Umm...

I've been revisiting Australia. Not in person, you understand, but through the media of my notebooks and photos, and, to a much lesser extent, my memory. The impetus for this was a call from one of my editors for content to fill an Aussie-special issue coming up. "I can do that!" I thought. "I've been there so often, I've used it up! I've been everywhere!"

And (referring you here to the title of this blog), that's no way an exaggeration. I've been sent there for work many times, all over the continent, from the Tiwi Islands to Tasmania, from Ningaloo to the Great Barrier Reef. So you'd think coming up with story material would be a piece of cake. But - you'll have guessed this already - it wasn't. See, the thing is, you forget, don't you? Stuff merges, or evaporates entirely, and flicking through the notes and the pics is almost a revelation: Oh, yeah, that camel ride! The beanie festival! Boab trees! All those bats!

Maybe this is why those pedestrian types keep going back to the Gold Coast every year: because the detail slips out of their memories within weeks of getting back home, and all they remember is that they had a good time. So they're like my old grandmother, who had a pile of Agatha Christies by her bed that she just read one after the other, instantly forgetting each plot so that it was fresh next time she got to it.

That's fine for them, but what about me? I've been to so many amazing places that I'll never get back to, and it's all disappearing. Yes, yes, I'm getting old, I can't even remember where I left my phone or what was on the shopping list I forgot to take to the supermarket with me; but this is serious!

Is this why people have latched onto Instagram with such fervid zeal? Is it not really so much about impressing their friends, as compiling a file of memory aids? And writing blogs, ditto? A propos of which, it's a marvel to me that Moleskine (WHY that final e? Drives me crazy!) maintains such a presence in fancy stationery shops. People may buy those elegant notebooks with great intentions, but I've never seen anyone writing in one - whereas me, with my trusty Back to School-5c-special 3B1s, I'm jotting stuff down all the time.

Because I'm doing it on the run, though, they're untidy and scribbled, and full of destination-specific abbreviations that seem so obvious to me at the time, and which are totally unintelligible when I'm trying to decipher them back home again. I'm never going to sit down with one and read it like a book. Equally, I'm not going to set my editing program to Slideshow and just lie back to watch - mainly because I take so many photos that whittling them down back home is just too daunting a job and so I lazily just file them all away, with the result that the good stuff is smothered by all the crap shots. (Speaking of which, have you ever seen a professional photographer at work and noticed HOW MANY shots they take, constantly referring to their screens to review them? Maybe they're checking their histograms, but it still looks to me as though they're winging it. Shouldn't they know what settings to use?)

And there's another downside to fading travel memories: now and then, when my brain's in neutral (so, quite often, actually) I'll get a sudden vivid impression of somewhere I've been - a town square, a castle, some lookout - and it'll drive me crazy for ages trying to remember where it was. Lisbon? Rudesheim? Santiago? Honestly, the choice is so wide and the memory so tenuous, quite often I never get to the answer.

What's the solution? Don't go to so many places? Yeah, right. Only go to strikingly individual places, like Antarctica or Easter Island? Take clearer notes? Do memory-improvement exercises? Or just shrug and accept the loss and the drawing-in of the borders? Cripes. Depressing, much?

Swarms at the Beehive

Ah, people died in China's earthquake today, but they didn't make the TV news: the swarm of quakes in Cook Strait that have rattled Wellington, especially the 6.5 last night, are not unnaturally bigger news here. If we could be sure that would be it, the capital could get on with picking itself up and everyone could just be thankful that no-one was hurt. But seismic activity, it's a mysterious beast, and who knows if there isn't a bigger one about to hit tomorrow, or tonight, or in five minutes' time? Not the seismologists, that's for sure. You do kind of wonder about their usefulness, media-wise.

Christchurch was a shock to everyone, especially the seismologists; but Wellington's like Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and Lisbon, and Santiago: sitting plumb square on a fault line, and it's not a matter of if, it's all about when. Even yesterday's shake, though not that close to the city, was enough to return a section of reclaimed land to the sea, crack buildings and break bits off them, and make roads split, sink and tilt. So everyone's horrified, as well as alarmed, and no-one's going to sleep well in the city tonight.

I was last there in April, just en route to catching the Northern Explorer train back to Auckland, but even that quick visit was fun and I would have liked more time there (and, yes, better weather). Though the last thing I am is political, I really liked the buzz that goes with being the capital, that permeates even the weather forecast in the newspaper. They have other things on their minds right now, though.

Pride and prejudice

A sea of young heads, capped and full of knowledge, ideas and enthusiasm: it's a hopeful and reassuring sight, even if some of the higher science degrees and diplomas awarded yesterday by Auckland University were for research that was either so esoteric that the description seemed in another language, or so down-to-earth it was hard to get excited. Apples seemed to feature rather a lot; though the woman who got hers in "wine science" caused a ripple of enthusiasm amongst some of the audience.

It was a shame that the drought had broken so dramatically that the traditional parade of graduands through the central city was cancelled for only the third time in 80 years: it's always a lovely sight, the students so pleased and proud and endearingly self-conscious in their robes and hoods, the procession accompanied by a fluttering of equally pleased and proud parents. All so different from the last time I saw students on the streets en masse: at the beginning of the academic year in Evora, Portugal.

The young people parading then weren't pleased or proud, though the older students lording it over them were very smug and self-satisfied, as well as rather sadistic. It's tradition, it seems, to humiliate the new entry, so the black-robed third-years were herding the newbies round in groups, having made them dress up in embarrassing outfits, and stopping them periodically to make them chant or sing or do silly things. I suppose having had it all happen to them made it easy for the seniors to inflict it on the next intake, but I did feel sorry for the unhappy-looking victims, many of whom wouldn't have known anyone else and perhaps were in a city for the first time. It felt unkind, even though it was probably meant, in its distant origins, to instil a sense of solidarity amongst the first-years. It seemed mean-spirited, and out of place in a lovely city with an especially beautiful university.

2012, wrapped up

The most remarkable thing about this year is that I didn't go to Australia. (I'm still feeling that I've used Oz up - although I'd be happy to be proved wrong. Anyone listening? Kimberley cruise, Kakadu, Maria Island, WA for the wildflower season...?) 

I did pass through, though, a number of times, on my way to more distant destinations; but my first travels this year were domestic, first to old favourite Waiheke Island, just across the harbour but in another zone entirely, ambience-wise. Beautiful, relaxing and laid-back, it never fails to please - even when the weather disappoints.

The weather gave us the runaround for the next trip, too: doing the Crater Lake walk on Ruapehu with the daughters - but after driving down there through thunder, lightning and torrential rain, the day of our ascent to and traverse along that precipitous crater rim was one of glorious sunshine that showed off the turquoise of the lake to great effect, while the cloud that came to swirl around beneath us made us feel like gods, on top of the world in both senses.

My Pavlovian addiction to checking my emails dozens of times a day was reinforced by an invitation popping up there in February to go on a LAN tour of South America. It was a wonderful circuit in a small but jolly group through Santiago to Buenos Aires, to the literally over-the-top spectacle of Iguassu Falls, to Lima where the food was a revelation, and then to Easter Island, which was very special and totally worth foregoing the Travcom/Cathay Pacific Media Awards (in which I was only Runner-Up, so, pft).

In April I began my longest trip yet, flying Etihad to Abu Dhabi, where the Grand Mosque was astonishing, though I could really have done without the sweaty nylon robe I had to wear. Next stop was France, for a glorious, fabulous cruise up the Rhone from Arles to Lyon and finishing at Chalon-sur-Saone. I do so love a river cruise, and Uniworld's River Royale was just perfect, with the best staff ever.


Then it was England for a wedding and old friends, and another cruise that didn't go so well, when I managed to dislocate my shoulder leaping off a boat in the Norfolk Broads. Ouch. But I soldiered on, fortunately joining an Insight coach tour of Eastern Europe for the next 3 weeks where I was very well looked after. It was all about history, war and architecture, subjects which would have bored me rigid in my youth, but which now I find deeply interesting. It helped too that on the way to starting the tour in Budapest, we'd called in at Zagan in Poland to visit the site of Stalag Luft III where my father had been a prisoner, which was a moving experience as well as being fascinating.




Home again after 5 weeks away, I was anchored to the sofa for the next three months, writing, writing, writing with a cat at each side and a dog at my feet. I popped down to Christchurch for a look at my sadly shaken hometown, and was both horrified and inspired by what I saw - the vast empty spaces, blowing with dust, and the cracks in everything; but also the optimistic spirit of the people I met, and their bright plans for the future.

September saw the start of another flurry of travel, beginning with flying with Emirates to Dubai again, where I went up to the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa, and on to Portugal for a scant 5 days mostly in the province of Alentejo where I loved the fortified hilltop villages, the gnarled olive trees, the sheep with bells on and the friendly people; but hated the food-focused itinerary and unprofessional behaviour of one of the small party.




Back home for one night, I was away again next day for a week of glorious relaxation in the Cook Islands, purely a holiday of lying about, sleeping in the sun (not recommended: the sunburn was epic and I still bear the unsightly tan-marks) and doing very little of anything. Stand-out was the day spent cruising on and wallowing in the WMBL (world's most beautiful lagoon) at Aitutaki - just perfect, in every way.

Then, four days later, I was off to North Viet Nam in another group which was lots of fun. We had a brilliant guide, Duke, who took us from Hanoi up into Ha Giang province for a homestay, a day's trekking through the paddy fields and villages, and a long drive into the Dong Van Karst Geopark, which was just brilliant: spectacular peaks, cute kids, colourful villages and a mind-blowing road. The traffic throughout was fascinating - even in Ha Long Bay out on the water amongst those absurdly picturesque islands.



After a fun day out on the train down to Matamata for a look at the obsessive detail of Hobbiton, the year finished back on the sofa with, sadly, just the one cat now at my side. I've had 49 stories accepted for publication, about half of those in the NZ Herald, as well as writing around 30 blog entries for Air France and others for the Yahoo! website. I've been to lunches and dinners and a cooking class, learned how to take the top off a champagne bottle with a sabre, had massages, ridden a camel and a Segway, eaten insects as well as fabulous meals, and been given a huge and beautiful bouquet for my services to Australian tourism, having had over 100 stories published about that immense country. Ironic, or what?

It's been a good year and I've been to some amazing places, met lots of lovely people and written masses of stories (if you're interested in reading some of them, click on the links over there to the right). It's been busy, and tiring sometimes, but I've loved it and am looking forward to more of the, er, different: Alaska, maybe? Africa? Who knows - can't wait to find out. Watch this space!

Tarts and the Titanic

Random connections today: out of nowhere, a What's On in Macau in November promotion arrived in the post, personally addressed. Amongst the many attractions listed are the Grand Prix - as in Monaco, it's right through the central city, and would be exciting, if that were your thing - and the Fringe Festival with buskers on the streets (hopefully at a different time from the Grand Prix) which includes the usual sorts of acts plus, thrillingly, a presentation called 'Marathon Stories about Land Reclamation'. But the Food Festival sounds more promising, especially as the 'five top taste bud zones' includes Dessert - featuring egg custard tarts, no doubt. It's a local specialty they're very proud of which was introduced by the Portuguese who, and I say this having tasted both, make it better, especially at Casa Pasteis de Belem Restaurant in Lisbon, where they churn out thousands every day, each one flakily sweet and delicious.

There's a note about the calligraphy exhibition on in the Handover Gifts Museum, and those of you who've been paying attention know what that building is all about; and a respectful reminder that in Macau you may only stay in licensed accommodation "to avoid potential hazards such as fire and unsanitary conditions". Heaven forbid.

Another attraction coming to Macau is Titanic: the Exhibition. I've seen that and it's really good, with masses of artifacts from the Titanic and its identical sister ship the Olympic, and lots of individual passenger stories with items like watches and children's shoes. There's a big model of the ship cutaway on one side, which was interesting - and even an iceberg. No, really, a huge wall of ice that you can put your hand on and make the whole experience literally chilling. It's a travelling exhibition that I caught in Copenhagen last year. It was in a building across the road from the imposing and historic brick Town Hall, which I keep seeing as a location in Forbrydelsen, a terrific police murder investigation three-season TV series being played here end-to-end that I'm about 20 episodes into, all subtitled Danish, and which is the best thing I've seen for years (I spit upon the jazzed-up American version - this is dark and slow and detailed and brilliantly done). Worth seeking out.

Spot the difference (no spots included)

As the thunder grumbles rather thrillingly around the sky, I offer you this: one of these places is where I last heard thunder, and is half a world away from the other. What are the links, and what are the differences?

Of course, the links are obvious, with the architecture and the pattern of the cobbles which, apart from the surface being treacherously slippery, is also as bad as yesterday's Floating Pavilion for making you feel drunk when not a drop of the drink has passed your lips. The other is that they're both Portuguese, which means that now you know the difference, if you've been paying attention as you've dutifully been reading this blog.

Yes, on the left is Macau, and on the right, Cascais near Lisbon. Back in the fifteenth century, the Portuguese were all over the world like a rash: Africa, Mauritius, India, Japan, Macau, Brazil... They beat the British to the world's first global empire by quite a margin, and hung onto it longer too, because they weren't made to hand back Macau till 1999, which was two years after the Brits reluctantly let go of Hong Kong. They were fully occupied with slaves, sugar and spices for centuries; but they did export a few things too: they claim that when they went to Japan, where they founded the city of Nagasaki, they gave them their word for 'thank you'. Obrigado - arigatoo: you decide.

What's certain is that Japanese tourists are a lot more adventurous these days than back when they moved about en masse and only emerged from their coaches to take photos of each other... Oh, well, all right, maybe things don't change that much. But that's a 150 metre sheer drop right there. [Capo da Roca, north of Lisbon, Europe's westernmost point.]

Bon appetit

Now, I've just cleared up the kitchen and dining room after an evening hosting a family dinner that took all afternoon to prepare and felt almost like Christmas. It was fun though, and the food - though I says it myself - was very tasty, the creamy potato and apple-layered baked dish that I copied from one I tasted when I was in Portugal being a particular success. I have to admit, though, that it wasn't a patch on the dinners we were served in our up-country homestay in Viet Nam on our World Expeditions Rocky Plateau tour.

It was, however, much more comfortable, sitting on padded chairs at a proper table instead of sprawled awkwardly on the hard floor alongside a table literally nine inches high. Totally unable, in our useless Western way, to either cross our legs for more than five minutes or to squat flat-footed, we propped ourselves up somehow, legs all over the place, feet poking up in inconvenient places. It's testament to the deliciousness of the food that the discomfort mattered not at all, as we eagerly worked our way through the usual assortment of plates of pork and beef and rice and crispy vegetables and rice: so hot and fresh and yummy, healthy and filling and tasty. In this photo it looks a bit sparse, but it was honestly a feast, after a day spent hiking up and down hills and grappling with slippery steep paths through the rice paddies.

My kitchen's fitted out with a fancy oven and microwave and fridge and dishwasher and hot running water and double sink and so on. Theirs had a double gas burner, a stack of enamel bowls on the floor, a tap, and very little else. It's kind of embarrassing, how much better their food was than mine. All I've got going in my favour is the pork crackling - which was magnificent tonight, believe me.

These are Isaac Davison's photos, by the way: thanks for that, Isaac. If I could offer you another half-finished drink, I would.

Only connecting

“Tibby… proceeded into the dining room to eat Elvas plums.” Today’s connection is especially random. Here I am, in Rarotonga on actual holiday, with time for reading which I’m using to revisit Howards End, having chanced across the movie on TV recently – and what do I find in Chapter 8, but a passing reference to Elvas, an ancient walled city in Alentejo in Portugal, which I explored just a week ago, never having heard of the place before (apart from apparently reading that sentence in 1975 and, pre-Google, not being bothered enough to look it up). By the way, Forster would never have dreamed of writing such an unwieldy sentence as that, in all his life.

That Elvas is known for its plums was not touched on during our visit, curiously, given the intense food-focus of the famil. We went there after yet another long, long lunch in another town, when the conversation was entirely about the dishes (“ad nauseum”, I grimly noted at the time) and trailed about the cobbles after an eager guide who was anxious that we should learn all about the town’s history of defence. The walls are certainly striking, built in consecutive star-shaped sets, making Elvas a World Heritage site because of its fortifications: it’s only 10km from Spain, so there’s been a lot of argy-bargy here over the last couple of millennia. I’m guessing that if I ever re-entered my Bernard Cornwell Sharpe phase I’d find it featured  there too. Elvas has “seven bulwarks, four half-bulwarks and a redan connected to each other with curtain walls” if you were wondering. What that means is that it’s simply spectacular from the air, where the shape of the city walls and its outlying forts are clear to see.

On the ground, they’re still impressive, but even better I reckon is the Amoreira Aqueduct, which is 8km long and up to 30m high right beside the town: that’s four levels of arches in creamy limestone – beautiful and amazing, the product of 90 years’ work from 1537 – and which I didn’t get to photograph or even properly look at (we just drove past it without stopping) because of that blasted food writer getting lost at the previous town and making us late. I feel like fasting just to spite her; but instead I’ll go for the massage that the Pacific Resort people have kindly given me a voucher for, and try my damndest to stay awake this time.

Homeward bound

So here I am, back on the A380-800, upstairs, ensconced finally in what I knew would be my favourite seat out of the four trips I’ve made on this aircraft: 11A. The number’s not so important – in fact, smaller would be better as it would make me just a bit further in front of the wing – but the A is because it’s the window seat. There’s one on the other side, obviously, but left has always been good to me, view-wise.

 

Today, leaving Dubai after six, count them, hours kicking my heels in the Business lounge of the long white slug that is Dubai Airport – a new and shiny slug, that is, amazing in both the sheer numbers of people swirling about inside, and the miles you have to walk to get to your gate – during which I snacked, showered, surfed and snoozed, and even found a copy of the NZ Herald, the view was of the city as we circled round the Burj Khalifa. On the right, I could have seen the Palm and The World artificial islands, but the BK and I have a thing going on now. It was fun to see it from above this time.

It was 7+ hours from Lisbon to Dubai, and it’ll be the best part of 13 to Sydney; there’s about an hour on the ground there, and then it’s another 2½ home to Auckland. We were often asked in Portugal how long our journey had been to get there, and when they guessed, they thought 10 hours sounded sufficiently epic; so they were to a man blown away when we said it amounted to more than a day. Apparently, though, it’s common for lottery winners there to nominate NZ and Australia as their dream destinations, so the urge to set out on a great voyage of discovery is clearly still an important element of the modern Portuguese psyche.

There’s no need to do a Vasco da Gama any more, of course: it’s far easier these days, especially courtesy of Emirates Business class, tucked away here in my private little enclosure surrounded by shiny blonde walnut veneers, a nice big screen with a huge library of entertainment and information, my own mini bar, lots of cubby holes to stow my gear, and an almost-flat bed with a cotton mattress. There’s also the bar down the back, though I reckon that’s really just a novelty. But, wonder of wonders, there’s wifi, which I’ll use now to upload this post, just for the novelty of it, even though I’ll have to – gasp – pay for it: a whole US$5 for 30MB. Appalling.

UPDATE: Wifi there and connectible, but that’s as far as it went, disappointingly. I knew that some airspaces didn’t allow it, but though I tried periodically, nothing worked on this journey, tch. So this is coming to you from Sydney – after crossing over the city, harbour, bridge and Opera House, all on the left. QED.

Eccentric Sintra

If you're building yourself a summer palace, you might as well go the whole hog, and back in 1840 King Ferdinand designed himself a Romantic fantasy with Germanic thoroughness. In a town where every building is a self-indulgent riot of towers, turrets and tiles - it's Portmeirion, for real - the Palacio da Pena is literally top of the heap. At the end of a winding cobbled road through an extensive English woodland garden, it grows out of the rock on top of the crag like something you'd see in Disneyland. We were assured that all this architectural extravagance was paid for with the king's own money - though that's hardly the same thing as being earned by honest toil.

Every square inch is decorated, with tiles, relief work, paint and carvings: lions, dogs, crocodiles, birds, plants and patterns. It looks like nothing so much as a playground for grown-ups, and it really is a delight, every room bringing some new astonishment. One struck me before we'd even entered: seeing cabbage trees and flax planted around the gateway, an odd sight against such an exotic backdrop - although for Ferdinand, and European visitors, of course it was the other way around, with the New Zealand native plants being the exotic feature. Inside, in pride of place in a courtyard with tiles and pillars, is their most treasured plant: a tree fern growing in a stone shell with tortoise feet. It's a young plant, but the original was placed there by Ferdinand himself - he built up a collection of 2000 plants from around the world in his garden.

It was the second palace we saw today, the first being the Palacio Nacional down the hill, which is even more grand, though we had to hurtle through it as, once again, we were running late. It's been the theme of this trip, and one of its greatest frustrations. Portugal is simply too good to rush, but that (apart from all those interminable meals) is exactly what I've been doing for the past five days - and now I have to leave.

Lisbon, with regrets

Lisbon in  a day: stupid even to try, really, but we did - in what time remained either side of fitting in a long lunch, and going out to dinner. Passing over, with huge restraint here, the disappointingly wasted time and opportunities that have marked out this famil as the most frustrating and unenjoyable I've ever been on - because really, you don't want to get me started on that - let's focus on what I did manage to extract from the day.

Not the scheduled Segways, alas, because - well, again, let's not go there - though we did keep our appointment with the GoCars, which are the same little yellow Noddy cars I drove in San Francisco. There, I managed to run aground on one corner of Lombard Street; here, the hazard was the series of teeth-rattling manhole covers along the roads, which in a 3-wheeler were impossible to avoid. But it was fun, and fortunately, as in SF, local drivers were considerate - possibly wary - and there were no traffic-related incidents. That was a relief, because the trams here are a menace, and I even got swiped by one as I stood on the footpath, the roads are so narrow.

They're what Lisbon is known for: the steep, narrow cobbled streets that snake down from the castle on its hill. They're not just historic and picturesque, they're also very lived-in, and give the city much of its charm and character. I also liked that there are 34 cats who live in the castle, which delivers great views over the jumble of warm tiled roofs, the wide Tagus River, the 18km-long Vasco da Gama Bridge (surely his parents would have named him more appealingly had they known how famous he would become) and the planes swooping down low over the houses to the airport just beyond.

Narrow streets and wide squares: the main square, so huge it has two names, is an elegant affair with marble steps from the river on one side and lovely yellow-painted buildings with colonnades on the other three. Abandoned by the Government offices that once occupied them, they're now being taken over by restaurants and shops, and a new attraction presenting the history of Lisbon in an entertaining manner. Much of it has taken place in and around the square: the 1755 earthquake, tsunami and fire, an incident of regicide, demonstrations, and of course the Inquisition, with the pyres burning just metres from where we sat eating sardines, anchovies and other fishy dishes.

It's a very pleasant city, and it would have been good to see it properly. Sigh.

Any port in a... well, glass, thanks

So today we drove towards Lisbon, vainly searching en route for sheep with bells on for a typical photo which turned out to be not typical at all, alas: some sheep, no bells. The absurdity of NZ writers scouring the Portuguese countryside for sheep to photograph did not escape us. It was the bells that were the point of difference, and they were suddenly not in evidence, after being formerly ubiquitous. Blaaaast.

We are now in Cascais, seaside town to the gentry - well, moneyed - which is neat and pretty and well-supplied with Irish pubs and Maccas, but also a proper fishing port with a real fish market that's so genuine it's boring, with 21st century handset bidding machines and a big screen instead of cliched shouting of bids and waving of arms. The smell was authentically real, though.

There was a suspiciously sharp-edged sandcastle (I'm suspecting non-sand fixatives), a nice little antiques and collectibles market, a generic shopping mall and narrow lanes populated solely by Baby Boomers risking their collective hips on the slippery marble cobbles. A creep of a man ogled the girls on the beach below, studiously avoiding my censorious frown at him; and an older lady shooed the pigeons off a bronze statue of John Paul II before stroking his gown fondly and giving it a respectful kiss.

There was a massage at the spa of our fancy 5-star Villa Italia Hotel which I would like to say I enjoyed, but since I fell asleep during it, I can't say for sure; and a thankfully light and gourmet seafood degustation dinner at Hotel Miragem which was honestly delicious and enhanced by the company of marketing manager Christina, who's Estonian and agreed with me that Portuguese sounds like Russian. It's as much like Spanish as English is like German: a bit, not much. And then we ended the night with a 10 year-old tawny port and the even more exciting mention of the existence of what sounds a fabulous aperitif: white port and tonic. My new quest!

Power play and other disappointments

Borba is a marble town, and I strolled around it early this morning watching the sun warm it up as it rose high enough to shine down into the narrow lanes. It’s not just the churches and statues that are marble: so are the cobbles, the kerbs, door sills, window surrounds… it seems very profligate, but here it’s just the local building material, and it certainly gives the place a glow. It helps that it’s a morning ritual for the women to mop their doorsteps and leave them clean and shiny.

At Evora it’s the same: marble everywhere from the Roman temple to Diana, the ancient churches and cathedral, the palace, the university founded by the Jesuits (16^th century lecture rooms with 19^th century blackboards, 20^th century overhead projectors and 21^st century students) down to the patterned cobbles in Giraldo Square. It’s a World Heritage place and if that makes it sound worthy but perhaps a little dull, it’s also a lively town. It's full of course of tourists providing the main industry, but it’s lived-in too, and today the students were making a feature of themselves. It’s the start of the new academic year, and in most of Portugal it’s traditional to begin it with a ritual humiliation of the first-years by the third-years. The seniors are dressed in black suits and ties, with black cloaks trailing behind them, and groups of them take junior classes hostage and parade them around the town, making them chant and sing, hold hands and dress up, and end by ‘baptising’ them in the town fountain. Though some of the groups we saw seemed cheerful, others were not enjoying the experience at all – youngsters away from home for the first time, surrounded by strangers, and then made to do embarrassing things. It wasn’t kind.

Nor, on the face of it, was the chapel lined and decorated with bones and skulls: 5,000 skulls, in fact, and uncountable femurs and other bones, arranged in patterns on the walls and ceiling. It seems so disrespectful to treat human remains as design features, but the idea was apparently to demonstrate to the rich worshippers, who were the only people allowed into churches inside the city wall, that everyone is the same underneath, with the same fate awaiting. Above the door, it read “We bones that are inside, we are waiting for yours.” It’s a novel twist on socialism.

From pillory to post

Today's been one of those "you're not on holiday - this is a job" days, starting at almost 5am with jetlag and homework with Lonely Planet and brochures. The walk I took around the village was nice, with cats and sunshine and sheep with tuneful bells, and much leaping to the side of the cobbled roadways as cars flapped past; but breakfast was a foodie exercise with far more discussion than eating.

And then we were packed up and on the road again for a full day of history and architecture, and lots of warfare too. We went back to Marvao again for a proper look, and that was lovely, climbing up onto the castle ramparts and looking across the wide plains into Spain, and back down to the main square where the pillory stands, well-used during the Inquisition - but it was nice that they'd put the effort in to decorate it, I thought. Then we went to nearby Castel de Vide for more of the same, plus Jews, who had a hard time of it there (surprise!) and whose story is well told in the former synagogue. The town was also very pretty, full of steep narrow lanes lined with potplants and sunflowers growing through the cobbles, and more cats, and birds in cages peeping and twittering. We had lunch there, at the same restaurant as last night, and again ate far too much; and again there was far too much discussion of it, which is what happens when one of you is a food writer, I suppose, but it had me hankering for the days when it was considered ill-mannered to talk about what you were eating.*

Elvas came next, after an uncomfortably - not to say scarily - fast drive to catch up with the clock. This town, which also has a pretty pillory, is enclosed by an impressive series of star-shaped walls, built in succession from the 9th century, and from the walls of its keep we looked out towards other smaller forts. One of them we went to, where model soldiers stand next to pyramids of cannonballs and the museum is full of glass cases of caps and medals and swords, a spiked ball on a chain cutely called a 'morning star' and other delights of warfare that left me entirely cold. We had earlier bumped into a Brit in the street who had spontaneously launched into an enthusiastic review of one of the forts, though, so I'm guessing it's a man thing.

And now we're in Borba, at an eclectically-designed boutique hotel with such things as a genuine confessional screen hiding the shower stall, and the others have gone out for yet another no doubt deeply discussed meal but I'm giving my belly and brain a break and staying in tonight. I've done enough work today.

* And then the God of Coincidence suggests I could be pilloried myself for hypocrisy in sneering at food writing, reminding me that I've done it myself: overnight I received the pdf of that story I laboured over - it must be said, with very little enjoyment - producing a review for Vacations & Travel of Queenstown restaurants, in most of which I have (so far) never set foot. But I live in hope, and if/when I eat at these places, I shall be properly respectful of what's on my plate.

Bem vindo a Portugal!

There are worse ways, I guess, to spend a sunny Sunday than sprawled in Emirates’ business class watching movies – but I’m glad the journey’s over at last and we’re finally here in Portugal. We swooped in low over Lisbon’s cathedrals and its hills clad with tiled roofs and headed straight out of town to the north-east, into the region of Alentejo, which we’re already learning is Portugal’s forgotten land: less well-known, less glamorous than the Algarve where most tourists (especially the English) go. So it’s quiet and rural, unspoiled and very pretty: connoisseur country.

We drove through rolling countryside where huge boulders lay like sleeping elephants amongst the olive and cork trees, through small villages where mostly old people lived, sitting on benches in the sun or standing at doorways keeping an eye on things. Up on the hills there are forts, built for repelling all the invaders who have swept through here during the last couple of thousand years or so: stone-walled with watch-towers and battlements, above a sprawl of white houses. We visited one, Marvao, driving through the narrow and carefully-designed offset gateways (the stone full of scrape-marks, ouch) into the tangle of little cobbled lanes. In a hurry, as ever, I leaped up flights of steps to the top where there was a long view over the countryside from a lovely parterre garden with a fountain just below the castle – beautiful in the evening sunshine.

And then we went (eventually) to dinner, to eat generous proportions of peasant food: chorizo, venison, pork and hare, all tender and tasty and some of it boiling hot, literally, served with heaps of carbs: clearly we won’t be wasting away here. Nearly every dish, including puddings, includes bread, so this is no place for the gluten-free fusspots. We even got the recipe for our dessert, a sweet and delicious almond-based dish called Golden Soup. Yum. And then our driver, Antonio, who’s solicitous and keen to please (and who enjoyed the dinner even more than we did, scoring several souvenir “medals" of drips on his red tie) whisked us back along the dark winding road to bed, finally.