Mountain Mornings and Portuguese Grilling
While our Canadian friends and family were sleeping, we continued with the hiking theme this Sunday morning and headed northeast through Casal Godinho for a hike up the nearby mountain to start our day.
One common theme everywhere seemed to be large boulders. Of course, the girls climbed a few of them as Micheka and I cautiously watched but thankfully no crises. Given their Waldorf experiences, the girls are generally good about risk and know how to appropriately judge many situations. And, for those wondering, we still had our fair share of “no, don’t do that” along the way!
Nearing the top of the mountain, we ended up on a backwater road that Google insisted was there, so we kept going. However, we did seem to have to cross through a couple of gates to places that seemed abandoned. As we later found out, this place is called Torre de Nevões and parts of this structure date back to the 12th and 16th centuries. While it seems to have been recently used for recreational and cultural purposes, it currently looked unkempt.
The girls also met a black lab friend at one of the homes that was so super friendly, it didn’t even bark! He followed us along the property for quite a while and the girls were enthralled.
All in all, we probably hiked for 90 minutes today and when we finally descended from the mountain, we saw our favourite café, so decided to take a well-deserved break and indulge in drinks and some pastries!
After some siesta time in the backyard, we moved on to making lunch. I wanted to try making beef, Portuguese style, so did up a marinade with oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and red wine. The place we are staying has an outdoor charcoal grill (which I’m not used to using) and gave it a go, making Espetadas (beef skewers).
For a first attempt, the beef turned out decent but perhaps could have been rarer! We will try it next time with some chicken or pork, but nonetheless, it is served well with freshly baked bread and a local salad.
This also marks one week since we left Canada, which is hard to believe already! We are slowly adjusting, sleeping lots, and building up our physical endurance. I’m also grateful to be together in such a smaller community which is less touristy (or even non-existent), just letting us take things in naturally and experience the culture here without being led around by the nose to some overpriced tourist trap.