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A Few Days in Portugal – Colares, Sintra and Lisbon
Back in April, we were treated to a few days in Portugal courtesy of family. The first proper holiday abroad since the dreaded C, we were really grateful for the chance to escape for a little while. We hopped on a Ryanair (luckily getting through security with minimal delays or hitches) and a few hours, locator forms and vaccine passports later, we landed in Lisbon. A family member was chauffeur, and we piled into the back of the rental car. As darkness fell, we headed to an Airbnb in Colares, a few minutes from the coast.
There’s something magical about arriving in the dark, in a strange place, in a new country. The living room lights welcomed us in, as did cups of tea and the dumping of carry-on bags into new bedrooms. A pool glinted temptingly from underneath sliding covers – but that could wait for the morning. Yawning with that specific travel fatigue, we headed up the wooden stairs to bed.
I always look forward to that first glimpse of surroundings in the light of the new day when on holiday. We opened the shutters (shutters!) and were greeted by pine trees swaying in the breeze, the April clouds floating by, and the giggle of our younger family members playing around the pool below. Ahhh. Holiday!
Colares is handily located for travel, with regular buses and excitingly-old trams (well, one tram) rumbling to and from Sintra. Exploring the local area, we wandered down to Praia des Maçãs with its huge beach. Being April, it was quiet, with the beach absolutely deserted. The sea breeze was bordering on chilly, and we headed to a nearby beach café for fantastically garlicky cheese toasties and copious coffees.
Having chronic fatigue is slightly annoying for travel and so I slept a lot in the first day or two whilst everyone else did some exploring! Although lying on a deckchair under a pine tree wasn’t bad at all, and somehow way more restorative than back home…! A main aim of the trip was to eat as many Pastel del Natas as humanly possible and to go on a yellow tram. With this in mind, we caught the train from Sintra into Lisbon (cheap, clean, quiet and on time, a very different experience to the UK!) which took about 40 minutes.
Lisbon was a lot hotter than Colares – the sun beat down onto the pavements and we were glad to find a fountain and play in the mist for a while to cool down. With slight hanger setting in, we headed to one of many street cafés for lunch where I had a great lemonade – still, bitter and ice cold. I am still dreaming of it!
Luckily the café also sold pastries, so armed with a box of Pastel del Natas, we headed down to Commerce Square next to the sea, walking through the Arco da Rua Augusta. Watching a huge cruise liner float into the port, we devoured our pastries (excellent!) and headed up the hill in search of a tram. After some debate we luckily managed to catch a busy famous yellow 28 tram. I was a little disappointed with the huge adverts covering the trams which left only a slight hint of yellow on each, but once we were inside, it didn’t really matter! The interior is dark brown wood, with a standing area at the back, and we creaked along up the winding roads with the horn ringing to move people out of the way. It’s cheaper to pre-book tickets, but we just got them on board as we weren’t that organised, paying around €10 each.
There are many different tram routes, some there-and-back and others circular, so it’s worth having a look at a guide beforehand.
Back in Praia des Maçãs the next day, we ventured to a Roman fort – the Sítio Arqueológico do Alto da Vigia, located on the cliff next to the beach. Once the most Western point of the Roman Empire, we wandered around the ropes protecting the small excavation site, imagining life here, from baking summer heat to the wild waves of winter. A few miles down the coast at Praia Grande are dinosaur footprints (Pegadas de Dinossauro) – we didn’t manage to get to see them this time, but I’d love to go back to visit those, too. Looking down the rugged coastline and huge beaches, it seemed easier for me to imagine dinosaurs plodding along, leaving trails of footprints behind. Even though the world looked incredibly different in the time of the dinosaurs (the footprints are apparently on a vertical cliff!), there is something still ancient about the coastline.
In between all the exploring, we bobbled around the Airbnb, swam in the pool and visited some great eateries. Souldough Pizza was a particular highlight, located with a handful of other restaurants, Hops and Drops bar (great beer) veggie & vegan friendly, and with amazing wood-fired pizzas. You can order from any of the restaurants and they bring everything to your table – a great place to while away the hours, and a swing park for kids too. I had a pear, honey and parmesan pizza and it was *chef’s kiss*. We also wandered along to HopSin brewpub in Colares, a small brewery. They do small plates to eat, and we definitely recommend the 10-beer taster! I’m not a huge drinker any more sadly but the beers went down very well amongst those I was with!
It goes without saying that we just had an absolutely lovely family time. Catching up with everyone, having the laughs, the adventures, loud times, quiet times, play times and exploration times was just exactly what we needed – we had an amazing time and are so grateful to our family for the experience. I somehow managed to catch the plague in between England and Portugal, and for the last couple of days I was flat out with a stinking cold (not covid! Isn’t that a familiar phrase now whenever we are ill. ‘It’s not covid!’) and spent a day asleep feeling very sorry for myself whilst everyone else did some more exploring! I managed to wander the garden and loved all the exotic plants and flowers in bloom, even though it was only April. The bird of paradise plants and the huge cacti were my favourite.
All too soon, it was time to pack up and head home. Half of us had to return early as our flights were changed, and we left the rest of our party for another couple of nights. They managed to explore the castles of Sintra some more, catching a bus in between.
Dosed up on paracetamol and armed with an extra loo roll to blow my nose with, I still enjoyed our flight home – although security both at Lisbon and back in the UK was rammed and it took ages to get through. The route home was clear and calm and I loved watching the land and sea pass by far below. We even spotted a few other planes in the sky. After passing out asleep on the sofa when we got home, I felt a lot better the next day, typical!
I’d love to go back to Portugal – everyone was friendly and I feel we’d need a few weeks to even get started on all the places to explore. Even Lisbon itself would need a whole separate holiday! In April there are a few hot days, but near the coast I definitely didn’t bring enough jumpers – although getting them in a Ryanair cabin bag might prove a problem…
To finish off, here are a few more photos from our trip: the pear pizza, the infamous Pastel del Nata with the Arco da Rua Augusta in the background, and an obligatory plane window photo! Have you ever been to Portugal, or would you like to go? Where would you recommend?
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What’s In My Mini Emergency Kit?
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I have a penchant for interesting things in old tins. There’s something fascinating about the possibilities that could be contained within, the individuality, the tetris-like placement of items. The myriad of options. Any number of small things could find their home in that familiar, pocket-sized container.
In a recent issue of Ernest Journal, writer Tanya Shadrick shared her ‘concentrates of place‘, beautiful memories nestled in old tobacco tins. As a fan of making treasure to remind me of places, reading about her tins enthralled me. The possibilities an old cigarette tin has are endless and always intriguing.
I’m happy to have my own old tin, snuffled from eBay, a gold Nosegay tobacco tin in which I keep my tiny emergency kit for when I am wandering about on the moors. Said kit has slightly expanded out of the tin, but joyously, a teeny little IKEA bag does the job of carrying the expanded items just fine.
I am by no means a long distance walker, but enjoy an morning or afternoon’s plod accompanied by my thoughts, ideally in driving rain, damp drizzle or gusting wind, when most other people are sensibly indoors and the only people you meet are people just as enthusiastic and daft as you, raindrops dripping from their noses, exchanging eye rolls and grins and that unspoken wildness just below the surface.
Up on the moors, there are dips and holes and bogs and a myriad of places to fall into, off and through. With this in mind, I put together a little kit, just in case on day one of these hazards creeps up on me and catches me unawares. These days I never get so far as to be miles from civilisation, but having a little backup just in case puts me at ease. Plus, I get to put things in a tin, which is always the real reason for doing anything.
This is my current mini emergency kit all packed up:
The mini IKEA bag gives me an immense amount of joy, honestly. The perfect size to pop in your adventure rucksack.
In addition to my two containers, I also take two clips that came with my walking poles – they just look useful in case I need to hang any soggy socks off a nearby branch. There’s a tin of Vaseline – in addition to helping chapped anything, it can also be spread onto cotton rounds to help them burn slower if you need to start a fire. And of course, no walk is complete without Kendal Mint Cake* (a quick mint-flavoured rabbit hole has led me to discover no less than 4 mint cake brands, although the packaging of Romney’s is tip top. They also do tins! Huzzah).
The ‘thing in the bag’ is a knitted mat (I spun the wool, terribly, then used my knitting skills – also terrible – to make this rectangle. The good thing about both those things is that the wool is very thick and the knitting is very tight. Happily, this makes a comfy, warm sitting pad!) Popped in a carrier bag, it is a smug way to sit on rocks/grass/damp ground and not get a numb bum. You could also buy a ready made
sit mat* which would do the same thing, but I very much like the absolute terrible craftmanship of my home made one!
Unpacked, my mini kit looks like this:
In addition to the items I talked about, my mini emergency kit has a couple of first aid bits – gauze bandage, cleansing wipe, paracetamol. The moors are damp and mossy, sphagnum moss makes a great poultice. The aforementioned cotton pads for if ever I needed to start a fire (absolutely banned on the moors, for good reason) and a small fire steel. Practically, I have some paracord and a Swiss Card* containing a small knife, tweezers, pen, screwdriver, bottle opener and file. I used to have one with a magnifying glass and scissors, but stupidly forgot and left it in my hand luggage on the way to Iceland one year. You can guess the rest.
Lastly, I take a bit of paper with emergency details on – who I am, who to contact, car reg & description, any meds/health conditions. In summer, I’d add Factor 50 (ginger) and insect repellent (Smidge* is excellent) if I’m about around dusk.
Of course, I always take a bottle of water, usually a quick lunch or snack and some fruit/nuts. I charge my phone before I go and if I’m going to be a while I take a battery pack and lead. App-wise, I have What3Words (also useful for marking interesting places) and a first aid app, and use the free version of OutdoorActive as my map and route tracker – it works on GPS too if there’s no reception.
For me, this is an easy way to make sure I have something useful on me if I encounter a calamity on a boggy adventure, and means I can help myself a little whilst I wait to be rescued. It also satisfies my ‘things in old tins’ penchant.
Do you have a mini emergency kit (or large emergency kit) you take with you on walks, no matter how long they are? Of course, longer adventures require different essentials. I’m interested to know what you class as essential for your adventures. Also if you love keeping things in tins, or is it just me…
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