One such article on Portuguese website Portugaldenorteaasul, titled 11 things tourists should never do in Portugal hooked me in. After three years of getting to know Portugal, I wondered how these ‘things not to do’ would compare with our experiences. […]
Something catches my eye, movement by the water line about 200 metres to my right, on the far bank of the river. Squinting into the sun, I see what looks like the torso of a large man hauling himself out of the river, dragging his withered legs behind him… […]
I like the thought of cycling that involves effortless pedalling along flat country lanes passing rows of vines, or alongside a gently rolling river, the warm sun kissing my face; a soft breeze caressing glowing skin; a bottle of wine, loaf of fresh bread, and a round of cheese in the wicker basket… […]
A year ago to the day Andy and I sat on the terrace of a shepherd’s hut on a plateau in Slovenia whilst I tucked into a bowl of gruel otherwise known as buckwheat mush and sour milk. Why? Because it was there… […]
Our quest to find the ideal place to live, combined with missions to create Slow Travel holidays, took us from the honey-coloured coastline of the wilder side of the Algarve to the verdant valleys of the Minho in the north, and from living beside a smugglers’ trail in Alentejo’s ‘beyond the back of beyond’ border country to a small farm next to a cork forest in the Setúbal Peninsula… […]
We drove through three countries, from Portugal’s Atlantic coast to Provence, not only switching from stuttering along in one language to another, but trying to figure out what COVID-19 restrictions applied where. […]
In these open hills there are no other people, most folk wouldn’t dream of walking when temperatures are predicted to hit the upper 30s, but there is an abundance of life. Ignoring us as we sit in the meagre shade of a human-sized cairn are wild Garrano horses. […]
It’s so incessantly hot I feel as though I’ve sprung a leak somewhere on the crown of my head. This is what real heat feels like, and it’s only the end of May. […]
The other day we chewed over our favourite hiking routes; not an easy task as we could compile an encyclopedia of great walking routes we’ve completed over the last decade. After much debating and discarding I settled on this five. […]
Perhaps, as we can’t travel, memories of tasting similar creations in various destinations has added extra oomph to flavours, but we’re relishing reliving travel moments thanks to these lock-down menus. […]
Less than 24 hours later and I wish we’d bought more at the Alentejo supermarket. The madness we’d been reading about in British press reports descends on Portugal. There are queues of shoppers at each till, their trolleys piled high with produce including, of course, multi-packs of toilet paper. […]
During the course of a neverending monologue from Marcia, with an “aye, that’s right” thrown in by Preston every now and again, she mentioned their suitcase was half-filled with tins of Spam. It snapped me out of the self-induced coma I’d retreated into. What sort of strange person would pack Spam in their suitcase? […]
The Portuguese, like the Spanish, are complimentary when you make an effort, telling us we can speak it well when we rattle of a few stock phrases when we’re appalling. […]
It’s a convivial gathering, eight of us around a dining table at a rural hotel in a converted farmhouse. The food has been plentiful, the wine flowing. As the evening progresses we get to know one another better and tongues loosen. […]
Ever since we took up walking in earnest, and starting monitoring weather conditions and their after effects, we’ve learned things about the weather we would once never had considered for a second. […]
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