Apelacao, Portugal village —

Apelacao is a small Village approximately 10 miles outside of Lisbon.  We chose this place because of the condo rent and what we thought would be easy access to travel back and forth to Lisbon.

As we headed up to Apelacao from the airport, realizing the 6 miles we going to be a challenge to visit into Lisbon as planned.

The community is made of local village families with a very small town center.  Its located up on a hill-side accessed by curvy roads and narrow streets.   The closest town with shopping is either Lisbon or Lourdes (about 6 miles North)

Apparently, we are two of the only Americans they have ever seen in this area.

We have been here for 7 days now and the people are most welcoming and open to assistant with our needs.

The shops are very small and only room in them for one person to work in the space.   I’m talking very small, about the size of a large walk in closet.  No kidding.  They stack as much as possible inside and food is cheap.

There is one small butcher shop in the community.  The butcher chops the meat at the time you purchase.  We brought 4 thick pork chops and the price was less than $1USD each.  Again his little shop is about the size of a small bathroom.

There is an ATM machine nearby, one church located in the center of town and a playground for the children.  Not much more than that to the village.   Small stores appear to be located at the front of some of the homes.   Most shops are big sellers of fresh cups of coffee and maybe beer.

We located one business, a small sandwich shop, owned by Monica and her husband.  She is a very delightful young lady and mother of 3 children.  She entertained us one afternoon with her broken English and Google translate.  We replied back to her in the same manner.   Most entertaining afternoon.   We even drank some of the homemade Sangria, which is very good and strong.   They even had the famous drink here in Portugal made of Sour Cherries,

Last night, we walked to a shop were there in the window you could see a lady cooking chickens over an open fire pit.  The smell was so wonderful, we brought one to have for dinner.

Ginjinha

It’s a famous drink in Portugal made from sour cherries.   Little ladies can be seen along the streets of Lisbon selling small glasses of this wonderful wine for $1USD to tourists.  To buy a whole bottle of Ginjinha is about $5 USD, so the little ladies are making some good money.  Each bottle can make about 12-15 serving depending on the size of the small glasses  We have tried it and the taste is good and bold.

This drink reminded me of when I was young and after visiting with my grandmother in Amite, Dad would often stop by this old grocery story on the way home.

He was the only one that went into the old store and would come out with a brown bag that contained a large bottle of something.   It was many years later, I discovered that he was buying bootlegged alcohol called “Cherry Bounce”.   I did in my older years have a drink or two of this potion and the taste is the similar with the Ginjinha here in Portugal.

Good old Dad –

Coffee

Biggest selling item here – coffee.  There are several places in this little Centro that sell fresh coffee.  It’s not a Starbucks, but the  villagers gather at a location several times a day to have a tiny cup of very strong coffee.  Every day, they gather at the cafe downstairs, sit at the outdoor tables, chatting away and drinking the very strong coffee.  One cup is $.50USD.  John drinks it and says it’s very strong.   I prefer to settle for a Coca-Cola Zero for $.50USD.

Ladies of the Village

The ladies in the shops are so friendly and willing the help.   One lady uses Google translate to talk with us, even though she does understand some English.

One lady, Sophia, is originally from Mozambique.   Gabriella is originally from Transylvania and she calls herself the “Dracula lady” for laughs.   Most of them speak several languages and English is one they have some knowledge.

Several people here can speak some English, which helps us with the translation.

We found out  the schools here start teaching children the English language in the 3-4 grade.  So by the time they get to what we call high school, they speak very good English along with the Portuguese language.   Once the student goes to high school, they are obligated to learn another language of their choice (German, Spanish, French, Italian, etc).

The men of the village aren’t quite as open. They seem to be a little suspicious of why we would choose to stay in their town. They sit around the tables drinking their coffee and just listening.

Going down to Lisbon isn’t as easy as we imagined.

We made a trip down to Belem to see the Monastery on last Sunday and decided to try our hand at using the bus system.

There is a bus stop on the corner of the condo and I wrote down every detail possible to get us from Apelacao to the Belem area of Lisbon.  This, of course, meant we had to change to 4 different buses just to go that 15 miles.

I’m pretty proud of myself, because we did make it to Belem as planned.  However, the first bus ride was a so crowded and hot.  Of course, it was Sunday and everyone was going to visit family.

Getting back to Apelacao, after riding the bus for 1 1/2 hours to go the distance, and walking 5 miles of touring, we opted to ride in a taxi back.

After we factored the cost of the bus drive plus 1 1/2 hours of travel at $17.00USD  versus
a 10 minute Taxi ride at $18-19USD, we decided taxi was better.
It’s going to take a few times to get this transportation down but we will figure it out.

Weather

The weather is great here.  The evenings are down in the high 60’s and the days are mild upper 70’s.   The days seem long but the area is beautiful so that a positive.

We are having a good time, getting plenty of walking excercise, eating the best cheeses ever, meeting new people and are going fine.

60plusandfearless,

Dianne

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