a cottage in the countryside

As I write this I am sitting in front of a fire, in a little cottage, in the French countryside. A magical place where two amazing and huge meals a day are cooked for us, the dog can open and close the door by herself and the local history goes all the way back to pre-historic times (paradoxically enough). We are staying with the wonderfully welcoming and accommodating Virginia and Nick, (Will's grandfather's sister and her husband), in a little village called Chaumussay in the Loire region. It isn't all ribbons and charm though...today we spent all but 40 minutes inside, sheltering from the kind of weather that is just waiting for you to tentatively venture out, so it can wrap it's icy fingers around your neck while slowly soaking your clothes with drizzle and laughing maniacally.

To get here we first had to get from Porto to Bordeaux. The plane did most of the work there. We arrived in Bordeaux in the afternoon and the city looked so inviting in the late-autumnal light that we decided to spend the night, before heading into the country. We found, after a bit of desperate panic, the only hostel in Bordeaux, got ourselves a private room and hit the streets to make the most of the quickly disappearing light. Bordeaux gives the impression of being a very well-heeled city, perfectly dressed, not a hair out of place, always on time and with lovely manners. Perhaps there is a seedy underbelly, but we didn't see it. We saw the the lovely old buildings standing proudly on the river-front, a church spire turned gold in the rich afternoon light, long wide streets lined with the sort of shops that tantalize you with all their beautiful things you could never afford and clusters of noisy little bars tucked down side streets. We went into one such and got a rude shock when we ordered two pints and had to hand over 12 euro. Why, there must be some mistake, we thought, Europe is cheap, what is going on?! Apparently wonderfully accessible Spain and Portugal are the cheap exceptions in this western side of the continent. Anyway, we drank our budget busting pints (and they were actually much better than the beer in Portugal, but don't tell), decided we could ill-afford another and went back to the hostel to rest up for a big day of hitch-hiking.

We could not afford the train; it was going to cost 40 euro each to go two hours up the road- absolute insanity in which we would have no part. So hitch-hiking it was. And we made it...it took about 8 hours, and we became very familiar with the servos along the auto-route, and we did have to sit in freezing cold drizzle for a bit, but we also met some very obliging French people who were only too happy to help us (and to speak in English, thank goodness) and we rode in a very fancy BMW with a man who had no qualms about reaching speeds of 150km. And at 8pm boy racer in his beema dropped us right in the middle of the town we needed, at a cafe, and we spent our last 5 euro on beer while we waited for Nick to pick us up.

And we arrived at their charming little country cottage to a hot dinner on the table and a separate little house, very warm and cosy against the outside chill (which we thought we may have to sleep in), where we would be staying. Not bad...I guess...

This area of France is absolutely saturated in local history, from local families who have been in the area for hundreds of years to Joan of Arc and her capers all the way back to the pre-historic people who roamed the area searching for top quality flint (of which there was an abundance here). With a combination of long walks, bike rides and little day trips in the car we have seen a lot of the area and its stories. We snooped around the grounds of a castle that has been in a nearby village for nearly a thousand years and has been in the same family for about 700; now there is just one man left there, going slowly bankrupt while living in a castle. We saw a geometric spired church in another village which was built by a local lord and his wife to give thanks for the safe passing into the new millenium...the first new millenium. We went on a family outing to the castle at a town called Chinon, where Joan of Arc first met and accurately identified the Dauphin, thus enabling her to lead an army to re-take the city of Orleans from the English and liberating France. We rode our bikes out to a museum that told the story of the prehistoric people that moved through the area thousands of years ago, scouring the ground for its superior flint from which they made their weapons. We have seen the remains of a chateau that was sent  up in flames of retaliation when a retreating German army was attacked in WW2, and the poles marking what was the demarcation line between German-occupied and free France from 1940 to 1942.

As well as living in a history lesson, I have been making my 8 year old self very jealous indeed by living in an Enid Blyton story. We have been walking through woods (proper woods with woodland creatures and autumn coloured leaves), collecting chestnuts and subsequently roasting them over the fire, building little homes for hedgehogs...we've yet to see Moonface or any flying chairs though. So we're basically just living out an English childhood. But I had an Australian childhood and Enid Blyton was as close as I got to chestnut roasting and so you see, the two are inextricably linked.

And any time that is left in between all this is filled with cups of tea and coffee, reading by the fire (this is becoming more and more prevalent as the weather becomes less and less inviting), games of Scrabble with the insurpassable Virginia (we've won maybe three or 4 games between us, out of probably 15), long lunches and dinners with garden fresh vegetables and home-made wine, walks through the surrounding woods and farmland and scrumping (I'm going to stick with that) sunflowers from fields we see along the way.

Oh how we love the French countryside. How marvelous, how refreshing, how ridiculously picturesque. How we will miss our brisk country walks.

Paris awaits.

can we just get two of the custard tarts please...

Our journey to Portugal was, to borrow from Enid Blyton, perfectly horrid. It involved two sleepless nights, sleeping on the cold ground, and various forms of transport, all public, all slow. By the time we arrived in Tavira, our first stop, I was literally shaking with exhaustion and cold. Luckily our time in this small land of bacalhau and pastel de nata (that's salted cod and Portuguese tarts) has been a perfect delight.

To save money (mostly) we decided to couchsurf all the way through Portugal- and we managed to, save two nights- and as a result, I think it is all the people we have met that will stay with us more than the places we have been.

Our first host was in Tavira, a little village on the ocean where we saw wild flamingoes feeding in the salt lakes. His name was Paulo and he welcomed us into his little home with open arms, a very comfortable couch and a chicken dinner. He was a lifeguard who loved the ocean and his town and he made us little maps and itineraries of places to visit and things to see. One day we walked six kilometres along a long deserted beach, from an anchor graveyard in the sand to Paulo's little life-guard hut; it's a fantasically exhilirating and anticipatory feeling swimming on an empty beach with storm clouds gathering in the distance. Unfortunately those storm clouds then broke and the next few days were flood-like.

Then the weather cleared, we said goodbye to our life-saving friend and tried to hitch-hike to Lagos, a town at the other end of the Algarve. We made it as far as Faro, then decided to catch the train and therefore made it to Lagos before nightfall. Lagos is an extremely touristy place but for good reason- the beaches are amazing.We were lucky enough to have one last day of "summer", and spent it swimming in crystal clear water on tiny little beaches surrounded by huge orange cliffs. Then we watched the sun go down over the Atlantic, atop a cliff. We stayed in a hostel in Lagos, our couch requests bearing no fruit, but it was definitely worth the expense. After our summery swimmy day at the beach we caught the bus out to the town of Sagres, from which it is a 6km walk to the desolately, breathtakingly windswept southwestern-most point of Europe. Atlantic waves crashing into rocks a hundred metres below you, insane fishermen perched on the very edge of the cliff hunting for the catch of the day, huge sea birds gliding on updraughts all around, and wide flat blue for miles. And Europe's most southwestern hotdog stand...
Not feeling extremely enthusiastic about a return 6km walk we tried our luck sticking out our thumbs and were surprised and delighted when, after four or 5 cars drove past, one stopped and took us all the way back to Lagos. From where we caught an afternoon bus to...

Lisbon! A picture perfect city; all cobbled lanes, old yellow trams, pastel pink and yellow and blue houses and a huge square opening out onto a harbour, from where we could see the "Golden Gate Bridge" and Rio's "big hilltop Jesus". Despite all this, and despite the abundance of pastel de natas all over the city, it wasn't a place that I wanted to live in (and this is how I determine a good city). I think this may have had something to do with the people we were couchsurfing with though, or if not the people, definitely the house. I say house...I mean tiny little bottom floor apartment with 3 tiny bedrooms and smaller kitchen and no living area that was home to seven people...and then couchsurfers. We found it a bit odd that these people hosted couchsurfers at all, what with all their minus space and all, and it wasn't until we were leaving and the man asked us for eighty euro for the 4 nights that we understood...scoundrels.
Rather than spending any more time than we had to in the apartment, we spent hours wandering around Lisbon. Up and down the hilly streets, overdosing on charm in tiny little tiled gardens, eating pastel de nata in Belem, the home of said delicious, finding aqauducts, a castle and hordes of tourists...not a bad city, not a favourite city.

After handing over 80 of our precious euros to our landlord (ahem, "host"), we sat fuming at the train station waiting for our train to the inland university town of Coimbra. We were heading into Harry Potter territory now...did you know old J.K. taught English in Porto (the 'capital of the north') and gained inspiration from a lot of the surrounding places. Like the university in Coimbra, a beautiful old stone complex on a hill above the city where tradition has students going about in black capes...sounding familiar?
Uni means students and students mean parties and our host in Coimbra was a very friendly, happy, enormous Bulgarian who loved to go out and party. So we met lots of people in Coimbra, stayed up way past our bedtimes and slept all through the mornings. To get out of the house one afternoon, after a long hard day of sleeping, we duck-spotted along an autumnal river with a Venezuelan chap called Jeremia.
We ended our time in Coimbra with a huge codfish dinner at a Portuguese house (an eternally tardy friend of our host's mother cooked), another late night that included Jenga and an impromptou oboe performance and a warm, fuzzy feeling inside from the extent of Bulgarian and Portuguese hospitality. And a vow to visit Bulgaria and all our new friends there.

In Porto, the place from which we reluctantly farewelled this lovely little country, we stayed with another Bulgarian who we met in Coimbra. Dilyana is in Porto on exchange, studying fine arts and living with another arts student from Slovenia and a plaster artist from Porto itself. So we were feeling very arty...even though the only thing we created while we were there was a chicken soup "surprise" and a chocolate fondue.
We had far too short a time in Porto, it's an exceedingly picturesque city perfect for exploring. On our first morning Dilyana and Helena took us on an impromptu little tour of the backstreets, to opshops and fabric stores, past cheap bars and cafes (students area of expertise). Past a little park that was to us a point of orientation and was to the elderly, the arts students and the local prostitutes a meeting place. Then they left us and we climbed a big tower for a panoramic view of all the red rooves, the river and the vine covered walls of the city. We dove back into Harry Potter in the Livraria Lello, an amazing bookshop that has been in business for over 100 years, has been voted one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world and was, reputatedly, inspiration for the library in Harry Potter. It's walls are lined in very old books encased in glass-faced panels and the staircase to the second floor is an Alice in Wonderland wonder...google it.
We saw the city from both sides of the river, climbed over the bridge designed by Gustav Eiffel (there is a resemblance, indeed) and were treated to another impromptu performance at another dinner we were invited to- this time it was fado, the traditional, melancholic music of Portugal. Our performer (one of the girls we were having dinner with) was a little audience shy so she turned off all the lights and sang to the open window...she was quite incredible.

And with these delicious memories we snuck onto the metro (since we were leaving we felt we need not buy a ticket...) and settled into our uber cheap, ad-riddled plane, ready to fly to Bordeaux.