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Simon & Jackie’s Spain & Portugal Pilgrimage 2023 Read more
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  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsSpain & Portugal Pilgrimage
    Day 21

    Day 21 - Back to the Beach

    July 1, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ 🌙 20 °C

    We both had a really decent night’s sleep in our very nice air conditioned bedroom. We were ready for the beach.

    We stopped at a small cafe for coffee & Jackie chose a sausage sandwich to share. It was weird if not fairly horrible - a frankfurter in a baguette with a lettuce leaf, a tomato slice, then crammed with tiny chipsticks all swimming in ketchup & mustard mayonnaise. Not again.

    We walked to a beach called Foz do Rio Mira em Odemira, which on the face of it was perfect - a small sandy cove sheltered from the breeze and with a roped off swimming area. Unfortunately it was busy & full of either old people or families. I wasn’t comfortable, but strangely the beach started to empty from about 11.30am onwards.

    During the morning we had identified a beach shack on Praia do Farol, the beach around the corner. Around 1pm we visited it for a beer & discovered it was a restaurant with white table cloths for dinner. Not what we were looking for, so we had to head back towards town to find something more suitable for just a couple of beers.

    We spent the afternoon on Praia do Faro as the tide went dramatically back out revealing sandbanks all over the estuary.

    That evening we had a hearty meal of burger and pork with fries with beer & decided we would try to extend our stay for another 4 days.

    Song of the Day - On The Beach by The Chameleons.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsSpain & Portugal Pilgrimage
    1
    Day 23

    Day 22 to Day 26 - Vila Nova Milfontes

    July 3, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    I know some people, well one person, was worried about our wellbeing, but I decided to do just one blog for the next five days, because we did literally nothing except sit on a beach and occasionally eat.

    Day 22 - We sat on Praia do Farol for the day. We had a couple of beers & shared a burger for lunch at the Riverside Pub. Jackie attempted to cut my hair with my beard trimmers. We had dinner at a restaurant called Picatapa. I had a lovely steak in a mustard cream sauce with chips, whilst Jackie moaned that her fried squid was in sauce she didn’t particularly like.

    Day 23 - We drove to Praia do Malhao about 6 miles up the road. It is a wild unspoilt sandy beach with Atlantic Ocean waves crashing in. We both really liked the beach, but we had no provisions because we had planned to return to the Riverside Pub for lunch. Unbelievably the pub turned out to be closed for renovations, so we made do with the restaurant next door. We had a beer each & a mixed plate of salami, cheese and jam. It was then back to Praia do Farol, but it was windy, so we retreated to the busy Praia de Vila Nova Milfontes. That night we both had a very poor meal in a lovely blue tiled restaurant. I had the pork mixed grill & Jackie had a steak. Both were chewy & overcooked & the plates heaving with chips, rice and some unidentified substance similar to stuffing. The food was summed up by a Portuguese couple who paid up and walked out grumbling literally 2 minutes after their dinner arrived. We are going to review our eating habits.

    Day 24 - The previous day we had found a bakery that made up baguettes etc which we decided would be perfect for a day on the beach. Typical, it was closed, so we bought bread rolls, laughing cow cheese, a tomato and fruit for our picnic. We then drove back to Praia do Malhao, which we have decided is now our favourite beach & probably in our top 10 best beaches ever visited. We spent the whole day on the beach with the odd walk, dip in the Atlantic & lunch. On the way home we were looking forward to the prospect of a cold beer & maybe a small appetiser from the bar at the end of our road. FFS it was closed. Instead we found a lovely ‘new’ bar at the other end of our road which we discovered to be cheaper and had been open for over a year and we hadn’t noticed. Dinner was the same as lunch.

    Day 25 - We went back to Praia do Malhao after stopping at the bakery that was now open for egg salad baguettes and chocolate croissants. We had a full day on the beach again. We had a couple of beers at the ‘new’ bar, then to the old bar for a beer and just a snack. True to form, there was a queue to get a seat, so our plans were scuppered yet again, so we returned to StressFree and the lovely owner who made a fuss of us as returning customers. Today I made the wrong choice with a veal burger that got lost in an oversized bun & their chips that are actually more like crisps. Jackie had a bowl of black linguine with mussels in tomato sauce which was apparently delicious.

    Day 26 - It was back again to Praia do Malhao. We stopped at the bakery and bought just one egg salad baguette to share & 2 croissants for lunch. We spent the whole day catching rays on the beach listening to Day 1 of the 3rd Test, with the occasional paddle between wickets. Jackie gave me a haircut when we got back, then we went back to StressFree for pasta for me & octopus salad on toast for Jackie.

    Tomorrow we head further south.

    Song of the Days : Sea and Sand by The Who.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsSpain & Portugal Pilgrimage
    Day 27

    Day 27 - To the Far Southwest & Back

    July 7, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Today we packed up & headed south for our next beach stop. I was particularly happy to be moving on, because I had inexplicably been eaten alive over the last week & Jackie had not. I have no idea when or what had bitten me, but I have now got 30-40 bites on most parts of my body.

    The first stop was Zambujeira do Mar to inspect their beach, but we weren’t overly impressed. It was a bit too small and quite crowded. We drove on for about 5 minutes & stopped at Praia do Carvalhal, which was a beach in the middle of nowhere and had potential. It had a bar/cafe, a random Thai massage hut and a decent sized beach. It was a definite possibility to return to.

    Another 15 minutes later we arrived at Odeceixe, a small town which we had earmarked for our next stay. Three miles down the road was a horseshoe shaped beach is considered to be one of the best beaches in Portugal. We viewed it from the car park high above & decided that it was probably the beach for us, but we would drive down to Sagres in the most southwestern corner of Portugal.

    The hour long drive took us through the Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina. The South West Alentejo and Vicentine Coast Natural Park is the finest preserved stretch of European coastline, covering over 100 km, from Porto Covo in the Alentejo, to Burgau in the Algarve. The Park includes various unique species of animal and plant life, and is visited by many zoologists and botanists from all parts of the world.

    We didn’t see any wildlife in the Park, but on the outskirts of Odeceixe, we found a farmer’s field that contained ostriches, zebras, bison and water buffalo. It was a bizarre sight & no obvious explanation for it.

    Upon arrival in Sagres we stopped at an Inter Marché supermarket for some essential toiletries & 10 litres of white wine. We also had an extremely cheap lunch in their cafe. It was populated by apparent gap year surfers and other poor people. After this pit stop, we continued on to Fortaleza de Sagres, which is a fort, lighthouse and church complex on the southwestern peninsula. It was €3 to enter so we didn’t bother. On the peninsula it was ridiculously windy & we very quickly made the decision that we would look to stay back in Odeceixe.

    Jackie had researched and made her mind up of the hotel she wanted to stay in for the next 5 days. Unfortunately during the day, the price had gone up on Booking.com to a price I wasn’t comfortable in paying. The price didn’t change during the journey back to Odeceixe, so we ended touring the town and I managed to persuade Jackie to downgrade to a similar property, but exactly half the price, almost £200 cheaper!!!

    Over a couple of our most expensive beers on this trip (€5 for a small bottle of locally crafted beer), we booked our cheaper accommodation, which is actually decent albeit slightly bijou. It has the added bonus of a proper balcony & a decent fridge, BUT we only have a small double bed.

    We settled in to our new accommodation and Jackie had to grudgingly admit that this room was actually better than the place she wanted to book. I won’t mention it again………much.

    We had a couple of white wines on our lovely balcony then headed out for a quick stroll before stopping in the highly rated Portuguese BBQ restaurant opposite our apartment . Despite having to put up with a precocious impatient 14 year old waiter, the food was superb. We started with a portion of garlic mushrooms, then Jackie had prawns in piri piri sauce, whilst I had grilled pork in pickles. I chose the cheapest bottle of red at €10 and quite frankly it was lovely. No one could ever accuse us of being wine snobs.

    After dinner, we retired to our balcony for a glass of white wine from our 5 litre bladder that cost just €13.

    Song of the Day : Southwest by New Model Army.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsSpain & Portugal Pilgrimage
    Day 29

    Day 28 - What the hell am I doin’ here?

    July 9, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    After a fairly decent nights sleep, apart from me constantly scratching my multiple bites, in our small double bed, we had coffee from our courtesy coffee machine on our balcony. The coffee was so lovely to the point that Jackie sent a WhatsApp message to the management asking if we could have extra coffee capsules for which she would happily pay for (a bit rash!).

    We then drove to the beach & chose our spot, but within minutes we were being surrounded by other beach goers including kids. This was not good, so we scouted around for a better spot including the official naturist beach in a cove on the southern end of the beach, where we witnessed some odd little mushroom shaped genitalia.

    We relocated, not to the naturist beach, but to a quieter corner of the beach and had a full day in the sun with wine & a couple of crisps for lunch. I also got to listen to the exciting last hour or so of play in the play in theirs day of the 3rd Ashes Test. We actually have a good chance of winning this Test……at the time of writing.

    Upon our return to our apartment, we found that we had been left a box of coffee capsules free of charge. I made Jackie admit again (and again) that I had come up trumps with choosing this apartment.

    That evening we took a stroll around the cobbled streets of Odeceixe and heard the haunting lyrics of Creep being sung. I had to check it out & found a man with a guitar singing on a stage behind a building. At the end of the song, I discovered that he was a live jukebox & was doing his sound check for a performance commencing at 9.30pm. I confirmed we would return & left as he started to belt out ‘Another Brick in the Wall’.

    We found a Portuguese restaurant down a back street that seemed pretty popular. We ordered 2 ‘Cow Steaks with mushroom sauce’ as it was described in the menu and a litre of house red. The red was very full bodied. When our Cow Steaks arrived it was like we had been transported back to the continent 30 years ago. Our steaks came with chips, rice, salad, grey peas & carrots and the sauce was heavy on peppercorns served by surly couldn’t give a damn waiters. It was all very underwhelming, particularly as I had to leave some of my steak because it was too sinewy. We left without leaving a tip.

    We returned to the live jukebox, which was a peculiar set up & felt more like a wedding reception. We bought several tiny beers at €1.50 a piece and sat down with a young Spanish couple from Madrid. For €2 you could pick a song from a list of about 100 that he would sing and play live. I chose Hurt & Proud Mary. He played our songs shortly before midnight & then we called it a night. Sadly his performance in front of an audience was nowhere near as good as what we had heard in the sound check.

    Song of the Day : Creep by Radiohead.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsSpain & Portugal Pilgrimage
    Day 30

    Day 29 - The Ashes Continue

    July 10, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    As it was Sunday we got to the beach early to ensure a parking space & our chosen spot on the beach. We needn’t have rushed because a cool wind was blowing in from the Atlantic, which seemed to have dissuaded some people.

    We however remained on the beach all day listening to England’s slightly nervy, but exciting victory in the 3rd Test, meaning England are still in with a shout of winning the Ashes. Otherwise not a lot to report other than the Spanish couple from Madrid sat fairly close to us. She was a chunky lass, but it didn’t stop her being topless all day flouncing around up & down the beach. Oh, and Jackie stroked a naked man’s.………………dog!

    Having literally eaten nothing all day, apart from a packet of crisps with our lunchtime wine, we went back to the bar with the expensive craft beers for a homemade pizza. We ordered an Inferno pizza to share and a normal beer each. Jackie ate 3/8ths of the cheese, mushroom, tomato, spicy salami & Tabasco pizza, whilst I ate the rest. We were both stuffed & surely must be losing weight, particularly as every other diner managed to devour a whole pizza each.

    Song of the Day : Ashes to Ashes.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsSpain & Portugal Pilgrimage
    Day 30

    Day 30 - Hoff to the Rescue…………..Nearly!

    July 10, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Today we got to the beach earlier than any previous time. We sat in our usual spot with literally no one around us like a couple of Billy no mates. It was at least an hour later, when a couple in their 70’s walked either side past us to the end of the beach, about 50 yards from our location.. Something didn’t seem right, but we weren’t sure what.

    The couple sat down, but 5 yards apart. We were already transfixed on them. The lady was wearing a sun dress which she pulled right up to reveal no underwear & lay in the sand as if she was in stirrups & about to have a smear test. This caused a bit of a surprise to families & joggers that walked/ran to the end of the beach.

    After 15 minutes, her male partner approached her & she screamed at him like a banshee. We were now hooked & rightly or wrongly this was going to be our entertainment for the day. Another 15 minutes or so later, her male partner abandoned her on the beach with her legs still akimbo.

    Not long after, a group of 7 Asian lads arrived & probably not by accident they started playing football around her. After a couple of hours she eventually gathered her stuff together & walked off along the beach, but it was now clear to us that she had some mental health issues.

    Sometime not too much later, I was looking out across the beach & sea, when I saw the same lady stark naked walking amongst the families at the water’s edge. We monitored her progress and she returned to her belongings, put her dress on & returned to her original spot. A young lad who was sat nearby felt compelled to move.

    The lady then lay face down in the sand & didn’t move for the next 2 hours. Eventually she got up, then walked to a sandbank, stripped naked again & walked out into the crashing waves. She was on her own & appeared to have no concept of how to jump over or duck under the waves. Although lifeguards were on duty, they didn’t seem to have noticed her.

    There was nothing for it, the Hoff sprang into action & ambled across the sand to the water’s edge. Just as I dipped my toe in the Atlantic surf the naked woman appeared from amongst the waves & walked past me without an apparent care in the world. My lifesaving skills were not required on this occasion.

    She did eventually leave the beach, hopefully into the custody of a carer.

    We stayed on the beach until 6pm, then went to dinner back at Chaparro opposite. We had a litre of delightful red house wine. Jackie had mussels & I had black pork fillet. It was lovely & plan to return again tomorrow.

    Song of the Day : Rescue by Echo & the Bunnymen.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsSpain & Portugal Pilgrimage
    Day 31

    Day 31 - Mad Mary has Nicked OUR Spot

    July 11, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    We gave ourselves a well earned lie-in with the intention of booking some accommodation in or near Lekeitio, Spain for the last few nights of our trip. This was proving trickier than it really should be, because either the accommodation available was too expensive for what you got or it was too far from Lekeitio.

    After a lot of head scratching, I came up with the brainwave of googling campsites in the region. We found one, but couldn’t establish if the they had any availability on their website. In the end I took the bull by the horns and rang the campsite direct using my best Spanish lingo. The bottom line is that we are now camping for our last 5 nights in Spain for a fraction of the cost of having a proper roof over our heads. We celebrated with a bowl of Weetabix.

    We drove out to the beach & could not believe that Mad Mary was face down in the sand in OUR actual spot on the beach. We bottled it & stopped short so that there were people between us and Mad Mary. I won’t go on any more about Mad Mary, but suffice to say she was up to her same antics of wandering around the beach naked or in a pair of dirty grey knickers. She was still there when we left the beach at 6pm.

    We returned to our apartment, got ourselves sorted out & had a bottle of rose wine on the balcony, Jackie applied mousse to my hair. We then went to dinner at the restaurant opposite, which was packed with diners. Jackie ordered the grilled mackerel, which was 2 whole fish & I ordered the pork and pickles again . We had another litre of house red and a sparkling water.

    The food was fantastic, but the waiter was a miserable c*nt, so he didn’t get a tip.

    Note : We gave noticed that customer service in Portugal has been pretty diabolical compared to Northern Spain.
    I would however say that the beaches on the Atlantic coast of Portugal have been pristine. Today at Odeceixe, they even had complimentary conical ashtrays at the entrance to the beach so that those disgusting smokers don’t discard their cigarettes in the sand. Jackie stole one.

    Song of the Day : Mary by Scissor Sister.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsSpain & Portugal Pilgrimage
    Day 32

    Day 32 - Private Dining at the Monastery

    July 12, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    The alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 6am. We showered, had a coffee and was actually on the road by 6.45am. It was strange to see heading out of Odeceixe that there were dozens of young Indian men stood at the roadside. It was obvious that these were migrants waiting to be picked up for cheap labour, almost certainly on the local farms. We had noticed that there were a lot of Indian lads in the costal resorts south of Lisbon, BUT, and we looked, a distinct lack of Indian restaurants.

    Our journey took us back up the Atlantic coast on the route we had previously travelled down. We stopped at a petrol station outside of Vila Nova de Milfontes, where we filled up & gave Pearl a much needed wash. We continued north past the hideous looking port town of Sines, before heading east just before getting to Lisbon. We then passed Evora, apparently, and then drove along the beautiful winding well kept roads of the Alentejo wine region with it’s vineyards & numerous precariously balanced stork nests.

    We skirted around the attractive looking fort town of Elvas, then crossed into Spain at the scruffy border town of Badajoz. For the next 200 odd miles we raced along a dual carriageway through the prairie like Sierra de San Pedro, passing the towns of Salamanca, Valladolid & Burgos. It was then here we turned off into the La Rioja region, that was a vista of rolling fields of mown wheat gold, sunflower yellow, vine green and dotted with attractive little terracotta coloured villages.

    Eventually at 6.30pm, after 577 miles and 10 hours 18 minutes of driving, we arrived at Hosteria del Monasterio de San Millán, an enormous imposing monastery in the village of San Millán. This was our accommodation for the night. We checked in and went up to our room 201, which definitely had the wow factor, particularly the 2 large arched wooden doors that opened to reveal a balcony looking down into the courtyard.

    We had reserved a table for dinner at the monastery & went down in the best clothes we had available at 8.30pm. We were initially shocked to discover that we were the only diners for the evening, so it turned out we had a waiter and a cook for our exclusive use with opera playing in the background.

    The menu wasn’t cheap, but we had decided we could afford to splash out as we were ‘slumming’ it by camping for the next 5 nights. Naturally, we chose the dearest starter (to share), then we both ordered the dearest main course, with a bottle of the monastery’s own reserve red wine.

    Our starter was described as COW CARPACCIO, FOIE AND MATURE CHEESE and our main as BEEF SIRLOIN WITH MUSHROOMS AND FOIE, which we ordered as medium rare. Effectively we ordered pretty much just raw beef and foie gras for both starters and mains. It was however as expected very lovely, although Jackie revealed she couldn’t understand all the fuss over foie gras, it was just “tasteless pate”.

    As soon as dinner was done, we retired to bed absolutely shattered.

    Song of the Day : Get Me to a Monastery by The Divine Comedy.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsSpain & Portugal Pilgrimage
    Day 34

    Day 33 - Slumming it? I Think Not.

    July 14, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Although it being a luxurious room, we were hot during the night because it didn’t have air conditioning, so Jackie at some point opened the large arched doors beside the bed. As a result, I woke up with my bare backside on display to the world just as a coach load of tourists turned up for an early morning private tour of the monastery.

    We were up and out in time to get to the ticket office when it opened at 9.30am. We discovered that Yuso Monastery, where we were staying only did guided tours in Spanish (apparently because monks still lived & worked there!!) & the first tour wasn’t until 10.30am. However, for €4 each a little bus would take us up the hill to Suso Monastery, where we would have a 30 minute tour with a guide who could speak English.

    A few minutes later we were on the bus with 2 other families & met up the hill by our guide, who took us on our tour of the Suso Monastery. It was a genuinely fascinating tour & the key facts we learnt were :-

    In the mid-6th century, Saint Millán settled in a religious site – now the Monastery of Suso – on the flanks of the Cogolla or Distercios hills, where he was joined by other eremitic monks. It became, with time, a place of pilgrimage.

    The Monastery of Suso is comprised of a series of hermits’ caves, a church, and an entrance porch or narthex.

    The Spanish language was “born” in the Monasteries of San Millán de Suso and San Millán de Yuso, and therefore they represent an essential part of the history of humanity.

    Since the Monastery was founded in the 6th century by San Millán and his disciples, this site has been a centre of culture, history and religion for the north of Spain and the rest of the country.

    The Monastery of Yuso was built in the 10-11th century and still has 8 monks living and working there.

    Both monasteries were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

    After our 30 minutes of culture, we were taken back down the hill and to our car. It was definitely worth a visit & if we had more time I would like to have taken the other tour & spent more time exploring the villages in the La Rioja region.

    BUT we didn’t. Instead we drove 30 minutes through the region to Haro, the capital of La Rioja to purchase supplies for a camping trip. We bought some food & 16 bottles of wine, some as cheap as €1.19. We would have bought more had we had room in the car.

    We then embarked on a 2 hours 20 minute journey through the mountainous Aizkorri-Aratz Natural Park, where we drove through cloud and rain on steep winding roads. It was hard work driving and it made you realise how tough the Tour de France really is, because their riders had ridden the same roads only 2 weeks previously.

    We entered the Basque Country, where the weather brightened and around 2.30pm we arrived at Endai Campsite situated on the side of a mountain just east of Lekeitio. As we drove up, we felt a good vibe, to the point where before we had even checked in, Jackie was saying “I wish we were staying longer”.

    Over the next 2 hours we set up camp on our allocated grassy pitch & tidied out the car, we then went for well earned beer (or three). Feeling very pleased with ourselves, we returned to our camp for pate and baguette & a couple of bottles of our €1.19 white wine which was exceedingly decent in our place of hydrangea paradise.

    Song of the Day : Paradise Place by Siouxsie & the Banshees.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsSpain & Portugal Pilgrimage
    Day 34

    Day 34 - Oh No, Spanish Spring Break

    July 14, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌧 18 °C

    I had a wonderful sleep and got up at 6.30am, only for Jackie to allege that I had kept her and the rest of the campsite awake all night with my snoring.

    We had baguette and jam for breakfast then headed out for the beach. We drove the mile and a half to Karraspio Beach at Lekeitio. When we arrived at the car park we found ourselves in a queue of cars all waiting for a space to become available. Nightmare.

    We drove to the other side of the town and after scouring the streets, we found a parking space in a backstreet. My phone told me that it was a 1.1 mile walk back to Karraspio Beach. The walk was actually not too bad taking us along the harbour front, past the other two town beaches and over a bridge back to Karraspio Beach.

    The beach was busy, but we found a spot that wasn’t too bad. We made the most of the sun, because the weather forecast was not looking great for our last few days of the trip. At lunchtime we visited the beach Taverna & had a couple of cold beers for €2.50 a pint.

    During the afternoon, the beach got progressively busier with groups of only male or female teenagers. To be fair to them they were all really well behaved, the girls either sunbathing or swimming & the boys playing football at the water’s edge. It was strange to see that they weren’t mixing together.

    We packed up at 6pm and were shocked to see just how many people were now on the beach. The other beaches were just, if not even more, as busy. We felt like we could have been in Benidorm or Torremolinos. We stopped at a Eroski Supermarket for more wine, then headed home.

    The shower blocks are an interesting experience at the campsite. There are 5 shower cubicles in both the men’s and women’s shower blocks, but they do not have any hooks in the cubicles. Presumably the idea is that you shower then dry & dress in the communal area.

    Jackie had an interesting experience in that when she came out of the cubicle, she was confronted with the sight of a large naked French woman applying pile cream to her backside. She had a gaggle of shouting kids running around, but still she tried to make conversation with Jackie during her cream application. Jackie very quickly made her excuses & left, claiming that she didn’t understand. She had to return later to retrieve her hairbrush that she had left in her rush.

    That evening, Jackie made a delicious Arabiatta Rigatoni with a Caesar salad. And a bottle or 2 of white wine.

    Song of the Day : Girls & Boys by The Subways.    Read more

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