate in front of their property, apparently watching for us. They run up to the car saying they've been so worried; they'd been expecting us since late morning.
We are immediately delighted with our accommodations in the two-story house, Casa Do Adro. A living area with fireplace adjoins the rooms for guests on the second floor. Tea and pastries await us in our room, which has double French doors leading to a patio. Even in high season, July and August, rooms go for about $50 a night.
We're even more delighted to see Casa Do Adro by daylight. We choose to eat outdoors at a table shaded from the bright, warm sunlight by umbrellas striped in gold and white. Bowls of the world's sweetest strawberries are set before us, along with freshly squeezed orange juice, crusty bread, eggs, pastries still warm from the oven.
What better way to start a lazy day? We stroll about two blocks to a castle overlooking the Mira River and walk down the stone steps to the sandy river beach below. We're told that it gets crowded here in July and August, but we have the beach to ourselves and begin exploring rocks covered with mussels and snails.
A few hundreds yards down the beach, the waves of the Atlantic Ocean collide with the still waters of the river. Someone has carved a walkway into a giant boulder that juts out into the water, and we walk around it to find an ocean beach.
It is warm enough, even in February, to sunbathe in swimsuits. Eventually we retrace our steps, then window-shop in small stores on our way to the main drag -- a rare two-way street.
We have fresh fish for lunch, just as we did for dinner the night before. Strolling back to the beach, we discover the pastry and gelato shop -- Gelataria E Cafetaria -- that will become our second home away from home.
Lunch and snack time, like dinner, are leisurely affairs in Portugal. Don't assume the service is slow if you fail to get a check long after finishing a meal. No waiter here would dream of hurrying you out the door by presenting a check before you specifically request one.
Luckily, before stopping in the pastry shop, I didn't know that Idalia prides herself on her afternoon tea. We finish one snack to find more tea and pastries awaiting us at the B&B. No matter. We can walk off the calories by poking around a number of crafts stores in town. And seeing how 7:30 p.m. is the earliest any Portuguese would even start thinking about dinner, we have plenty of time to digest while curled on the couch with a good book.
The next day we're wowed by the countryside as we take a two-hour drive to Lagos, in the Algarve region. To get a mental picture, imagine someone stringing together sections of vineyards, groves and fields from Southern France, Italy, England and Wales. Then add occasional views of whitewashed towns with a slightly Arabic feel -- a reminder of the Moorish influence here.
Unfortunately, the southern coast along the beaches has been visited by developers. But the beaches, reached by long stone stairways down huge cliffs, are dramatic. We're grateful to the developer who built Restaurante Mirante high atop a cliff overlooking the beach called Praia D. Ana.
The most striking collision of cliff and beach occurs at nearby Sagres, and a mile or so down the road at Cabo Sao Vincent.
People once thought that this southwesternmost tip of Europe was the end of the world. But at this very spot, Prince Henry the Navigator set up a school to explore the world he knew existed over the horizon.
Americans are most familiar with the exploits of Columbus, for obvious reasons. But setting off from the sea beneath these giant cliffs, Portuguese navigators ventured farther and more successfully than sailors from any other nation, finding routes to India, China and Africa.
This section of coastline, it's worth noting, has not been developed at all. You'll find old forts, a lighthouse and a few peddlers selling thick wool sweaters for about $40 each. Fishermen wearing such sweaters cast their lines from clifftops that are more than 100 feet high. We watch, hoping they don't catch a fish big enough to pull them off the edge.
On the drive back to Vila Nova, I feel very grateful that we are not hunting for new lodgings and unpacking suitcases. In fact, I feel as if I am going home.
Idalia comes upstairs that evening to apologize that the snacks she left at tea time were undoubtedly cold by the time of our return. No problem, I tell her. I mention that the egg custards in a pastry shell are my favorites.
"They are so much better warm," she protests. "I'll make some fresh for breakfast." From that day forward, every morning, noon and night, I'm offered the warm little pies.
During our remaining time in Vila Nova, we explored the nooks and crannies. Antonio arranged one day for his cousin -- imagine Anthony Quinn in a fisherman's cap -- to take us out in a boat. Otherwise, we were content to catch the rhythm of the small town, where elderly women venture out each morning with string bags to buy bread just out of the bakery oven.
When I spend just a day or so in a town, I feel some pressure to make sure I've tried the best restaurants, budget and otherwise. With days and meals to spare, we tried Vila Nova's one Chinese restaurant. The food at Dragao Dourado was just okay, but the menu was terrific. We had much fun with the English translation menu, with entrees like "Some kind of shimp from pool pond" and "Grilled Happy Family."
Several times we'd exchanged polite greetings with a Portuguese couple staying at our B&B. Finally, we worked up the nerve to invite them for gelato. They helped us plan our route for the following day to the ancient walled city of Evora, about 2 1/2 hours away.
The following morning, as I sat at breakfast studying the map, Fernanda Pinto approached me.
"It may be hard for you to find the main road," she said. "My husband has agreed that we should lead you to Evora on our way back to Lisbon."
This is akin to a resident of Philadelphia visiting Washington, and offering to show a stranger the Eastern Shore on their way home to Philly. The couple waved aside our protests that this was too much of an inconvenience.
This is how we managed to find a fabulously beautiful restaurant with incredibly good food the moment we arrived in Evora. The Jardim do Paco is set next to a courtyard surrounded by a 16th-century monastery, the remains of a temple to Diana built by the Romans in the second century, and the largest cathedral in Portugal.
After lunch, the couple accompanied us to the sites just outside the restaurant, then led us through the small city that is completely enclosed by a medieval wall. Students from the Universidade de Evora (founded in 1559) sip coffee at outdoor tables in the main square lined by Moorish-style walkways. We are told that Inquisition trials were held at a building now used by the university, but we never did find it.
Evora was conquered by the Romans in 59 B.C. The Moors ruled until a Christian re-conquest in the 12th century. Everything but the clothes in shop windows seems ancient. The entire city is considered a U.N. World Heritage Site.
We were blown away by the museum, where Roman statues and other artifacts from as far back as the second century are displayed without glass or ropes. In the gallery, people reached to touch Renaissance paintings. I wondered if the works were not as precious as they looked. Then I noticed a Hendrick Avercamp oil from the 17th century. This I know is precious, and I also know I will never again get such a close look at such wonderful, valuable art.
Our new friends left us with instructions not to miss the chapel made of bones in a church called the Igreja de Sao Francisco. We didn't. It is too weird and macabre to miss. Who exactly decided to create walls through the artistic display of the bones and skulls of 5,000 monks? All I am told is that, no, it had nothing to do with the Inquisition.
I still wish we'd had more time in Evora. I wish we'd seen Tavira and Loule. I'm sorry we didn't have time to catch a fado performance in Lisbon. It killed me to hear natives say the north is even older than the south, and better.
But I'm glad we didn't try to shove everything possible into a week. We learned a valuable lesson: A trip does not have to be a frenzy. Sometimes, less really is more.
And I wouldn't have missed Idalia's custard pies, or her goodbye hug, for all the towns in Portugal.