Day Thirteen – Adventures in Parking

Day Thirteen – Adventures in Parking (January 8, 2011)

One of the many interesting things we’ve learned about Portugal in our time here so far is that they make the hardest beds, possibly in the world. These champion hard bed makers did themselves proud in Marvão, although in retrospect, I’m not convinced it was a bed, possibly just a slab of wood with sheets on. The hotel was also incredibly noisy throughout the night, and one of the cleaners was nice enough to position a creaky ladder directly outside our thin door very early in the morning so that she could polish the wooden ceiling. I’ve never seen a ceiling being polished.

Sufficed to say that neither of us had a particularly restful night. In addition to that, as a result of a skiing accident many years ago in which I broke my back, nights on overly hard beds often result in a disc in my lower back slipping, which is as painful as it sounds. After a slightly lacklustre breakfast in the dining room downstairs, we packed up Aurelia and left Marvão, heading across Portugal for the slightly bigger town of Évora.

The drive was on another of Portugal’s excellent toll highways, and Tracy took us there by an easy and direct route – she’s evidently over her anger at us. The hotel in Évora advertised the ease with which it could be found and the convenience of its parking on the website, so therefore we were suspicious, especially as it is inside the town walls. Somewhat surprisingly, it was easy to find, being only a few short corners from the entrance to the town, and it did have a small parking lot.

While I have many talents, hill starts in manual transmission cars is not one of my better ones. I can do it, but like the aforementioned fat man on the bicycle, it’s not pretty. The parking lot at the hotel is extremely small; the drive up to the lot itself is extremely steep and includes a very sharp right-angled corner up the previously described hill. Adding to the degree of difficulty, some clever person had parked a shiny silver Mercedes right at the top of the steep corner bit of the drive, cutting off a big portion of the lane and making the corner up the hill even steeper and tighter. I tried several times to get up it, and while I only stalled it once, it was clear that it would take more than my meagre skill to negotiate the treacherous path.

We put the car in park at the bottom of the drive and went into reception, to see if we could get someone to move the Mercedes, on the theory that if I had more room, I might be able to get around the corner up the hill. Jamie also suggested that on her previous trip to Portugal, when she had trouble in parking, the guys at reception invariably leaped to her rescue and either parked her car for her, or extracted it from the lot. The older gentleman on reception this day was no exception to her rule.

We asked if the Mercedes could be moved, and he scoffed at us – there was surely plenty of room to drive the car up! He escorted us downstairs and took a look for himself. He considered, checking from several angles, before saying “perhaps I move it for you”. I readily agreed, his air of confidence convincing me that he was a professional parker, a paragon in the field of car positioning and placement. He took the keys, got in the car, put the car into gear, and drove quickly backwards through the gate and into heavy traffic. I guess reverse is different in his car?

He worked out where first gear was at about the same time as the sinking feeling in my stomach reached my toes. He started back up the drive with confidence, pulling the car around to the outside to give himself a better angle to get up the hill and around the sharp corner. The speed was considered, the approach sensible, a poor start but potentially a good finish I thought. At this point, the threw caution to the wind and put the accelerator to the floor – the wheels started spinning at high speed on the slightly damp cobblestones as he slewed around the corner, almost starting to smoke. The speed at this point increased rapidly, and if he’d actually gotten any traction he would have driven directly into the side of the Mercedes.

Fortunately for Aurelia, the Mercedes, and my insurance, he didn’t’ actually get enough traction to hit the Mercedes but did keep enough forward movement going to get up the hill. At this point, he stopped the car, got out, and handed me the keys. I’m not sure who was more grey, me or him. Evidently the parking was more difficult than he’d anticipated. “You can finish parking” he mumbled before scuttling back up the stairs to reception. I finished parking, my nerves completely shot and in desperate need of a drink.

We dropped our bags off in our room and headed back into Évora to find a bar or restaurant where I could steady myself and possibly have some lunch as well. Évora seemed, however, to be almost completely deserted, and we spent quite a lot of time walking around looking for somewhere to eat. Eventually we found some sort of bizarre cafeteria take away place near the market square, where Jamie had a pre-made bit of ham and pineapple pizza and I had combination plate number three, which included two hot dog wieners, a fried egg, some bacon, a side salad, and some chips. Very odd.

After this culinary adventure, we thought it best to have another drink, after taking some photos. It turns out it’s harder to find a drink in Évora than one would have thought. After much wandering and many photos, we ended up at a vaguely stylish bar near the old roman ruin where we had an enjoyable afternoon sampling beer and wine (at only €1 a glass) and watching both the people of Évora as well as the MTV video countdown (with no sound).

After a time, we had to go back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner. We’d made reservations through the hotel for a set-menu feast for that evening. By this point, my back was really playing up, and after changing and having some ibuprofen, we found our way eventually to the restaurant.

The deal for dinner was a three course meal with a bottle of wine for €25. That was all the information we had about the menu. The food would be traditional Portuguese, but would be whatever the chef cooked that night. By reservation only, no substitutions. An adventure.

It turned out to be really good, and a LOT of food. We started with a traditional first course of bread, cheeses, sliced sausages, and olives. Second course was most of a pig which had been roasted since before Christmas (in a good way – so tender it was falling apart) with spinach and chick pea mash and a huge portion of polenta. Finally, it was walnuts and port to finish things off. There was no way we could finish all of it off, except of course for the wine. After doing what we could to represent Canada in the eating challenge, we stumbled back up the hill to our hotel to sleep off that giant meal.

The next morning we woke to our last morning in Portugal. My back had gone completely out and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to put on my socks, let alone drive the car. After some help from Jamie to tie my shoes, and help from one of the cleaners to get my suitcase down the stairs (I’ve never felt like more of a man than asking a little cleaning lady to carry my giant suitcase down to the car), I made it into the driver’s seat and found that as long as I was sitting my back would be okay.

We were both a bit sad to be going home, not only because work awaited us there. We’d had a fantastic time in Portugal, and despite the terrible weather and the generally bland food (unless one is a fan of salt cod that is) we were going to miss it. The people were friendly, the wine was cheap and tasty and CHEAP, and there are some amazing sights. I’m not sure we’ll go back to the same countryside of Portugal as we saw all we wanted to see, but I suspect Lisbon hasn’t seen the last of us.