Chocolate Cake in Portugal

After a glorious month in Spain, we said “Adios!” and rolled into the Algarve, Portugal’s southernmost region. We spent a few weeks in this area in our first year of European travel, so we were somewhat familiar with places along the coast. We weren’t really looking to do any touristing.

That turned out to be a good thing, because no sooner had we entered the country than it started to rain and it didn’t stop for nearly four days. We had selected an Eco-tourism spot to stay for three days, but as it turned out, we barely left Bijou because of the weather.

When we were in the Algarve in 2019, one thing we did was ignore the road tolls. I mean, we paid all the ones we could figure out, but there were a whole lot of others that we just had no idea how to pay. We tried, really. None of them had physical toll booths, they were completely electronic, so you had to be somehow aware of what you owed!! The complexity of Portugal’s tolls are legendary! Anyway, four years later, Steven went online to see if there was anything he could find with Bijou’s plate number.

Lo and behold! There was a list of all the charges we had incurred while zipping back and forth across the Algarve during our first visit. Tolls in Portugal are pretty expensive and our total due was nearly €85. So perhaps there was a penalty or two rolled into that total. The website didn’t specify, but it did list each and every electronic toll we had triggered, and there were a bunch of them! So who knows, maybe we did spend that much.

We paid and felt lucky that after four years it wasn’t higher! And now, in 2023, there is a system in place where you can actually sign up online to have tolls automatically taken out of your account as you travel. Yes, please!

From the Eco-tourism place we traveled west to Sagres, the very tippy bottom of Europe where we intended to boondock for two nights and visit the Sagres Fortress. We parked there in 2019, but by that time we had traveled so far and wide, and walked the Camino Frances, and done so much touristing that I was utterly exhausted, just mentally, physically and emotionally shattered! When we arrived and parked up, Steven asked if I was coming to see the fortress and I said no, I literally could not move. So there we were back again and I was looking forward to visiting, and this time I was in a much better frame of mind.

After Sagres our intention was to make a two-day drive to Lisbon. Unfortunately we discovered we were running out with regard to propane, so we needed to find some, and fast! The nights were still chilly and we needed propane to run our heater while boondocking and also for cooking. Most campgrounds don’t supply enough electricity to run our little electric heater, so we have mostly been using Bijou’s propane system. Running out of propane at this point was not a good idea.

We hit the highway to make Lisbon in a matter of hours, and pulled into the first place that showed GPL for sale. Try as he might, Steven could not get the system to work, so on we rolled to the next place. It didn’t work either. At first we thought it was our connector, we have several adapters we use depending on which country we are traveling in, but we had used it before so didn’t think that was the issue.

Finally, at the second place, an attendant came outside to tell us that their GPL was for cars only, not motorhomes. We had heard of folks having this issue before but we have never had a problem, but this time it seems the system could detect our setup and did not dispense propane. UGH.

Basically our trip into Lisbon consisted of rolling through the fuel stops along the highway to see what kind of GPL system they had. When we got close to Lisbon we gave up and kept our fingers crossed that we wouldn’t run out of propane during our 8-day stay.

We had come to Lisbon to meet up with friends, eat chocolate cake and celebrate my birthday! We had a fabulous stay!

We met up with Kevin and Laura from “Chapter 3 Travels“, who have recently moved to Lisbon. Though they traveled full-time in their RV in the states, we only recently stumbled across each other’s blogs. So of course we had to connect!

Our days in Lisbon flew by and, as it turns out, we did not run out of propane. We finally found a fuel station not far from where we were staying that had a system that would fill our tanks. Yay! It was really congested with cars, but we finally wiggled in there and got our fuel both propane and diesel. It took a really long time to get it all done, which is not how we like to start a travel day, but this time it could not be helped.

From Lisbon we carried on to Coimbra, a place we have visited before and really enjoyed. We stayed two nights at a park right on the river, same as our previous visit.

Next up was Porto, which we tried to visit in 2019 but were unsuccessful due to the bike route into town being closed off for a marathon. That, and because the campground was a dump, I didn’t have many positive thoughts about Porto. But I had to give it another go, because everyone we spoke with who had been there could not say enough about how great it is.

We stayed in the same campground, and although it was still not that great, it is amazing what a little sunshine can do to a place. Also, being in a different spot instead of facing a moldy, ugly wall can also lift one’s mood. We rode the bus into town and enjoyed a day of sightseeing, then took a Bolt back home. Bolt is similar to Uber and so inexpensive in Portugal it just makes sense to use the app and have an enjoyable ride home.

After leaving Porto we made our way to Santiago de Compostela, to the campground where Steven will stay while I walk the Camino Portuguese. Over the last few days we have walked into Santiago a few times, it is about 10 kilometers, one way. I have also been preparing for my trip, washing clothes, packing my pack and unpacking it over and over trying to get it just right.

We started off as a group of five planning to walk, but a few days ago my bestie, Cindy, had to bow out when she experienced an eye issue that can turn very serious, very quickly if not cared for over the coming weeks. Needless to say I am very sad she won’t be coming along and I will miss sharing this experience with her. She worked so hard, training and getting up to speed, I feel most sad for her to miss this opportunity. Hopefully we can plan something else in the future and we are already giving that some thought! 🙂

In the meantime, I am so grateful to still have our group of four making this trip. Tomorrow morning I will board a bus and make the 4-hour trip back to Porto. By Friday our group will be together, enjoying a day in Porto, and on Saturday, we walk.

I won’t be blogging along the way, but I will when I get back home. If you’re interested in the route we are taking, Nina has written a wonderful and thorough post about just that!

Steven will stay home with Bijou and hold down the fort during my absence. He has lined up a couple of online art courses to take and frankly, he’s pretty excited to have some dedicated time to work on his art.

So that’s it for now! Wish me luck, I am going to need it!

And finally, an art contribution from Steven. This is from his recent series of portraits. If you would like to see more, you can keep up with what he’s doing by following his Visual Art page here.

Next up: Camino Portuguese!

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