Saturday, September 23, 2017

Sept 23 Caldha De Rainha
















This morning we were up early and off to see the local farmers market.  We arrived about 8:45 and it was in full swing.  In fact we had to park quite a distance from the market in order to find a spot.  The center of town is completely given over to the market.  This was in the truest sense a real farmers market as there was not any crafts or junk being sold.  It was all produce (fruit and vegtables) and flowers.  The variety of vegetables was amazing.  There must have been twenty different kinds of potatoes, of every imaginable colour.  The tomatoes ranged from tiny little cherry tomatoes to huge segmented tomatoes which were a blotchy red and red.  The fruit was also amazing as the number of different kinds of apples and pears for sale was huge.   The prices were extremely low as a lot of the apples and pears were priced at 0.50 Euros per kilogram.   Regular potatoes were 0.20 Euros per kilogram.  The flowers were also very cheap by North American standards. Huge bouquets were selling for 5 Euros.  It looked like everyone was enjoying the bountiful harvest.

We walked through an interesting tiled art display in the center of town.  It was kind of hard to understand what the artist was thinking of.   Maybe it was some type of post-modern meets apocalypse.   But then modern sculpture was never my strong suit. 

After lunch Liam and pulled on some cycling gear and headed off for a short spin.  We headed north along the coast into a quite stiff head wind.  The views along the coast were absolutely stunning.  The blue green of the ocean and the green of the cliffs was great.   We rolled into the small sea side village of San Martinho de Porto which has a beautiful beach front and a lively front street.  Liam and I decided we needed a gelato.   Sitting in the sun eating ice cream was great.   The trip home with a stiff tail wind was a lot of fun even though we had some major climbs to complete.

Supper was a treat at a local restaurant in Cladha de Rainhas. 

What a great day.

Terry  

No comments: