Grey days in Estremadura

It is very easy to get confused between the Portuguese region of Estremadura and its counterpart in Spain, Extremadura, especially as they both mean the same thing - 'land furthest from the Douro'. To confuse matters further they are not contiguous, separated these days by the Portuguese region of Ribatejo. The name goes back to the 12th century and the wars in Iberia between Christian and Moorish forces. For some considerable time Christian territory lay to the north of the Douro, but as the 'reconquista' progressed newly Christianised areas were those 'furthest from the Douro'. It is no surprise that the name became firmly established, it took 722 years to achieve a wholly Christianised Iberia.

Our exploration of Portugal has been piecemeal, our mental map of it is like a half competed jigsaw. The coast between Caiscais and Nazaré was one of the missing pieces. Peniche is halfway between the two, so that's where we headed, a trip of about 100 miles if you make a detour across Vasco da Gama bridge east of Lisbon in order to avoid the craziness of the city's urban motorways. 

Peniche's position on a rocky peninsula is spectacular but the town itself is not especially attractive, imagine Blyth or Workington in the setting of Penzance.The commercially run area autocaravanas is not attractive either, a walled concrete car park with the vans squeezed together to maximize the capacity of the place. 

However the services are adequate, the town and clifftops are easily walkable, Aldi and Lidl are just around the corner, it is fine for a day or two.

Papôa is a rocky headland on the northern outskirts of town, a 5 minute walk from where we were parked. The rock formations are tortured, enough intriguing geology to keep Gill occupied for an hour or so.

While she tried to make sense of the rocks I wandered about taking pictures of this and that.

Though the cliffs are not quite so grand as those around Sagres, nevertheless the chaotic rocks, thundering surf and big sky give the place an epic scale which is magnificent.

As ever though, the human zoo is equally entertaining, lots of selfie-posing, but I particularly liked the twitcher on top of the cliff with a telephoto the size of a blunderbuss - sitting motionless staring at the cormorants. They reciprocated. 

I have also taken a liking to Portuguese cliff-top danger notices, they are very unequivocal.

The weather is conforming to the forecast, mainly cloudy with sunny intervals, it is a degree or two cooler here north of Lisbon, a few more deciduous trees too, reminding us that it is still winter, even though there are lots of wayside flowers and all sorts of  bushes I don't recognise are beginning to blossom.

Next day, after we had done some laundry, we walked into the town centre and down to the harbour. The centre is surrounded by massive walls and old fortifications but the buildings within them are a mixture of old and modern, quite a few of them looking somewhat run down. The people too, some of the  elderly in particular looked ill and impoverished. 

We walked through the centre then along the seawall where you get a good view of the whole place. Though there is a marina, Peniche is very much a working port, not just for fishing, there are shipyards here too.

However, there is a dark history to the place. On a bluff overlooking the harbour the old fort was used during the fascist era to incarcerate political opponents. It now houses National Museum of Resistance and Freedom. 

The website states its mission as: to investigate, preserve and communicate the national memory related to the Resistance to the Portuguese fascist regime, based on the memories and experiences of those who fought for Freedom and Democracy.

With missiles raining down on freedom and democracy in the Ukraine the message on the museum's big gates felt timely and sobering. We take our 'free thinking' for granted as if that is the normal state of human affairs and everything else is some sort of aberration. History tends to assert the opposite. Fifty years ago Portugal was in the grip of a repressive fascist dictatorship that had ruled the country since the mid 192Os. Europe looked very different then, by my reckoning there were 15 democracies on our continent in 1970, now there are an additional 25 if you are willing to accept some of the former Soviet republics such as Georgia and Armenia as at least semi-democratic. This is remarkable progress given that in 1942 during the darkest days of WW2 the number of democracies across the globe was reduced to single figures. Events in Ukraine remind us that our freedoms are not a given; when politicians at home pedal dishonesty and begin to undermine their commitment to human rights then our common values also are eroded from within.  

It was a grey day, we walked to the end of the mole, big waves crashed into the seaward side covering us in spray. Then it began to drizzle. 

We turned around,  facing us was the imposing white bastion with its tiny cell windows, each with a metal grill. 

I thought of the people once imprisoned there for speaking their mind, a small patch sky their only view of the outside world, haunted by the sound of the sea and the cry of gulls, would the sound have been a solace or a or cruel reminder of lost freedom? Both maybe.

We walked back to the van using the street by the harbour. It was lined with fish restaurants, most were busy. We realised why, today was Shrove Tuesday, even in places that don't have a carnival clearly it's a day for family celebrations.

A few people had dressed up including an older couple in national costume. I suppose I shouldn't have snapped them with the funeral parlour advertisement in the foreground, but I liked the image of 'Our Lady'.  

After all, if you are going to celebrate the traditions of Portugal a key part of its culture, like in Spain, are centuries of deep seated Catholic conservatism. 

Though over the past 50 years this has been counterbalanced by a lively commitment to socialism. 

Both were apparent on the streets of Peniche, which is a good thing because a surefire sign of a free society is the extent to which it is full of contradictions. 

Next day we moved on. Our plan was to hop from one area autocaravanas to another for a couple of days arriving in the Orbitur campsite at Costa Caporica on Friday so we can meet Gill's sister who is visiting Lisbon at the weekend. She lives in France and due to the pandemic we have not seen her since 2018. The site is on the south side of the Tejo with good transport links into the city. 

Our first hop was a small one, 25 miles inland to the attractive old town of Obidos. It is a bit of a tourist trap but like all such places there is a reason for its popularity. The place has a big castle, town walls dating from the 12th century and a cluster of attractive old streets. 

A three kilometre long aqueduct built in the 16th century connects the town to a local spring. The area autocaravanas is right next to it, equidistant from the delights of the old town and a Pingo Doce supermarket. What more can you ask!

We took a walk to the supermarket, had lunch in the van, then took a wander around the town.

Gill has been feeling a bit off-colour for the past few days,  then I developed cold-like symptoms too. With Jackie and Anna planning to meet us on Saturday I decided I had better take a lateral flow test. It was positive, as was Gill's. This thows all our plans into disarray. Clearly we are going to have to self isolate until we test negative. Luckily the place we are staying in operates an honestly box  system so we can park here without needing to be in contact with anyone. We have enough food in store for the next three days so self isolating is not a problem until the weekend. It remains to be seen if we will be able to meet up with Jackie and Anna.

It is difficult to pinpoint when and where exactly we caught Covid, last Sunday in Sesimbre probably, either on the bus into town or in the Taphouse restaurant which was crowded. It is pointless speculating really, what is certain is the efficacy of the booster jabs we had in early November must have waned. That means they only provided three months protection, I assumed they would have lasted longer. The way I am feeling right now makes it difficult to see any positives in our situation. One consolation I suppose is we are now making a personal contribution towards herd immunity, but it really is tricky to convince yourself that feeling lousy is somehow serendipitous.

The Dutchman from the van parked about 15 metres to our left knocked on the door to tell us he had just been burgled and had passports stolen. I don't think he quite believed us when we said we had not noticed a thing, but the van window that had been forced  was on the far side  and out of our sight. It was tricky for us to be of any practical help as we are trying to minimise human contact. I suspect we have been pigeonholed as standoffish, unhelpful Brits. 

It takes an act of trust to use unsupervised places to park overnight and when something untoward happens it dints your confidence.  In over one thousand days of travelling in the van we must have spent a couple of hundred or so using unsupervised stops; this is the first break-in we have been close to witnessing. You can try to rationalise how vulnerable it makes you feel, reminding yourself of the long odds against this occuring, but I think growing unease is a natural response, made worse right now by the sense of disassociation you get from the effects of the virus.

Today we moved about 40 miles south and are now parked in a free spot next to the a humongous Baroque pile in Mafra. The palace was built in the early 18th century by the Portuguese monarch, like Versailles, Escorial and Caserta it is a monument to the age of Absolutism, an imperious expression in stone of the Divine Right of Kings. 

At some point we will go and have a look, making sure we stay clear of people, maybe  later this afternoon. At the moment I just want to rest. When we woke up this morning it felt as if we simply had bad colds. However, as soon as we tried to do stuff, use the service point and prepare the van to move on, we both began to feel feverish. Doing a simple thing, like driving down an empty motorway demanded a conscious effort to stay alert. Over the next week or so we are going to have to keep things simple, use quiet 'areas caravanes', keep ourselves to ourselves and hope we make a swift recovery. We promised Jackie that we would take another test tomorrow, if that was clear we hoped we would be able to meet up on Sunday in Lisbon. In reality, given how we both feel I don't think that is likely to happen, which is sad given that she has flown from France to meet us.

It wasn't busy so we went to have a look at the palace. It was enormous, so big that it was impossible to fit the facade into a single photograph. I had to take a panorama.

At the moment I am reading 'On the plain of snakes' Paul Theroux's recent account of his road trip through Mexico. On coming upon an enormous church built by the Spanish in the 16th century, now overshadowing some impoverished, depopulated village he quotes Camus:

"It's a strange and insufferable uncertainty to know that monumental beauty always supposes servitude. Perhaps it's for this reason that I put the beauty of a landscape above all else - it's not paid for by any injustice and my heart is free there."

The palace at Mafra was built with gold and diamonds plundered from Brazil, it has 1200 rooms, at one point 42,000 workers were employed to  construct it, when completed the building covered 3.8sq. kms. No matter how impressive it is, the effect is not one of awe, but effrontery.

I too prefer looking at landscapes these days, Gill always has done. Whereas she understands the natural landscape all I can do is appreciate it. What I am interested in are 'taskscapes', to use the term the cultural geographer Tim Ingold coined to describe the way humans constantly make and remake landscapes; the industry of the many not the follies of the few.

Gill has just contacted her sister to say we are too infectious to meet in Lisbon. Until we are free of the virus we are going to slowly make our way back towards Spain, avoiding campsites, using area autocaravanas, socially distancing as much as we can. There is now a certain irony about all the stuff I wrote about 'going clear' a few posts ago. I've given up on the more esoteric and philosophical aspects of the idea. I'd be happy with a single line on a lateral flow test indicating the we are clear of Covid.