Week 17 - 163 sites visited, 162 acceptable.

Monday 14th March 2016.
Moving day, we are off to a site just north of Lisbon the Parque de Campismo de Almornos just 106km down the road. We left Alcácer do Sal quite late in the morning but still arrived at the new site just after 1.00pm. The receptionist had just gone for her lunch but the gatekeeper was able to contact her and get her to return to book us in. Sadly when she returned at 2.00pm we were waiting for her to book us out.

We had arrived on the pitch and backed the van in with the help of the motor mover as the access road was too narrow to allow us the swing necessary to back straight in. The pitch was only just long enough to accommodate the van and while I levelled it and put the steadies down Sue went to the loo. Getting back she reported that as well as being VERY VERY basic, (basic is the norm for camp sites in Portugal, VERY basic is quite common and acceptable, well sort of!!) so the VERY VERY basic took it to a whole new low. It was also at the bottom of a very long and very steep slope. Well if it came to it we could use our own facilities.

The pitches themselves, although as said a little short for our length of caravan, appeared to be quite good as each pair of pitches had a stand that provided a tap and electric point as well as a grey water empty point for each pitch. I checked the electric point, as I always do, and found the socket for our pitch had no earth, the one for the (empty) pitch next door also had no earth. On the next pair of pitches there was an earth but the RCD’s tripped very time we plugged the van into either of them. The gatekeeper when called did a lot of shrugging and indicated that we should just put up with it. Lots of things we will put up with because as someone once said “. . . . if you can’t take a joke don’t go . . . “ different countries have different requirements and expectations but one expectation I have where ever we go - safe electrics. That was when we upped sticks and left. The first time since we started caravanning (1983) that we have refused to stay at a site - sad.

Fortunately we were only 30 km from another site (that we had visited before) so less than an hour later we were setting up at campsite Orbitur Guincho.

Feeling particularly lazy we went to the site restaurant for dinner, although there is an extensive menu we opted for the “Menu of the day” which included octopus rice, Sue had that and grilled octopus with vegetables that I had along with a couple of pints of local lager - delicious.

Tuesday 15th March 2016.
Rain, rain, rain and even more rain. We stayed in all day and discussed how much warmer the rain was than in UK at this time of year😋

Wednesday 16th March 2016.
A visit to SINTRA today. Sintra is an area just north of Lisbon where there is an absolute plethora of historical gems to visit and explore. We have made many visits here and have just three places still to see. We planned to see them all today: at the “CHALET AND GARDEN OF THE COUNTESS OF EDLA” and “QUINTA DA REGALEIRA” the first two on our list, we found parking absolutely impossible and both were a considerable hike from town, where, although endowed with plenty of buses, taxis, TukTuks etc., the whole place was heaving and there were several cars fighting for every parking space. We eventually gave up and went on to the third the “PARQUE E PALACIO DE MONSERRATE” where we were (eventually) able to park. The Park and palace are described in Lonely Planet guide book thus:-

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. . . At the centre of a lush, 30-hectare park, a manicured lawn sweeps up to the whimsical, Moorish-inspired palácio , the 19th-century romantic folly of English millionaire Sir Francis Cook. The wild and rambling gardens surrounding the building were created in the 18th century by wealthy English merchant Gerard de Visme, then enlarged by landscape painter William Stockdale (with help from London’s Kew Gardens).

Its wooded hillsides bristle with exotic foliage, from Chinese weeping cypress to dragon trees and Himalayan rhododendrons. Seek out the Mexican garden nurturing palms, yuccas and agaves, and the bamboo-fringed Japanese garden abloom with camellias. . .

It sounds like an advert for Gordons Gin.

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Thursday 17th March 2016.
When we were here last year we went to visit the TOWER OF BELEM on the banks of the Tagus river, unfortunately the queues outside were so great that we did not bother to go in. This year the queue was quite short and a notice, nearby, stated that for safety reasons only 120 persons were allowed in the building at a time (being English and so used to ‘Elf and Safety interfering in every aspect of our lives) we decided to wait. The wait was just ten or fifteen minutes and we were inside. The ground floor was, shall we say - uninspiring so after a quick look around started to climb to the upper floors. It was on the first floor that we discovered that the entrance queue had been just a cruel practice as on the first floor was a queue to go through a door and join another queue to get to the upper floor, where the guide book said, was the reason to visit - the view. We left.

A few hundred metres further along the riverside is the famous PADRAO DOS DESCOBRIMENTOS (Monument to the Discoveries), we went inside paid a very small sum and skipped up the 290 steps to look at the magnificent views over Lisbon including looking down on Monastery of Belem. Actually, I lied, we were whisked to the top in a high speed lift but we did have the option of walking up. Fat chance!!

Friday 18th - Saturday 19th March 2016.

Rain, rain and more rain. Sandy sites are such a pain in the rain, the sand turns to a creamy slush, so pleasant to walk in - not. Fortunately a short while after the rain stops it goes back to sand.

© Stephen Ghost 2015