CHAPTER 11
PRECIOUS PLACES

AVEIRO
Here's a place that really is a bit different. Called the Venice of the north, the town is divided by canals and served by Venetian-type gondolas - not at-all surprising when you know that the area was settled by the Phoenicians.

Make sure you also take time to go out to Praia da Barra - out along the lagoon that is formed by the River Aveiro. Here you will find fishermen bringing in their daily catch of fish and shellfish in Phoenician-style boats, complete with religious and daily life-scenes painted on the boat’s swan-necks.

These boats are called 'Moliceiros' (Molicar means ‘hard work.‘) and once upon a time they were used to gather seaweed. (Not profitable these days, which is a great pity as seaweed has many uses - fertilizer, bread, boiled as a vegetable.)

Take a stroll along the isthmus and see the really original architecture as the houses are all painted in stripes - a theme seen in Venetian architecture and also on the islands of the Açores. (English spelling Azores).

ALCOCHETE (Pronounced 'All cow sh*t.')
Take the new bridge south over the Tejo and follow the signs.

You'll notice that as soon as you have crossed the river you are in the country.

The climate appears to change, the air smells different.

By-pass the massive Freeport retail shopping village (Shops, shops and more bloody shops - this is where you can shop till you freeze with icy mist in winter and shop till you boil with swarms of flies in summer.) and head on into the little town, which in Spain would probably be touristically labelled as a 'Pueblo Blanco.’

Here it is simply an 'aldeia' - village. White, but not named so.

Apparently its foundation goes back to the Arabs (any word with 'al' in front is Arabic, with the exception of Al Capone, who was definitely not an Arab thug) and it means 'lime pit.’

However, the predominant industries in the locale today are bulls and fish.

Once a year they have a wild party called 'Festa dos Barretes Verdes', but I'll go into that in the chapter on festas.

It's a charming village.

You can even get a trip on a traditional, immaculately renovated, eighteenth century, Tejo barque, which will sail you up-river, or if you pay enough, down to the Algarve.

If you want a really great dining experience, go to the Al Foz restaurant, which sits right on the river's edge. (Foz means river-mouth.)

At high tide, the waves crash against the plate-glass windows. (And when your bill arrives your jaw crashes onto your plate.)

ATIBÁ
In 2003 I decided that I couldn't make a buck in Portugal anymore, I wasn't getting any younger (in fact retirement age was only around the corner), I had no savings, no property and both my parents were aged and infirm.

So I rationalised that I should return to England.

That lasted six months and things didn't turn out as I expected, so irrespective of the risks I decided to return to Portugal again. Instead of trying to get my own business going, I would find a job, any job, which for a brief while meant some dodgy employment in Ayamonte, Spain.

Arriving back in Cascais I initially stayed with friends, but then I decided that the weather was so nice I would go camping.

I stayed at the Guincho campsite for three months and had a whale of a time, but that's another story.

Realising that camping would not see me through the impending wet, windy, winter months I began to look for a bed-sit, firstly immediately at Guincho and then I slowly widened my net to include Cascais.

One evening I took myself to dinner at a great little restaurant called O Correio. (The Post Office - which is what it used to be before its present incarnation.)

I had finished my meal of char-grilled squid, boiled potatoes, mixed salad and a half bottle of red wine (ten Euro) and was about to leave, when along came some friends of mine, Carolina, her sister Brigita, (B's best friend) and their Mother.

So I joined them. We chatted about what they were up to, what I was up to and then drank some more red wine.

The next day I received a call from Carolina to say that her Mother had heard about a small bachelor apartment in a garden, right next to where she lived and suggested I go and take a look.

So I did.

I immediately hauled ass into my Land Rover and went to meet the landlord and his wife.

They turned out to be retired, quite sweet and enthusiastically Anglophile, having lived and worked in London for thirty years.

They took me into their garden, past the vines, the bird cages and the barbecue, the swimming pool, the lawn, the strelitzia, the orange, lime and lemon trees, the vegetable garden - which contained potatoes, leeks, onions, green beans, pumpkin, courgettes, cucumber, tomatoes, garlic, coriander, red and green and yellow peppers, chillies, more strelitzia, banana trees, more vines, persimmon, more vines, granadillas and I forget what else, but there was more.

Eventually we arrived at the bachelor pad, which was tacked between the house and the garage.

It was laid out in an 'L' shape which comprised a single room serving as a bed-sit, whilst the 'L' bit was the kitchen and a tagged-on toilet/ hand-basin/ shower room. All sparkling new, clean, and ready for occupation, at a mere two hundred and fifty Euro a month, including electricity.

How fast can a person say 'I'll take it?'

I spent the better part of a year here talking to the plants, listening to the birds, taking every meal outside on the patio, drinking lots of wine, eating fresh fruit and vegetableshaving the odd BBQ, meditating and generally doing absolutely nothing.

Was it Heaven, or Eden?

Atibá is a weird word, derived from the Brazilian/ Indian place-name of Atibaia (pronounced by the Brazilians as Achibuya). If you ever want to visit an out of the way place in Portugal, don't go there, because apart from my ex hide-away there's nowt else, apart from the local gym and a nice view of the motorway. (Sorry, there was another very small attraction and that was the store/ café/ padaria called Orquídea, which served tantalising, hot, fresh bread - twice daily.)