We are sleeping again, which is a two edged sword as now I am struggling to find the time to finish my daily dairy and desperately trying to catch up. So here is a post from earlier in the week with the next days to follow shortly. Enjoy!
////// Tuesday
We had worked like stink for weeks and needed a day off plus we wanted to explore our new city. There were also errands to do in Caldas da Rainha.
The central heating—yes folks central heating—is powered by bottled gas, not mains as I don’t think that exists in Portugal.
As ever we had admin to complete in the morning, namely some orders to ship—thank you—a CTT (Portuguese Postal Service) package to clear though customs and the alarm certificate to print and then present to the GNR in Caldas.
Customs in Europe is a nightmare.
In Germany we had to visit the local customs office to collect goods and pay the duty on stuff arriving from outside the EU. Here is not quite as troublesome as it can be completed online.
Carriers such as UPS and FEDEX however always seem to have issues where several phone calls are required to sort of the shipment and then there is the clearance fee to contend with. CTT usually charge around five Euros, carriers around 25 Euro. Preposterous.
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On a day off food is always on the agenda. Before moving we researched the interesting places in Caldas and today chose the Cairo Cairo Egyptian restuarant which is located just across the road from a branch of the supermarket Pingo Doce—the first we visited when moving here.
We arrived in town around 1200 and parked the Van Of Rock outside what seemed to be a sports centre which was adjacent to a skate park. As the place didn’t open until 1230 a beer was in order and found a local bar 200m away from the restaurant.
We discovered the woman serving us was called Melanie, a Canadian single mum with Portuguese parents. Her intention was to move back to Canada as soon as possible as she thought there were more opportunities for her child.
All this in the three minutes between asking for the bill and leaving. #FastTalker
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Unlike its capital city namesake which is teeming with people, Cairo Cairo was deserted at 1300, which didn’t bode well for the quality. Katherine, the chef, waitresses and maître d' greeting us with a big smile and indicated where we should sit.
She presented the very reasonably priced menu and explained with great enthusiasm what was available—lovely.
We ordered an assortment of starters, hummus, tahini—which she explained at great length she made from scratch—and a dip made of aubergine plus Egyptian flat bread. It all arrived along with a litre of red house wine—it tasted delicious.
I had ordered Vitela tagen (veal tagine) and Starlite Koshari (lentils, small pasta, rice, chickpeas, tomato and caramelised onions). All the vegetarian dishes are vegan which is great for our friends David and Joana who we were seeing tomorrow. But more of that later.
The food was outstanding as was the service. Katherine did a great job keeping everything together considering she was doing virtually everything. I heard other voices from the kitchen and assume she wasn’t doing the washing up as well.
During the meal other couples started to arrive—she deserves it—and after some complimentary and a reasonable bill Baclava we left happy campers.
One note, she doesn’t take credit cards and therefore you have to use MultiBanco—a Portuguese system of direct money transfer using mobile phones and a local bank account—or cash.
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Caldas is a small city and decided to walk into town. Just before we reached the park we happened upon Provoca Arte an artist supply shop and popped in. It was amazing. Everything Starlite needed to create artworks. Of course it’s not surprising as the city hosts the University of Art and Design and is full of artists and musicians. Fabulous.
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Next stop was Traca Trapos to engine a Silver Coast IPA—brewed on the premises—and meet up with the owner, our mate Diogo. We met for on our first trip to Caldas but it seems like we have known him for years.
It’s always busy in there but between customers we had a great chat. He mentioned that there was a fantastic Christmas Market on the centre on Saturday and we agreed to meet there after he closed the cafe. Wonderful.
He also said there was a smaller one on the old boathouse, situated next to the small lake in the park.
loves all things Christmas and we walked up to find eight stalls with local artisan products. It’s a creative place.
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We needed to find out where to buy our essential ingredients and discovered a couple of Indian shops which sold many of them, but we are still on the lookout for Middle Eastern and/or North African shops.
We did find a cool and reasonably priced place that sold cheese and chorizo called Dona Quiteria. We usually get this from the supermarket but the offering here was far superior. Next time we are in I will give you the name as it escapes me at the moment.
There is a food market in the main square everyday but we haven’t managed to catch it as yet and will report back when we do.
Walking around a new hometown is always exciting and we passed a few great looking delicatessen’s selling an array of products but a bit on the pricey side.
It is quite touristic and has lots of immigrants from Northern Europe, the UK and America so many of the people speak English which is troublesome as we want to speak the language better.
Portugal is also a first stop-off point for many asylum seekers and people outside Europe wanting a better life which, when speaking to the locals, is causing some issues in the community. It’s the same everywhere—welcome to 2024.
After visiting a popup Christmas shop seemingly run by the Portuguese equivalent of the WI (Women’s Institute) we happened upon Restaurante Casa Antero, a little—or so we thought—bar that sold Estrella beer. Like many Portuguese establishments it looked quite small but there was a larger room at the back only given away by the people walking past and not returning.
There are some very elegant older women in Caldas and two walked in, one on her own and another with her son and grandson who sat adjacent to us. The former wore a delicate broach on her fern green wool coat and had a recently coiffured look. She gave off the air of affluence and also sadness, perhaps she was alone because she had recently lost her husband. I feel a song coming on.
It was a great place to people watch and we really noticed the difference between here our old town of Samora Correia. Yes, there are more foreigners but the locals seem more old school Portugal.
Final thing of the day was to spend our 20 Euro discount at Pingo Doce and buy food for our dinner party tomorrow night. We also forgot to do our recycling and unusually for Portugal there was a point at the supermarket. Cool.
It was dark and we arrived home to the lights from across the lagoon winking at us good night.
See you tomorrow.
