Another caveat to looking for restaurants is that the Portuguese cuisine restaurants are impossible to tell apart. They all seem to serve the same thing (depending on the region), for roughly the same price. Of course, I would say this about American restaurants, and we know what to look for after a while.
So, in Viana do Castelo, we wandered around town for quite a long time, trying to find someplace more traditional but settling on...well...anywhere. We stayed in a hostel about a 10 minute walk from town, so we didn't want to tire ourselves out too quickly. But we did pass out pretty early due to all of the walking, amidst the screams and yells of a dozen young boys we were sharing the hostel with.
As a conclusion to our stay in the north, we hiked to the castle (for which the town was named). It's about 20 minutes up uncountable and beautiful steps, hundreds of years old, and marked with the occasional cross. The climax was a staircase lined with stone railings with the "castle" (a cathedral) in view. However, at the same time, I could hear cheesy string music blaring from a gift shop at the base, being frequented by tourists who had just hopped off a tour bus and were getting their pictures taken with "authentic" instant cameras. It was slightly shocking, but not at all surprising. I was very glad we were seeing Portugal the way it - more or less - should be seen.
Speaking of, we had a train to catch in an hour, so we hiked down and stopped at a sandwich shop in a mall for a quick bite.
The train took us to Coimbra (Koh - EEM - brah), about in the middle of the country. We arrived at the train station, realized that a good hotel was located near the station, then realized Coimbra had two train stations. We walked across town to our hotel, a converted townhouse wiht nice, quaint rooms. We left in time to catch dinner and gave ourselves a little time in the morning to do a bit more exploring, but our stay in Coimbra was far too fleeting.
We arrived in Faro after confirming we'd have a place to stay for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
To be continued later...I started today flying over the Meditteranean, proceeding to Maputo, catching a chapa to town, then catching up with people. It's amazing how quickly I've readjusted to life here - a matter of hours - and that just earlier I was a continent and a hemisphere away - and temporarily halfway home. Blows my mind.
Peace
John
