On Saturday 7/20 after leaving the university city of Coimbra, we took off towards the north-central coastal city of Nazare. We had fun finding out that the city is pronounced "na-zah-ray" and not "na-zarre". It´s been a learning experience, for sure!
Before heading into the city, we met up with some of Katie´s former dog agility colleagues, Cynthia and Ken, who moved to Portugal several years ago from Washington state. They treated us to a delicious multiple course lunch complete with several tastings of local Portuguese wines. They couldn´t have been more gracious and accommodating. We discussed with them the pros and cons of life as American expatriots living in Portugal. As we are considering Portugal as a possible retirement spot in the future, Cynthia and Ken gave us all of their insider knowledge and plenty to consider as our retirement reconaissance mission continues as we travel abroad. After a few delighful hours with our generous hosts, we were off once again and finally arrived to Nazare in the early evening, checking into our hotel, the Hotel Praia (which literally means beach). The view from our balcony was beautiful, but the parking underneath the hotel was not!! The garage was a narrow, one way, three level decent into the great unknown! We actually parked without a scratch on the rental car, thanks to Mike´s expert driving skills!! Later that evening we walked around town and enjoyed the scenery.
The next day (Sunday 7/21) we quickly visited the local market across the street from the hotel and purchased a few items. We avoided purchasing any seafood as our hotel might have frowned on the stench eminating from the cooler in our hotel room!! Afterwards we had planned on visiting the Knight´s Templar Castle & the Convent of Christ in Tomar, which was about an hour drive away from Nazare. We took off mid-morning and about 20 minutes in, decided to pull over and fill up the gas tank. In true Mike fashion, he pulled a bit to closely to the gas pump, hit the cement curb with the front right tire, and blew it out instantaneously. Unfortunately, Mike´s "expert driving skills" were no longer on display at that time. We received a bit of help from one of the local women working in the gas station and were finally able to get ahold of an Avis representative to assist us (FYI - literally most everything is closed on Sundays in this overwhelmingly Catholic country....which made things even more challenging!). So literally the rest of the morning and afternoon was spent waiting for the tow truck and the taxi to arrive, and then take us to the nearest Avis location in Lisbon, 90 minutes away. We finally secured a new rental car (which don´t have spare tires, as we found out) and made it back to Nazare Sunday evening. We had a late stroll around town, to the lighthouse and the main beach, experienced a stunning Portuguese sunset, and had some gelato to finish out the evening.
On Monday 7/22, we packed up and headed out to the Castle and Convent in the city of Tomar. We decided to do this on the way to our next destination, Tavira on the southern coast in the Algarve region. Katie was bound and determined to hit this site because she had wanted to see it the previous day until Mike´s expert driving skills had messed that up. The Convent of Christ and the Knight´s Templar Castle was something right out of an Indiana Jones movie and we both had an amazing time. The temperature in Tomar was 102 and we had a 4 1/2 hour drive ahead of us, so we departed towards Tavira in the early afternoon after an inprompteau lunch of meat, cheese, and bread out of the trunk of our car in the parking lot of the Templar castle!!
More about Tavira in our next post. Until then, adeus!!!
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