Walking Tours – Life According to TJ

What a month it turned out to be! It’s absolutely whizzed by and I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment.

At the start of the year I signed up to Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project Experience and have been half heartedly following it through. The theme for April was friends – and I kind of poo-pooed it as ‘not-for-me’. During May, however, that came back to haunt me in a big way! It’s not only Gretchen Rubin that advocates friendships, there’s a lot of research that supports the view that friendships are key – especially real life in person friendships, not the social media kind.

I suppose, if I’m honest, that I’ve largely spurned friendships in the past, thinking I’m not really the sort of person people would want to spend time with, which is largely a result of anxiety, but one thing that this month has proven is I have friends in abundance and my thoughts on the matter have been completed incorrect.

My marvellous month started on May 1st with lunch in Albufeira. Just my friend and I. She is my sort of mate – the sort that you know is there for you, but you don’t have to check in every day. The sort that really doesn’t care what you turn up in as the point of the lunch is the talking and the laughter, not the colour of your lipstick or whose shoes you are wearing. In a way that makes it even better, because when we do go out for lunch we have loads to catch up on and we laugh from start to finish. We also went out with our husbands for a beautiful lunch next to the old marina in Albufeira. My friend and I have been several times without husbands who decided they were missing a trick. Having been with us they now understand how we can take 4 hours over lunch!

Then there was the Wine Festival which takes place during the first weekend of May every year in Albufeira. We’ve always been away for it in the past, so this was our first attempt! I tried really very hard to be sensible about it – I really wanted to find a nice Rose that I could drink – rather than Casal Mendes or . What I did discover was that there are lots of beautiful wines available in Portugal, so why the restaurants all serve the same ones, I don’t know. I also learned that after tasting a few wines they all merge into one, making a choice very difficult.

This was closely followed by a walk around Faro with friends from my first teaching post in Staffordshire. I’ve done this walk before and it’s just perfect for showing people a taste of Portugal in a relatively short space of time. It was a fabulous morning walking in the sun, catching up on news and finished off with a pastel da nata with coffee at the O Seu Cafe. I always find it very peculiar when I see friends in Portugal – so to have three of them all at once was a real treat.

Prior to our return to Bristol we went out for dinner with a group of friends we have met in Portugal – some expats and some who holiday regularly in Albufeira. Over the years we have been spending time in Portugal, we have made some really lovely friendships and very much look forward to people coming out to visit. We do also travel the length of the country to return the visits when we are in the UK, so we are off to Burnley in July.

It’s always lovely returning to Bristol as it provides us with an opportunity to catch up, which generally happens on a Friday evening at our not so local pub. At the start of the football season we’d had a friendly wager on how high up the Championship league table Bristol City would finish. Our first Friday home was the presentation evening which was taken very seriously, complete with food, speeches and awards. This is what I would call typically silly British behaviour – but it’s the sort of banter that makes an evening and a friendship.

We’ve been out for dinner, with yet another couple that we love spending time with, to a superb restaurant in Bristol, Pasta Loco, one of the many independent restaurants that are now so popular across the city. We’d been wanting to go here for a long time and were always too late to book – this time I booked three months in advance and it didn’t disappoint, providing yet another evening of good food, good wine and amazing company.

And finally! The wedding! The mother of the bride was one of my friends that had visited Portugal earlier in the month. I’ve seen her 3 times in 2 months, in 3 entirely different locations, and it’s been wonderful. Whenever I go back home, the bride and her mother are always the first people I contact to arrange a time to catch up. Each time, it’s like the months since the last time we met up haven’t mattered, we just carry on from where we left off. I can honestly say that this is the best wedding I have been to – if ever there was a wedding you wanted to be at – this was the one. Everything about it was just stunning – it was true to the bride and her husband and it was perfect. It was held in a place that was special to the bride and it just oozed love in a way I have never experienced at a wedding before. From start to finish, it was about the love of two people (and their daughter) – and that shone through every moment of the day. It was a real honour to have been invited to share in the day.

In amongst all this there have been so many other things I have done with good friends. I went shopping, I’ve been for coffees, I’ve been for dinners, for lunches, walked alongside the River Avon, been along to watch Take That and danced the night away. I even popped into school in Uttoxeter on the day prior to the wedding. In the past I wouldn’t have done this, thinking there would be no-one who would be interested in seeing me. This time I went in and spent a lovely hour catching up with old colleagues – followed by a Saturday morning drinking coffee in a sunny garden wondering where 10 years had disappeared to.

I am incredibly fortunate and so very grateful to have such a wide circle of lovely, loving and loyal friends around me – of all ages and inclinations. I am also so very grateful that I have finally woken up to appreciate what is there in front of me and to take the opportunities to spend time with friends that I feel in the past I have either taken for granted or just plain ignored. The research is correct – real life friendships matter. It’s a long time since I have laughed so much in the company of good friends and I look forward to many more happy times.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to go on a guided walk around Faro. A ladies craft group that I am a member of, PALS, suggested that we meet up to do the walk with a small company that offers FREE guided walks of 2 hours around the city.

This is the first time I’ve really done a guided walk around a city as I’ve never been overly convinced that they add much value to a visit. I’ve spoken to several people who have been to Faro, enjoyed it, but not found it to be any more interesting than Albufeira, but I have to admit, having a guide really did add to the value of the walk and he was amazing. The walk lasted two hours and took us around the older parts of the city of Faro from the arrival of the first settlers in the 8th century BC right up to the modern day. Faro itself, has seen numerous name changes over the years dependent on who was in power at the time. It’s also seen invasion by Romans, Moors, Jews and Christians, and the influence of each is reflected in the architecture around the town. Obviously, being a Historian at heart, I loved every minute and especially hearing about key historical events from the point of view of the Portuguese. They have a totally different interpretation of the Spanish Armada, for example!

Obviously, I can’t include every aspect of a 2 hour walk in a short account, but there were a few points of interest that I’d like to share!

The vast majority of the city was destroyed in as part of the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, the epicentre being in Sagres, not Lisbon! Following that, the vast majority of the city was destroyed and rebuilt and much of the current architecture dates from that time. Buildings tend to by only 2 stories high as they are more likely to withstand the impact of an earthquake. Despite that, there is still evidence of the original city all around.

One aspect of the history of Faro, and Portugal that I was particularly interested in was that of the period 1467 to 1501. Very specific, you might say! That is the period of history I taught at A Level, specifically focussing on the history of Spain – from the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand in 1469 through to the death of Isabella in 1501. Why is this of interest, you might ask? Isabella and Ferdinand were experts at marrying their children into influential families across Europe. Katherine of Aragon, for example married King Arthur and then Henry VIII. Their eldest daughter (also Isabella) married Prince Afonso of Portugal who unfortunately died. She subsequently married Manuel I of Portugal – but would only agree to the union provided all Jews and Muslims were expelled from Portugal – heralding the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition in Portugal. Up until this point, all the various religious denominations had lived happily side-by-side.

Every town I have visited in Portugal has a street named 25th April. Obviously, I worked out quite early on that this must have some significant meaning – but didn’t know what. It is the day of the revolution in 1974 when the dictatorship that had gripped Portugal since 1930 finally came to an end. This is also known as the Carnation Revolution, due to how peaceful it was. I was quite surprised that the dictatorship had lasted so long, and also, that it had only ended relatively recently. Portugal is a very young democracy – which might also explain why some aspects of the country and its infrastructure seem so backward in many regards.

The beginning of the revolution was heralded by the playing of a song, ‘Grandola, Vila Morena’ written by Zeca Afonso. A number of his songs were banned under the dictatorship as he was vociferous in his opposition and so once his music began to be heard again, that sent the signal that things were beginning to change. His house still stands in Faro and is currently undergoing renovation, and a portrait of him is painted on a wall in Lisbon. There is an alternative version! 1974 was the year that Cliff Richard won the Eurovision Song Contest and that the song to herald the start of the revolution was, in fact, ‘Congratulations’. Now, I could be biased, but I know which version I believe!

Another sweet story that we learned on our walk was the history of the prevalence of custard in Portuguese cakes. The current archeology museum occupies the site of the 16th century convent of Nossa Senhora da Assunção (Our Lady of the Assumption). It would appear that the nuns used egg whites to starch their habits – leaving a high proportion of egg yolks which needed to be used up. These were used to make the custard for cakes and pastries, many of which are still popular in Portugal today.

There is so much to talk about, the stunning architecture, the history of the pavements, the storks that sit proudly atop many of the buildings, the chapel of the skulls, the history of the theatre. But you really need to do the walk yourself to understand the rich history of this beautiful city.

One thing I did discover is that free walks are much better than those you’ve paid for. Our guide’s tip (essentially his only payment for the two hours) was based on the quality of the walk he provided. As a consequence the quality of the walk and the information provided was outstanding. I definitely recommend this walk for anyone who is visiting Faro and for those who may already have visited. It was interesting and entertaining. There was so much more to Faro than I had anticipated and I will be going back shortly to re-visit some of the buildings and landmarks I heard about throughout the walk.