zhisou

We spent the next few days driving around.  The fogs came every day but one and didn’t clear for hours.  They were cold and heavy, tiny raindrops tingled on your skin when you went out.  You felt like a fool in shorts, but I wore them anyway, I was on holiday after all.

Viana Do Castelo is nice.   Apart from bustling Braga, it’s the big(ish) cheese in the northern Minho region, or at least as big as cheeses get in this charming green and hilly province tucked away at the top.

It was foggy when we got there, but less so.  Curls of mist hung around the tall port cranes and drifted hazily across the river to the beaches on the far side.  It looked lovely.  We took an old cable-car type device to the top of the hill where a kindly old man – straight from the 19th Century – took us up the church tower in a tiny lift and explained in slow Portuguese how to call him up when we wanted to come down.  The view was spectacular.

Later we ate oven-roasted mackerel on the harbourside – it was a bit fussy to eat, and I had to scrape the onion off (too much onion), but was jolly nice nonetheless.  We thought we’d cracked it, holiday proper kicking in.  Nice food, lovely old town, big beach across the bay (Praia do Cabedelo) accessible by ferryboat.

We missed the ferryboat.

No biggy – as impressively resourceful as ever, I found it by road and we set out, laden with buckets, spades and towels to have a lazy afternoon on the sands.   I guess a true Sherlock Holmes would have spotted sooner than I that a beach full of windsurfers and kite surfers was likely to have a lick of wind playing across it.  It did.

The next day we pushed further north, to Praia de Ancora, a funny town, neither particularly nice nor well put together, but with a cheeky charm nonetheless.  The main selling point was the beach, split into three distinct parts:  Firstly by a river which cut through the sand making two separate beaches, one on each bank, joined by a wooden bridge which made pleasing woody footstep noises as you crossed it.  The southern side then bent round the corner to curve along the bay and face the open sea.  It was lovely, it was hot, and it was even possible to find shelter from the wind.

On the reluctant journey back to our hotel we stopped in Barcelos.  The true story of why Portugal has the cockerel as its emblem happened in Barcelos.  A man accused of theft (or something like that) was sentenced to death (or something like that) and as his last appeal said that if he were innocent, the cock would crow.  The cock crew.  Or something like that.  Not a great story but cast-iron fact, although not entirely clear why a whole country would adopt the symbol from that.

Whatever.

The important thing was that we had a top rice broth packed with seafood and fish and then walked back through the old stone streets in the warm balmy evening, dodging the junkies and prostitutes, back to the car to complete a pretty solid day’s holidaying.

(there will be photos over at zhisoupix)