Home » Portugal » Escape from LAgos (12 Random Musings on Portugal and Cadiz)

1) Portugal is definetly and defiantly not Spain. Before I arrived, I too would have been hard pressed to distinguish between Portugal and its larger Iberian cousin. Portugal does however, retain an immediate and distinct atmosphere of its own, although this atmosphere is hard to define. I suppose it seems somewhat Carribean or South American to me, although having never been to the Carribean or South America I'm not exactly an authority on the matter. But it is certainly multicultural and seems much more exotic than other european countries

Escape from LAgos (12 Random Musings on Portugal and Cadiz)

James Taylor
2006-08-23 11:38:12

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booked myself onto one of those 18-30 holidays to some God-awful Baleric Island.

I am aware that I have been complaining for the last few paragraphs and you are probably getting slightly bored. That is if you haven't given up on this already. I am also aware that all this moaning suggests that I had a thoroughly miserable time in Lagos, and I probably would have done were it not for some of the wonderful people (mainly Canadians) I met in Lisbon who had also travelled down to Lagos.

After spending a month or so primarily in the company of relative strangers it was nice to cultivate relationships that had a slightly longer lifespan. I spent almost all of my time in Lagos in the company of my new group of friends and consequently my incompatableness with my current hostel situation ceased to become so important; in the end I actually started to enjoy myself.

6) Some bastard on Lisbon tram nunber 28, which happens to be the most scenic of the tram routes, has my camera case and my 256mb memory card. Luckily I do have my camera and 1Gb memory card but due to this loss I have a relative dearth of decent pictures of Lisbon.

7) The custard pies/cakes that are made throughout central Portugal but perfected in the Lisbon suburb of Belem are really, really fantastic.

8) Also, the battered portions of randomly selected seafood found in Cadiz fish shops are fantastic. Why isn't this idea more popular. Why do we batter cod and nothing else in England. Generally tentacles, suckers, eyes, fins and other squishy things prevent me from sampling a wider array of seafood. When everything is battered this doesn't matter as you can't see anything. Plus, it tends to taste nicer.

9) Lagos is an extreemly difficult place to leave in the last week of April. Turns out there is a big festival in Sevilla and all accomadation is booked up. As Sevilla was the next logical destination for everyone who hadn't ...