Vila Vicosa

Vila Vicosa is on the eastern edge of Portugal and was the historic seat of the Dukes of Braganca. Confusingly the actual town of Braganca is in the north of the country. When the house of Braganca ascended to the throne 300-400 years ago the town became the country retreat of the royals until they were overthrown in the early 1900s. The Ducal Palace here became one of the royal palaces (there were also palaces in Lisbon, Cascais and Sintra - its a nice life). The tour of the palace was amazing, not for anything really famous I can tell you about but more for the access you got to every room and the fact it was perfectly preserved. What was interesting was the number of different places around Europe and the world that the furniture, ceramics and glassware had came from, conversely most of the tapestries were from Arraiolos (50km up the road - they are the best in the world though) and most of the paintings seem to have been done by the King himself. Also the size of the copper pots in the kitchen - enough to cook half a dozen wild pigs!Unfortunately just seeing the sights wasn't enough for two South African ladies who despite the signs clearly saying the tour was in Portuguese decided they wanted more explained in English. So "Who painted that?" "Which king was he?" slowed the tour down. I wonder if it really made a difference? They managed to show their complete ignorance at the end "So did you have to learn your Portuguese when you came here or did you start learning it in Brazil?" Bry was very happy she'd left her Springboks jumper at home.

The Ducal church and mausoleum, except for the kings who are buried in Lisbon.

Where theres a palace there's a castle

The centre of Vila VicosaLike most towns in the Alentejo the streets are lined with orange, lemon, tangerine, and other citrus trees.

The drive thru Armenia

In which Bilbo leaves the Eastern City and ventures south on the long and winding road with his new friends.
For 70kms out of Yerevan the highway is a two lane dual carriageway barrelling straight along the plains, crossed by foot/road bridges every couple of kilometres. Not that this prevents it from being crossed as if it wasn’t there by men smoking, women carrying groceries, kids on bikes or with footballs, dogs, cats, goats, sheep, in fact everything seems determined to ignore the fact theyre on a road full of overloaded trucks or cars travelling as far above 100km/h as the potholes will let them.

I was in a 4WD with 4 guys I’d just met and barely understood who they were – “the engineer” bearded and respectable, “the boss” all arrogance and authority in sunnies, and “the interpreter”. The last two had raced into the hotel, settled my bill by pulling out a wad “you could choke a dozen donkeys on”, driven me to the office weaving through traffic, walked me around and put me back in the car and then high-tailed it out of Yerevan. I was asked what music I liked “Rock?”. Sure I said. Maybe some dance. Its your car though. So about 10 minutes in a tape was held up “This is for you, its English” and the dulcet tones of Sade “this is no ordinary love” wafted through the car. I heard that entire album about 6 times that day.

The next 50-60kms are single-lane but still straight, driving past dams for aquaculture and broad sweeping plains for grazing with the bulk of Mt Ararat fixed and unmoving on one side. Thats Mt Ararat ie the one Noah left an ark on. It was in Armenia but Turkey annexed it in one of the numerous conflicts and it remains just over the border. I am very grumpy I don’t have a good photo of Ararat to share. It is impressive, massive in size, dominating the landscape. It gives you the feeling that if there is a God (or Allah, or Buddha) that this is the sort of place he’d live in, especially with the top shrouded with cloud to make sure you cant see him/her/it too.

And then the road starts winding its way up and down the first mountain pass, shrinking to one and a half lanes in places where the roads collapsed into the ravine, hairpin bend after hairpin bend, hugging the side of the mountain.
Just as quickly we were back down off the mountain driving through a narrow gorge next to a river. Coffee time – Armenian coffee, half full of the grounds. This is the roadside café- note the dogs.
The changes in the road made absolutely no difference to the driving: weaving in and out of lanes around potholes, waves and waves of identical Ladas and Skodas, lines and lines of old Russian army lorries straight out of a Cold War thriller, honking all the time - *honk* overtaking *honk* get out of my way slow coach *honk* don’t cut me off you idiot. The bullshit meter got its first test too – “These potholes are because of the winter snow&ice. They will be repaired soon”. I present to you a pothole which I suspect has been "missed" for many summers:

These are the gates to the province of ??? ("Dead flat frozen bit" I suspect - for half an hour the view was identical to the photo below). They appear from nowhere as they’re in the middle of nowhere - at the top of a mountain range just before you start crossing the frozen plateau. Very random. As was the “that is a 13th Century church over there”. The Armenian church celebrated its 1700th anniversary in 2001. And yes I meant to put the 1 at the front of that.
The man made influence was more commonly a negative one on the landscape – town after town of grey concrete flats and cube-shaped houses, impossible to determine which were abandoned, falling apart or new (the fact that the bricks were grey here doesnt help), litter everywhere, rusted steel gates, signs, fences. We stopped high above Goris to refuel and I was led to the edge of the road and told that “this is the most beautiful town in Armenia. All the roofs are red”. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. Instead I agreed and took a photo. Theres dragon holes at the bottom of the hill in the middle of the photo.
The rest of the drive left the plateaus behind and concentrated solely on roads wrapping around hills, ranges, mountains, snowy passes (again we stopped so I could be shown the highest point in Armenia). It was like a constant roller-coaster, up, down, around, twisting, turning, snaking. The 370km from Yerevan to Meghri took us about 6 hours. It certainly couldn’t be accused of being dull, or lacking scenery. This is the city of Kapan which was built by the Russians for the huge copper mine (you can see the benches on the left).

Madeira

Recipe for Easter holiday:

• tropical island
• pretty girl
• sun
• sea
• abundance of fresh fish/seafood/fruit, pastries/cakes and wine/other drinks

Add all ingredients together. Enjoy:
Lapas - limpets - which taste a lot like molluscs. Very nice with some garlic and lemon. In the background is a dish of tremocos - preserved beans - which are served with beers like peanuts would be in a pub. They are also called "poor mans seafood".
This is most peoples impression of Madeira - a glitzy tourist haven full of resorts and foreigners. And yes there were a hell of a lots of English and German tourists being hustled to try some madeira or buy cane baskets/ embroidery/ceramics. Older tourists not the younger drunken yobs like Majorca/Ibiza who seemed to live around their hotel pools. I understand the appeal of the pool as the beaches are made of rocks, not sand but what sort of holiday is it if you only leave the hotel to shop, or go on organised trips?! The tourist traps were easily avoided by us as one of my geos gave us a better what to do list than you'll find in any guide book. For me it was relaxing to be in familiar surrounds but not to have to speak Portuguese, or to try and get work done, but the fact that it wasn't new for me also helped us get around a lot easier. Most of the hotels/resorts are to the west of Funchal, the main city of Madeira which has grown by creeping up the hills around the port. The old town is by the sea, a maze of streets filled with restaraunts, souvenir shops and wine shops interrupted by streams pouring off the mountains. But we never quite found the downstairs bars that are supposed to be there in their hundred.The rest of Madeira is mountainous (from sea level to 1860m on an island only 20km wide) with banana plantations cover the foothills. We hired a car to drive round the island which was amazing - going up roads which wound around the steep slopes up into the misty heights, through tunnels bored through the rock (most of the roads and all of the freeways in Madeira have involved a large amount of tunneling and engineering). The north coast is very different - here the full force of the Atlantic hits the coasts and the cliffs go from steep to vertical. Less towns, less room and the roads get narrower and wind more and more. "Fun" to drive, until you meet something coming the other way round and are faced with the choice of driving into the cliff or the ocean.

5000 words about Armenia

All I have in my notebook from my time so far is jumbled sentences and words to remind me of whats been happening, to keep track when Im thrown from one extreme to the other. I have around 250 photos already without much time in Yerevan. So photos more than words until I can begin to get my head around it (or at least get some of the vodka out of my system!).

Armenia is absolutely insane. It starts with flying into Zvartnots airport where you feel like you're James Bond entering Cold War Moscow. You get outside and are jumped on by a million cabbies outside the airport like in Asia. There are no traffic rules in town - including no seatbelts - as "if the police stop you you will pay anyway so it doesnt matter whether you wear them or not".

After that its a roller coaster ride, literally when going up and down mountain ranges winding round and round hairpin turns. Some things are done at breakneck pace - driving at full speed horns honking swerving in and around potholes, cars and lorries, raging glacial streams (some nice well-rounded boulders for the geos), drinking shots of vodka with dinner (I now think a bottle of spirits is an ideal complement to every dinner).
Some things have beem left far behind - identical looking towns where you cant tell which of the grey concrete flats or cube-shaped houses are abandoned, falling apart, new or being built (the fact that the bricks are grey here too doesnt help), rusted steel gates, signs, fences, archaic plants, factories and power stations.

Some things just very very random. I am tempted to write a top 20 "things that spin me out" list, but I couldnt stop at 50. Im closer in time to Perth than Portugal. The photo below is the veranda of the house we stayed in - nice view for after work beers but over that mountain range is Iran. The commercial version of the 4WD pride of the Russian military. Like the old Land Rover it has about 2t of steel and goes anywhere. Luckily no-one allowed me to test that, although I was very happy not to drive on some of the roads we went on. Look at the slopes behind - we're at the top of the hill......

I later stood on the church roof to have photos taken. Why? Because its a nice view. That must be offensive to someone - Armenia is pretty religious even after the Soviet times.

...and in London's defence

Re-reading my last post Im struck by how much I DON’T identify as English. Which is ironic given that (dare I admit it) I was actually born there and feel of it as another home. Its doubly ironic given Im considering living there again. since living in a non-English speaking country seems to have made anywhere I hear English seem more homely. certainly London and Dublin have seemed more like home quicker than Canada did after a month in 2000, or NYC did in 3 days.

I tend to have an identity crisis when I go there – I tend to drink with Australians, unless Im in the East End or with the handful of English people that know who I am noone would know I was born there. I was wrong when I described Perth as the westernmost Australian city as West London from Willesden to Fulham is Australian (I even walked past AFL training in Fulham with a guilty conscience I wasnt going for a run). Little Australia is something Im proud of and ashamed of. Whenever I meet my mates over there I love the fact that theyre doing more interesting things than we used to in Australia, that they all seem to be living a bit seat of the pants, relying on wits and a bit of talk at times to get in the door and get ahead.

On the other hand us “bloody” Australians can be annoying at times. Theres a difference between the enjoyment factor and the yobbo factor, those that live and love London and those that come for the party and dont leave Earls Court. Like the drunken blonde hanging outside the male toilets after the Boat Race trying to charm an Englishman with “Im Australian, you should go to Australia as you’ll pick up a hot girl like me”. Aussies have been doing that in London for 40-odd years now and it’s a bit old hat. She asked me what I thought of her and I said she was nice, to which she wailed to anyone that would listen “Whats wrong with me?!” The gentle art of giving a compliment. And I still cant believe anyone drinks Fosters.

So anyway London. What Id forgotten was just how busy it was, planes overhead every 5 minutes, how many people there are in the streets normally let alone when everyone decides to go to the same event like the Boat Race. But its comforting too, in a way that a city I haven’t lived in as an adult shouldn’t be, home in a way that shouldn’t feel so homely to a foreigner. It might just be the way London is and has been through the ages – the Aussie “gift of the gab” is like the Irish “silver tongue” and the cockney “sweet-talk” which worked so well making a quid in the past.

I never get a map of London when Im there through some pigheaded notion that I know my way around. Even when I stay in Earls Court/Hammersmith and have never consciously been there in my life. And strangely enough it kinda works (except about 3am!) – further proof that London is a part of me. For a similar reason I don’t go sightseeing, I go for a wander or sit around people watching, if theres something interesting on the way (which usually isn’t planned since I only half know where I am!) I go and ‘check’ I know it, since some I remember, some I don’t and at least if I have an adult memory I can better correlate my childhood ones. By the way the Albert memorial is still there.
Walking in Hyde Park – only for tourists or for Londoners too?

Fashion victims at the V&A, the old guys in Portugal are up with it FLAT CAPS ARE IN!!!!!

The best thing about England is that there is no real “English”. The same restaurant I overheard the “repellent” in I also had a couple next to me able to call the waiter in Chinese and generally be very savvy (which doesn’t sound special until I mention they weren’t just not Chinese they were also mixed race. But I shouldn’t have to should I?!). And thats why I felt bad on the plane after bagging the English since "some of my best friends are English", and at times Ive quite happily drunk with the Anglo crowd, sometimes in preference to the Aussie crowd (for reasons seen above).

After talking about the Portuguese only having their own cuisine I got confronted with multicultural London – hmmm lunch, curry, dim sum, sushi, Lebanese, Italian, or just a Caeser salad. Anyone who thinks sushi is a cheap and/or light lunch should never sit next to me at conveyer belt sushi. But there aren’t any in Portugal, and even London only has few so despite spending 20quid Im OK with it. (Footnote - there is one in Yerevan, sounds like the best recipe for three weeks in hospital with food poisoning doesn't it?!)

You know you're in London when....

1. You get ripped off by a cabby.
First cab ride - "Oh you wanted the Holiday Inn Express. Thats different to the Holiday Inn. Dont worry its only 5 minutes away". Thats 5 minutes back the way we've just come, plus 5quid. Nice one my son.

2. You overhear the following:
"So you went out with the fast set on Saturday night?"
"No I was invited out with the fast set to go nightclubbing. Frankly I can't think of anything more repellant"

I cant put the right tones in there. Those who have overheard these sort of conversations will know what it sounded like. The fact you have to sneer at something you dont like or enjoy, not just say you dont like it, instead its "dull", "ghastly". Especially if its popular. The fact that anyone who did enjoy it would start feeling that something was wrong with them is of no consequence. Especially when within the next 5 minutes the couple talking admitted going to nightclubs in their youth.

Id forgotten how much the English question each other. I met up with a few Aussie mates in London and while we caught up with the news I dont think I could tell you about their lives in as much detail as this couple were talking. It took me the whole meal to work out they were a couple, which makes the half hour interrogation about his weekend prove my point. The English analyse each other in so much depth, make them justify their likes and dislikes or their decisions. It can be nice to get the chance to explain yourself, like me when you havent had so many opportunities to talk through your experiences with different people. But it can also be relentless and can make me very defensive depending on the person asking. I get asked a lot of questions in Portugal and am usually happy to explain our way of life but Ive noticed that I react when I feel the other person is making a judgement on Australia, or accusing us.

I certainly dont find the idea of clubbing or the fast set repellant. This was why I ended up stumbling round Hammersmith at 4am Sunday morning looking for something familiar. Another sign Billo's in a new town is getting absolutely hammered first night. A couple of beers with Paddy in a Fulham pub, then off to Sheperds Bush along with Raz, and a party somewhere with some people and very little memory except the fact I had a couple of Red Stripes. You'd think Id grow out of it at some stage wouldnt you?

Can't upload photos since Im in a BA lounge. Therefore I will leave the narrative for now. More when I have pictures to upload to break up the rant!