Our last two weeks were split between a quick one-week stay
in Portugal with friends from London, and almost a week of sailing with Ace’s
mom, step-dad, and our friendly French captain in the beautiful Balearic
Islands.
Portugal started with a one-night stopover in Lisbon, which basically
consisted of a 4-hour blitz of the city’s key sites (the traditional tram ride
up to the castle and a quick walk around the city). It was worth the visit, but one doesn’t need
more than a couple days for a proper tour of Lisbon. The most exciting part of
our stay was probably watching the world’s most conspicuous pick-pockets at
work in the tram – for a fair comparison, think of Raph (who is 6’4’’) wearing
high heels trying to hide in a crowd of midgets. Needless to say that they were
unsuccessful and got kicked off the tram.
The rest of our stay in Portugal was in Ericeira, a nice
little European surf town about 40 minutes from Lisbon. Only if such a place
existed just outside of Montreal! Two friends (JP and Katie) visited us for the week and we
rented a house just outside of town, which was a little rough around the edges
(everything seemed to leak, the pool hadn’t been cleaned in 6 months, and it
was decorated with freaky dolls) but the property manager was very helpful and
everything worked out well. We made good use of the European barbecue (translation:
pain in the butt – what’s wrong with gas anyways?), took advantage of the dirt-cheap
wine (the most expensive bottle in some stores was 4 euros), had a couple pool
parties, and went on what is hopefully going to be the sketchiest horseback
riding trip of our lives (fortunately, JP’s foot can take on a horse’s hoof).
Ericeira itself was much more developed than the typical
surf spots that we’ve visited in Central America, which takes away some,
although not all of the charm. There are
about 8 breaks within a 10-kilometer stretch, so it took a little while to find
the best spots (and the clean ones – Ace and Katie both got a leg covered in
oil slick… now we know what it must feel like to be a bird caught in an oil
spill). Once we found the best break (Ribeira d’Ilhas), Ace unfortunately only
got in one day of good waves because the surf was either too small, too big, or
he was too hungover J.
Can’t complain though - all in all, good times with good friends!
After Portugal, the next part of our trip was a relaxed week
sailing through the Balearic Islands with Ace’s mom and step-dad. We met them
in Ibiza (where we got a quick but very insufficient glimpse of the nightlife),
then made our way to Mallorca and Menorca, stopping at some pristine beaches
and bays, as well as cute port towns on the way. Our favorite spots were an
untouched beach in Ibiza (we were the only ones moored there for the night),
and Mahon in Menorca, a port town where we had a delicious dinner and spent a
day strolling around. A typical day on the boat involved lots of reading, a
swim, a siesta (or two), a history lesson from our captain, a yummy home-cooked
meal from Ace’s mom, and lots of laughs over a couple glasses of wine or
champagne and some foie gras.
It’s very interesting to discover new places from the sea,
providing a different perspective – in certain cases to what extent these
islands have been developed with such poor taste, but mostly how beautiful the
coastline is from the water.
Next up: mainland Spain, starting with Barcelona – we’re
very excited! Mmmm… all those tapas!
P.S. A few people mentioned that they tried to post a
comment on our first posts but had to sign up first…we’ve changed the settings
so it’s easy to do now without signing up.
P.S.S. We’ve added a link of a cool video of Ace paragliding
in Turkey, check it out!
Video - Ace Paragliding in Ölüdeniz
Photos - June 7-22: Portugal and the Balearic Islands, Spain
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