The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
The Road to Portugal
As delightful as Seville has been, we must be on our way. For a moment or two we envisioned another breakfast on the plaza around 8am in the cool morning air en route to the taxi stand to get a ride to the train station (confused yet?) to pick up our rental car around 9am.
This wonderful theory quickly collapsed when we discovered our "favorite" cafe didn't even open for breakfast until 9:30! What breakfast operation doesn't open until 9:30? I guess because the Spanish tend to stay out much later at night, their day starts a little later as well. Such are the mysteries of life in other cultures -- get over it!
There is nothing quite like going through a contractual process without a common language between parties, but somehow we muddle through. I have no real idea what I am now legally bound to do ... or pay. Hopefully it is roughly equivalent to rental conditions in the US ... but we are now mobile, at least for the next two weeks.
This time it is a little Seat Leon -- essentially a Spanish Fiat -- roughly equivalent in size to a VW Polo or Passat. It wears the scars of its life in the rental fleet with stoic pride ... and the inevitable scrapes on nearly every exterior surface attest to the rigors of trying to force any car through ancient towns build of stone with winding streets originally designed for travel on horseback!
I had hoped to get a diesel -- they are much cheaper to operate over here -- but it didn't work out. Sometimes the only real choice is "take it or leave it!" We took it. I will say that the car is comfortable and rides nicely enough, just without a few of the little creature comforts that have impressed me on the VW Golf. Still, I think it will work out well for us (and we got it for a nice price!)
I usually have the best luck renting through Kemwel, an international brokerage based in Maine of all places. Kemwel and others of their ilk continually monitor the various rental companies and their rates. You pay them and they pay the rental company less their commission.
I have learned to take the best deal I can find at the time and then check in from time to time as the time for the trip nears. If the prices go down, I just call Kemwel and they make a new contract at the lower rate without a fuss. My cost for the equivalent car dropped by over $100 between the time I made the original deal and the time I picked up the car. The company you actually rent the car from often changes, but the deal is always with Kemwel. I recommend them highly.
Whew! That turned into more of a dissertation on European car rentals than I planned, but there aren't a lot of pictures today and I've got to fill some space!
Were it not for GPS, we would probably still be trying to figure out how to find our way out of Seville! There is no grid pattern to the streets and there were dozens of turns, lane changes, merges and the like to find our way from the train station to the motorway west. I used to rely on maps, but even with a good navigator to read them, maps are hard to follow as the flow of traffic relentlessly pushes you forward. Then I went to printing out turn-by-turn directions from Google Maps, but the names of the streets are impossible to read when you're driving past.
Then I found a Tom Tom unit with European maps and it all became much simpler. I had turn-by-turn guidance from the parking lot in Seville to the front door of our next stop in a small town in Portugal. Incredible!
The road from Seville and along the southern coast of Portugal (known as the Algarve) is an easy 2.5 hour drive. There just isn't a whole lot to see other than the occasional old building and some spectacular new bridges. But the heat wave continues so the more time we can spend in air conditioning, the happier we are.
We are staying with Roy and Carol Carpenter, members of the Affordable Travel Club, a rather amazing group based out of Gig Harbor. We've been members since 1996 and have stayed with other club members across the US and in Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, Britain, France, the Netherlands and now Portugal. Basically it is a world wide network of people who open their homes to each other -- like visiting old friends you didn't know you had! I'll fill you in more on Roy and Carol, ex-pats from central England ... but a bit later.
I'm embarrassed to say we rather surprised them today. As a start, they were expecting us around 2pm and I was of the impression we were due around noon. Add to that a one-hour time difference between Spain and Portugal (surprise!) and we were VERY early! They were gracious about it, though, got us settled in and suggested a pleasant spot for lunch -- a bistro on the beach, part of a coastal resort development (there are lots of those along the Algarve!) The portions were huge, the food was tasty, the beer was ice cold and the prices were reasonable. The view of the sea was expansive and Were the temperatures more normal, we could have happily stayed there all day. But it was still in the upper 90s and the heat soon drove us back into the car.
So we drove around to see a bit of the area (the photos are of the town of Carvoeiro just down the road from where we are staying). For dinner Roy and Carol took us to a local hole-in-the-wall restaurant -- an authentic Portugese experience -- affectionately nicknamed "The Ritz." Three courses of massive portions of very tasty food from a limited menu along with unlimited wine ... all for nine euros inclusive! It wasn't much to look at and the service was spotty, but the owner had a personality that lit up the place, his heart was in the right place ... and it wasn't the sort of place you went for atmosphere anyway. Its funkiness WAS the atmosphere! Definitely a memorable experience!
© 2012 Restaurant Doctor
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