Today
it rained all over Portugal, reminding us that - however south you go
in this country - you're always going to be along the Atlantic coast.
And that means water.
So,
walking (on wet dunes!) was suspended and we took a look at Porto
Covo. This was quaint in the rain and must be charming when the sun
shines and visitor numbers are high. Out of season, though, it was
empty and a tad forlorn, even if the blue and white idiom of this
region adds a touch of brightness to everything. Rain
notwithstanding. But I had an excellent fish lunch - probably
swordfish (perca/corvina?) - and appreciated again how
important it is for fish to be morning-fresh.
Talking
of food . . . Last night I got lucky when it came to dinner - a
superb wild boar stew to follow the excellent seafood stew I
mentioned yesterday. They can certainly do stews on this coast. And
they don't give them fancy names like 'casserole' or 'bouillabaisse'.
In fact some places call the fish stew sopa or 'soup. To top
it all, the prices are handsomely low.
This
afternoon/evening we spent 90 minutes trying to find a Casa Rural
called Monte das Varginhas. Which almost certainly doesn't mean
'Mount of the Virgins'. Or even 'Virgins' Mount.' Anyway, we knew it
was 6km from Porto Covo but weren't aware it was off the
road and down a mud track. And that there was no sign for it on the
main road. Though there was one for a ghost restaurant.
Finally arriving, we were met by four dogs and a toothless old woman
all in black. As she probably had been for 40 years or more. I
couldn't make out what she was saying but followed her finger and
eventually found her daughter and grand-daughter. The former's main
concern was money upfront but her smile seemed quite genuine. And the
rooms were OK, even if there was only one channel on the TV.
Portuguese,
as is well known, is hard to deal with aurally. Many sentences appear
to consist of a string of Zs and, all in all, the language sounds as
if it come from East, not West, Europe. Here's just one example of
how Portuguese treats a word of Latin origin, set against its companion Romance languages:-
French:
Eglise - the S sounds like a Z
Spanish:
Iglesia - the S sounds like an S
Galician:
Igrexa - the X sounds like a Sh
Portuguese:
Igreja - the J sounds like a Jzh
So .
. . Is Portuguese pronunciation as it is because of greater Arabic
influence, even though the Moors ruled here 300 years fewer than in
Spain? Doubtless Alfie Mittington can tell us. And the pronunciation
of varginhas? I'm guessing at var-zzheen-esh. Corrections
welcome.
Finally
. . . The Portuguese for 'turkey' appears to be bife de Perú,
which presumably speaks of the bird's origin. Or at least its first
sighting.
P.
S. This post is late because of various internet problems. And, by
the by, the signs into Coimbra's old town are crap.
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