Lisbon, Faro, Seville - I Mostly Talk About Food

Hey team! And by team, I mean the one person who reads this blog (hi mum!). I'm just kidding, she doesn't even read it. She SAYS she does, but the Blogger statistics don't lie...

Casting our minds back to the loveliness of Portugal, our next stop was the capital Lisbon. Now, as far as capital cities go, I would (probably unfairly) liken Lisbon to Bangkok in terms of where in the world I've been that it most reminded me of. It just seemed really oddly 'developing' and not at all what I expected. It was definitely a stark contrast to the heartbreaking beauty of Porto. I think it's one of those places you really need to 'know' to love, whereas Porto is a city you can't help but adore within the first hour of being there.

It probably didn't help that we also hit our first wave of travel fatigue in Lisbon. I know, I know, tell me again how hard it is living a life of leisure and seeing the world, waking up every morning with no responsibilities and infinite opportunities. But sometimes it CAN be exhausting you guys. Especially when you're booking things on the fly and have no idea where you're going to be in two days time. Super fun and exciting yes, but it can get stressful particularly in the European high season, as we discovered when we starting finding it really tough to book decent accommodation within our price range with only a few days notice. So we spent a couple of days in Lisbon regrouping, planning our next couple of weeks of travel and sorting out some places to stay. Lame. Snooze. Next!

Once we had a chance to explore Lisbon it really started to grow on us, much like a Thailand rash - so many parallels. There are some pretty sweet sights in Lisbon, the monastery and the castle being our two favourites. We also caught the train out to a gorgeous beachside town one day but were sorely disappointed when we jumped into the Atlantic waters - pretty much just like Torquay in December. I stayed in for exactly 12 seconds before heading back to my towel. I am desperately hanging out to swim in the nice warm Mediterranean, only a few weeks away now.

Mostly though, we loved Lisbon for the food. The seafood is great, smoked cod delicious, but you really go there for the pastéis de nata AKA Portuguese custard tarts. These are literally the most delicious pastry I've ever eaten. We did some serious 'research' (that's the scientific term for eating) as to where to buy the best version of them. Everyone raves about Pastéis de Belem but I can assure you that the best ones in all of Lisbon come from Mantiegara. Trust me - we went there every. single. day. One day we even stood across the road like creeps waiting for them to ring the bell which signifies that there is a new batch 'hot and fresh out the oven' as R Kelly would say. Yes, we are eating like it's an Olympic sport WHAT OF IT?!?

Saying goodbye to custard tarts is always tough, but we were brave enough to leave Lisbon and make a quick two day visit to Faro, a sleepy little town on the Algarve coast of Portugal. Well, I assume it's sleepy. Somehow we managed to time our visit with a bikie convention. Good one guys. Nevertheless it's a cute little place, lots of nice bars and tapas places, even a little craft beer shop. We did a lot of chilling here, our accommodation had a rooftop terrace with a view of the ocean so we sat up there drinking beers that we bought for €0.07 at the Mini Preco. Yes, the beers were 7 cents each. That's a six pack for 42 cents. You can imagine our reaction to this situation. Life lesson - retire, move to Portugal, eat tarts, drink beer, die happy.

We bussed it back into Spain, to check out Seville (oh hot tip, there are NO passport checks at the Spain/Portugal border if you travel by bus. We have crossed the border twice now, in two different spots and there's never been so much as a suggestion that either country cares who's coming or going. I don't know if this information is useful to you or not, but if you do want to overstay your visa these are the countries to do it in. Don't tell them it was my idea). So many people had raved to us about Seville and they were all totally on the money. It is an amazing place. Within an hour we were totally in love with it. Our Airbnb was gorgeous, we had the whole bottom floor of this house to ourselves - super traditional with tiling, wrought iron, high ceilings and a window onto the street. We didn't have access to a kitchen though, which I didn't realise when I booked it but what a blessing that was! You should never cook in Seville, the lifestyle, the tapas and the wine are so great, you'd really be missing out if you didn't partake each night. We spent a lot of time walking from bar to bar, having a drink and a bite to eat then rolling onto the next bar to repeat the process again. I genuinely wanted to cancel all future plans and stay in Seville forever, it really is my kind of city. If they turned the heat down about 5 degrees it would be perfect. I ate a LOT of cola flavoured Callipos in Seville, it was the only thing that kept me sane in the daytime heat. 

Not satisfied with your standard 'Euro trip' we have done some continent jumping and found ourselves smack bang in Northern Africa. First impressions of Morocco are that it deserves an entire blog post to itself (I have a lot of opinions, what a surprise). It has been the most challenging place I've visited so far and I really hope that translates into reward by the end of our time here. If not, at least I'll have some fabulous stories to tell.

Until then, be good, be kind, be careful. I'm off to kill a rooster that has been constantly crowing since 3am (it's now 5:30pm and it's STILL going). Love to you all. xox

Bordeaux to Porto

Hey team and welcome back! Hope you're all surviving that awful Antarctic vortex. And for those of you in places other than Melbourne, insert joke here about how terrible Melbourne's weather is. Who would want to live there? jk Melbourne, you know you're my one true love.

When we last left you we were making our merry way to Bordeaux, and what a merry time it was! Eagle eyed readers will remember that we hit up the Fete de la Musique on our last night in St Senoux. Well like the dirty double-dippers that we are, we cleverly arrived in Bordeaux the next day just in time to celebrate their Fete de la Musique. And what a contrast it was! We ended up partying on the street until 4am with the two other guests from our Air BnB, Janine from Sydney and Luca from Milan. This was a huge city-wide festival with people coming from all around to dance, drink and party to live music acts. On our walk home (took the long way thanks to Janine and her Google map skillz) we even passed some truck stop hookers. Oh what a night, indeed.

Bordeaux by daylight was just as lovely, the entire town is listed as a UNESCO heritage site, and damn does it deserve it. Just a truly beautiful place, lively squares, top notch fountains, those crazy windy streets that you walk down never knowing where you'll end up. And plenty of great wine! We sampled a goodie on our second night there when Luca (a somellier back home) cooked up a delicious pasta dish and hand picked a local red for us. We also came across a fantastic beer shop run by an American woman, but unfortunately we had to leave the city before the brewing masterclass being held by a local microbrewer (you know wild horses wouldn't have been able to keep Dave away from that). In short, we loved Bordeaux, the city is a delight to visit, and we made some great friends.

Next up, WWOOFing 2.0. As luck would have it, we had organised to WWOOF for 8 days at Terre et Toi (land and you), 18 acres of the most picturesque woodland and lakes, where our host Sara runs an amazing eco friendly bed and breakfast and organic/biodynamic farm. I cannot say enough about how much we loved it here. Within a few days it felt like home. In our time there we learnt so much about biodynamic farming (I even learned how to make bread!), we ate amazing food (Sara is vegan and so were we for the time we were there, minus a couple of eggs), the guests were all so lovely and the location is literally perfect. The accommodation has all been handmade by Sara, using straw bale, earthen plaster and lime and hemp. There's even a yurt, with an outdoor shower!

Throughout this whole experience the main thing that shone through was Sara's passion and determination. She is British, moved to France and bought this land without knowing French, with no idea how to build rooms and somehow she taught herself French, built the accommodation and has made an incredible lifestyle for her guests and for herself. Everything has been considered, this is one lady who doesn't do anything by halves. All the produce we ate was organic, there are composting toilets, the grey water is recycled back into the lake, the rooms have no electricity, just solar lamps and candles. It's not one of those 'organic because it's trendy' places, Sara lives and breathes this stuff. It is a genuine passion project. Seriously, if you are planning a trip to the south of France next summer you HAVE to book a room here, it is amazing.

Sara was a fabulous host. She let us borrow her car on our days off so we could explore the area, she took us to a local bar where there was a fantastic jazz band playing ('they have a really good groove' - quote from her French neighbour/all round great guy Pierre), and a bunch of us drove out to a nearby winery on Saturday afternoon to taste some Bergerac wines. This was an organic winery with some completely natural wines (sulphate free which is great for rash girls like myself), run by another British expat. We couldn't resist buying a couple of bottles.... standard.

Leaving Terre et Toi was really hard, we felt so at home and we really enjoyed Sara's company and the company of the guests. And the dogs! And Pierre. And the lake. And the food. Okay, so basically everything. But we had to go, we were headed to St Emillion for a couple of days of wine tasting and relaxing. Or so we thought.

Turned out that the Air BnB we had booked was not '3km from St Emilion' as per the ad. It was 4km from the train station (another 1.2 from there to the town itself), which we walked. Wearing our backpacks. In 37 degree heat. It was not our best day. It got even worse when we arrived and our host 'John' advised us that there was no PT to St Emilion, that cabs were very expensive, that there was not even a supermarket nearby, and that we were pretty much captives in his home. This was not okay with us. We ended up cancelling the reservation and, you guessed it, walking the 4km BACK to the train station (again with 12 kilos on our backs, again in 37 degree heat) and catching a train back to Bordeaux. All we wanted to do was cry, then run home to Terre et Toi and play with the dogs, swim in the lake and water some plants, but we knew it was time to move on. We finally booked a hotel in Bordeaux (as luck would have it there was a world energy resourcing conference on so EVERYTHING was booked out) and settled in, planning a day trip to St Emilion for the next day.

Well. St Emilion. Was it worth the trouble? No. 1000 times no. It's pretty. God, is it pretty. But it's also crawling with tourists, it's overpriced and there's not much to see. We had been advised to take a tour of the monolithic church (thanks Sara), which was fantastic and probably worth the trip there. Our bad experience is definitely clouding our judgment, and if you're in Bordeaux and looking for a day trip, it's not a bad place to go. But not my favourite and I certainly think there's nicer places to visit in the south of France.

After that fabulous experience, it was time to say au revoir to France and ola to Spain. We hit Madrid in the midst of a charming summer heatwave, with daytime temperatures hovering around 42 degrees and it cooling off to a balmy 28 degrees by about 5am most nights. Delightful. We siestad the fuck out of Madrid, totally understand now why that's the done thing in Spain! We had timed our trip to coincide with the gay pride festival and headed into the parade on our first night there. What an experience! The joy, the acceptance, the diversity, the love, the shirtlessness, the all-round happiness we witnessed was wonderful. Highlights for us were the floats celebrating 10 years of gay marriage in Spain (get your shit together Australia), the number of families in attendance, and dancing to It's Raining Men with a bunch of new friends I made in the queue for the toilet (standard). Dave was even convinced by a couple of boys passing by to take his top off and have a bit of a boogie with them. Oh the things we do when we travel.

We stayed in the best Air BnB in Madrid where out hosts Evan and Nichole took us to the pool, to the flea market, introduced us to their friends, hung out and ate tapas and drank beer with us and we're just generally awesome people to be around. Evan is a classically trained flamenco guitarist and we were lucky enough to hear him practice for an upcoming concert. One word: incredible. On our last night we went to a gorgeous rooftop bar (a farewell party for Carina who we had literally met the day before and was kind enough to invite us along), ate traditional Colombian food with a great group of people and ended up drinking sangria and dancing until late/early. It was 31 degrees at 3am, how are you supposed to go home and sleep in that?!? Not surprisingly, the 9:30am bus to Porto the next day was a bit of a write off.

Porto, once we were rested and recovered, was just lovely. What a pretty town, full of kind people. And everything was so cheap! Definitely a nice change from London and Paris. We got some great intel from our Air BnB host and were able to try some proper local bars and restaurants on his advice. The local specialty is Francesinha which is like a sandwich with three different kinds of meat inside, covered with cheese and then smothered in sauce. As you can imagine, it is amazing. We hit up a traditional port house, took a tour, viewed some 200 year old bottles of port, did a tasting, and of course could not resist buying a bottle.

On our last night in Porto we met up with Janine (you might remember her from the Bordeaux portion of this story) and a few of her friends for dinner and drinks. Again, we ended up drinking mojitos and dancing until 4am, and again we hated ourselves when we needed to catch the train to Lisbon the next day. WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN?!?

The further we get into our trip the more we are learning that what's important is not the places you go. It's the people you meet. We have been so lucky to cross paths with some wonderful, fun, inspiring and lovely people so far. So many people are out there doing so many awesome things and we can only hope that we continue to meet them on our journey and are able to take something away from every interaction that helps us grow in some way. This is the true beauty of travel.

Obrigada/o for reading all the way to the end. You receive a reward of our best recommendation so far: pack your shit and come and meet us somewhere! Or if that's not possible, download the app 'Heads Up' for hours of entertainment!

Love to you all, drink some mulled wine and think of us! xox