Skip to content
Carmel Brennan

Carmel Brennan

Life is a journey

Carmel Brennan

Life is a journey

  • Portfolio
  • About Carmel Brennan
  • Travel Journal

Tuesday,March 14th, 2023

Posted on March 15, 2023 by carmelbrennan Leave a Comment on Tuesday,March 14th, 2023

I’ve spent a really relaxing day again today. I know I’ll be running around for the next 16 days with Carol and Charlie but that’s OK. I’m quite happy to do that. Today I was just making the beds, going out and getting some groceries and of course, I forgot and stuff so I’m waiting till 3 PM when the local grocery store opens and then I’ll get the cheese and whatever else I forgotten.


Charlie and Carole are just waiting for the 4 PM bus in Lisbon. They arrived an hour later by plane than scheduled so I’ll have to find out about that. Flying seems to be on a totally different schedule than pre-pandemic times. When they get here I’ll pick them up but I should have dinner ready. I think I’m going to make some kind of a chicken with curry and potatoes and vegetables. . That sounds good to me and I’m sure they’ll like it. I have plenty of wine. I have some port- ruby in tawny. I have some beer and that clear liquid that the old men around here seem to like. And I seem to have got attracted to it too ha ha ha ha.
I need a kind of chicken marsala, according to my own recipe and whatever vegetables I needed to use. I had a pre-taste so I don’t poison my Goss. Even if I say so myself, it’s damn good.
We have new neighbours a couple from north of Porto and there are three-year-old daughter. Luís doesn’t seem to have any trouble renting out his place. It’s a good location for a holiday for sure.
Oh, I already planned to be back here for March. I’m not sure whether I’ll do a second month but you never know. It’s amazing how the time flies and once you’re comfortable, it’s like being home again.
The bus is coming in in a few minutes, but I thought I’d stop by my favourite Indian restaurant Shaan, and get three vegetable samosas. Carol and Charlie are vegetarian‘s. Generally even though tonight they’re gonna eat a bit of chicken in their chicken Marcella. The samosas they have here are pricier than I usually get in Scarborough. However, the crust is fabulous whatever they do and making it it is the best I’ve ever tasted. And you know me I love food.
The bus here! Yay!!!

A Gift from Sen
Carol and Charlie surviving my homemade Chicken Marsala


Until tomorrow.

Posted in Fine Art

Post navigation

← Monday, March 13th, 2023
Wednesday was a full day of touring around with Charlie and Carol. I first took them down to the town, Zambujeira Do Mar, just to see the way the streets are laid out and the access to different things, the grocery store, where the bakery is, my favourite restaurants and a few little shops . We had breakfast at Restaurante Rita, one of my favourite places overlooking the main cliff in town. We all had omelettes and fries and instead of having coffee, since it was closer to noon, we had pints of beer. That was fabulous. Restaurant Rita overlooks the cliffs at the edge of town and from the view, you can see the old church in town and the white washed houses. You can walk down to the beach – it’s considered to be (I’m sure this is advertising) the best urban beach and of course the Rota Vincentina goes right through the town of Zambujeira. Even before we left the house, Charlie and Carol had had a little walk up the driveway and out to the coast to overlook the coast line along the north of the village. It’s a good way to get panoramic views over a lot of this area. I took them south of Zambujeira Do Mar beach to Alteirinhos beach,up a hill and down a hill from the town. It is a quieter beach away from the hustle and bustle of the village but, they do have a surfing school here, so I’m sure in August it is very busy . It’s in the valley and has a long narrow beach between the cliffs. We drove south to see the town of Azenha Do Mar, a natural fishing harbor. A lot of people in the 1960s, settled here and gathered seaweed and did fishing . If you look carefully, you can see stork’s nests on the rocks. After that, we headed north to the fishing the fishing village attached to Zambujeira. It is called Entrada Do Barca. It’s the one that, as you come down the road towards it, it has the two well known restaurants. I’ve been to one, O Sacas, many times and always have enjoyed my meal there. The other restaurant wasn’t open until this week. Before I had the car I walked there; now it’s much easier to access. If you get to the harbour at 11 in the morning they have fish auctions during the week and a lot of the restaurants go to buy their fish. You can also see hikers coming down the steps on the one side of the cliffs to continue on south on the route of the Rota Vincentina. Since the tide was out we could walk out on the breaker wall and get a different view of the harbour. Ross had walked out there last week but he said it made him uncomfortable because, at that time, the tide was coming in. We went out to the end of the breaker wall and it really does give you different views of the cliffs as if you were out in a boat. After that, I took them up to Almograve to the very, very long beach there, to show them where I met the surfer and learned a little bit more about his sport. We walked to the beach. It happens to be one of my favourite spots after that we went up to Cabo Sardao, which is the beach with a lighthouse, this is the spot you watch the birds you can see the storks nesting on the cliffs and there are a lot of Perigrine falcons around. The lighthouse there was built back in 1915; it was open yesterday, but we didn’t to her through Remax after that, We drove to Sao Tetonio to get groceries; Carol and Charlie wanted cheese, shrimp and olives and things like that, so that’s a good place to get them. At home Carol cooked a cauliflower soup. She only used half of the cauliflower; there’s more to bake today. We had a lovely meal and then watched four epsisodes of the Ted Lasso series that they’ve been following on Apple TV. It was a great day. Thursday I plan to take them to Vila Nova de Milfontes and some of the beaches around there that I really am attached to. I do feel like a permanent resident here; I know my ways around the roads now as if I am at home. →

Author: carmelbrennan

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Copyright © 2023 Carmel Brennan | Design by ThemesDNA.com