Viewing:

An evening at the opera

When my sister and I were planning this Oslo trip last year, I was thrilled to learn that the dates of our visit coincided with the one-night-only concert of one of the greatest performers in opera today… the awesome Cecilia Bartoli. I had to see her. I’m the only one in my family who is into this stuff but I managed to drag them all with me.

It was a gloomy, rainy evening when we went to the Operaen, Norway’s multimillion-euro opera and ballet house. Rising out of the gray and the mist, the Operaen seemed like some mythical fortress of snow and ice. So Nordic!

But really, I was awestruck. This is easily the most stunning concert hall I have ever seen in my life.

Though I was happy to have a wide-angle lens to capture it all, the pictures don’t do it justice. It was really hard to choose photos for this post!

Built to the tune of € 500 million (PhP 30.7 BILLION, just to boggle your mind), this is nothing less than a modern-day temple to culture and the arts. Spending that kind of public money on a concert hall makes a powerful endorsement of music that musicians all over the world, particularly in a country like ours, would kill for. 
Everything from the curving walls of clean blond wood… 

… to practical considerations such as the coatroom and cocktail tables… 

… even the bathroom, spoke of everything Scandinavian design is famous for, and makes a statement about the value this society places on culture and art. If it isn’t obvious, I’m completely envious and could not want this for the Philippines bad enough.

Everything announces the importance of the experience you are just about to have: the experience of music. No usher could ever bring you as graciously or ecstatically to your seat, in anticipation of a wonderful evening, as this building can.

Which brings us to Cecilia.

I’ve always found early music to be a bit of a bore, to be honest. But not the way Cecilia Bartoli sings it. She brings such mastery, genius and spirit to early, lesser-known works, that you literally sit up on the edge of your seat and hold your breath listening to her.

She sang pieces from her Grammy-winning album, , prepubescent boys castrated for the sole purpose of performing some of the most difficult pieces ever written for the human voice. 

And the costumes! Her knee-high leather boots, billowing pirate-type blouse, swirling cape, scarlet taffeta bustle, and giant red feathers added drama and flair to a bravura performance. Brava Cecilia!

I was so glad that my mom, who’s not the biggest fan of opera, really enjoyed it. 

Operaen is the only concert hall in the world where you can, and in fact are meant to, walk all over the building, and all the way up to the roof from the ground floor.

So after the concert, that’s just what we did. With the sunset sky in the background, it was absolutely perfect.

It’s a wonderful, welcoming space to walk, sit, play and see the city, bringing a new dimension to arts that are seen as dull and exclusive. Plus it’s photogenic with a million angles and planes to play with. Camwhores will pee all over themselves with delight. We almost did!

Marlon posed for his Fortune 500/Time Man of the Year cover.

My sights are set a bit lower. Hanggang level lang ng Lookbook and Chictopia, haha.

We took the coolest family photo ever: Marlon and I outside, and Mom and my sister inside.

And my sister took this photo of us kissing. Aww.
I feel so lucky to have been able to watch Cecilia Bartoli in such a gorgeous space. Truly the highlight of the whole trip. 
5 Comments
Posted on May 26, 2011
Category: Wanderlust · Labels: , , ,

Off to Oslo

If you had told me years ago that my mom, sister and I would be holidaying together in Scandinavia one day, I would have scratched my head and wondered how the heck that would ever happen. But life is funny—and awesome—that way. 
One of the biggest perks my sister got from her assignment in Oslo by her Norwegian telco employers was a free business class ticket for my mom. Getting my mom to overcome her fear of flying and finally agree to fly to Europe was a battle and a half, but the free ticket definitely sweetened the deal. 
The last time my mom visited both of us was when we were still living in Singapore and my sister in KL. My sister accompanied Mom on the flight to Singapore and spent the weekend there, establishing a new sort of family tradition we now call “the handover.” So on my mom’s last weekend in Oslo, Marlon and I  decided to fly up and do the handover there. 
Oslo in May felt to me like Amsterdam in March: cold and windy. Fortunately, our first day there was gorgeous. We went out to the harbor, and it felt like the city was doing its best to welcome us by mustering up some blue skies and sunshine. Still, the breeze was stiff and chilly and I had to get used to having different parts of my body be prickling with cold and sweating profusely at the same time.
The Oslo harbor has some of the most coveted residential real estate in the city, and it’s easy to see why. 
It felt like what Robertson Quay in Singapore aspires to, or maybe even a Serendra or Bonifacio High Street with the sea.

It’s so clean-lined and modern, it feels kind of like an architectural rendering or mockup of a future development. 
We waited at the ferry terminal while my sister went to pick up our Constitution Day parade tickets at the Radhuset, or City Hall.

Our plan for the day was to hop on a båt (ferry) to Bygdøy, one of the islands within Oslo’s harbor, to see the Viking Ship Museum and Folkemuseum. While waiting for the ferry, my sister taught us how to pronounce the special letters in the Norwegian alphabet. For example, “å” sounds like “wa”, so båt is pronounced “bwat.” Alexander Skarsgård is “Alexander Skarsgward.” Very Pinoy swardspeak! I like!
The ferry to Bygdøy took just around 10 minutes. From the dock, we walked another 10 minutes to the Vikingskiphuset, or Viking Ship Museum. In Dutch, it would read Vikings Chicken House—kip is chicken!

I went through a phase when I was completely obsessed with Greek mythology. One of the books I read was Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, which combined both Greek and Norse mythology in one volume. It was easy to get into Norse mythology from there. So I’ve always been fascinated with the Vikings. In my boy-crazy adolescent years I used to picture them as hot blond conquerors. Oh, how hormones can distort history.

So the Viking Museum pretty much blew my mind. It contains four (mostly recreated) Viking ships excavated from burial mounds in Norway. Vikings were buried with their ships and possessions for the journey into the afterworld, revealing the dramatic “burial at sea with flaming ship” to be a Hollywood trope.

This graceful ship was buried with a Viking queen, with all her worldly goods: everything from jewelry to weapons to cooking tools to clothes to four of these massive, intricately carved wooden carts. Parang SM lang: we’ve got it all for you!

The scale and power of these ships are truly impressive, revealing the might and skill of a supposedly primitive civilization. You sail, sometimes row, for hundreds of miles across the world’s coldest seas, subsist on dried scraps of meat (basically, tapa) without a roof over your head, exposed to the harshness of the elements. Then when you get there you have to do battle, conquer bloody everyone and sack bloody everything. That can’t have been easy.

After the Viking Ship Museum, we walked to the Norse Folkemuseum, a sprawling open-air conservation area that features recreated buildings from different regions and periods in Norway’s history. What is Nayong Pilipino?

I keed, I keed. This is the oldest open-air museum in the world, so we can safely assume Nayong Pilipino ang nanggaya. I thoroughly enjoyed wandering through this museum, which had everything from houses to schoolhouses.

I love the clean lines and unadorned simplicity of their architecture. And I was delighted to learn that the Scandinavians were into roof gardens long before being green was chic.

Nothing looks touristy or kitschy. Buildings are recreated with careful attention to detail. 
Some, like the Stave Church from 1881, were bought, disassembled and rebuilt here piece by piece. 
We arrived just before closing time, so we were only able to catch a fleeting glimpse of the museum hosts in their traditional folk costume. 

One thing I liked that we rarely get to do was take a nice family portrait. Our last one was during our New Year’s trip to Bohol, and before that, at my wedding. Luckily Marlon was there to play photographer.

The four of us took the bus back to the harbor for dinner at Solsiden, one of Oslo’s best seafood restaurants, where we discussed… my sister’s future. Haha.

She’d warned me that eating out in Oslo is expensive, but I didn’t realize how expensive until we actually ate out. Marlon and I have dropped our fair share of cash on meals, but masakit talaga sa wallet ito. We had a similar meal at Restaurant Red here in Amsterdam, and the value for money there was significantly better. With the exception of two lunches, we had all the rest of our meals at my sister’s apartment after this one. At least this particular dinner was worth it. The seafood was indeed excellent.

Anyone who would have looked over at our table would have laughed to see four Filipinos working furiously to scrape every last speck of meat from those lobsters. Thank goodness we come from a seafood-eating culture na marunong maghimay at magsaid. Ang mahal kasi eh! 
4 Comments
Posted on May 26, 2011
Category: Wanderlust · Labels: , , ,

Coriander & co.

Back in Singapore, our condo unit had a balcony with a tiny box filled with soil. “Look, sweetie! We can plant an herb garden!” I sighed with all the dewy-eyed rapturousness of a new wife. In the three years we lived in that condo, you think we ever got around to doing it? Hah.
It turns out all I needed to bring this long-slumbering herb garden fantasy to life was… spring. Just as a deadline spurs a procrastinator into action, the thought of “I can only grow things outside until September!” provided the impetus to finally start cracking my green thumb…
Which started out looking a lot like a black thumb. The first few pots of herbs I bought died a fiery death, sun-dried to a McCormicky crisp during the week that we were away in Portugal. Burned by that experience, I resolved to try a new, two-pronged approach with the replacements I bought. 
Part one consisted of repotting the herbs in bigger pots. Marlon’s logic: bigger pots, more soil, longer to dry out. The afternoon before we left for Oslo, he biked to the nearest Blokker (a Dutch chain with very affordable basic household items) and came back with these stainless steel metal window boxes.

I did the replanting out on the balcony. It was nice to get my hands dirty, literally. I used to love watering the garden and digging up weeds when I was a kid. I haven’t felt soil between my fingers in ages.

Part two of my survival strategy consisted of showing my herbs some love: by naming them and talking to them. (Alert, cuckoo gardening lola in the making!) I was toying between Fernando Cilantro and Alexander Coriander for the (duh) coriander, but ended up going with Alexander. (I think it was influenced by Patrick’s wife giving birth that weekend in Athens and naming the baby Alexandros.)

Paisley Parsley was christened by , and appealed to my deep and abiding love for paisley. Marlon later countered that we could have gone with Bob Parsley instead and given Alexander a gay Rasta boyfriend. It’s hard to admit I dropped the ball on this one.

I made up for it, though, by bringing Rosemary Gil into the world. A seriously Pinoy pop culture-deprived Marlon did not get the significance of this name. The real Rosemarie Gil won my eternal devotion as the haughty evil stepmother in the 80s campfest, Nympha, where Alma Moreno played… you guessed it, a nympho.

A peek at her IMDB profile reveals a slew of classics such as Bata Pa Si Sabel, Burlesk Queen, Bagets and Nardong Putik mingling with such dazzlingly campy titles as Bruka: Queen of Evil, Night of the Cobra Woman, and Fight Batman Fight! Plus, she played (ting alert!) Tingting Cojuangco in a TV miniseries. How could I not want my rosemary to take after this fabulous woman?

Beside the divine Miss Gil is the only plant that I have ever tried to grow from seed. A species that’s… uh, abundant in Amsterdam, it has yet to be named but has already begun to sprout. My black thumb might just turn out to be green after all.

5 Comments
Posted on May 23, 2011
Category: House & Spouse · Labels: , ,

Sunny days

Amsterdam has been blessed with abundant sunshine for the past few weeks, especially on the weekends. How our lives have changed: instead of driving me deeper into my bed with the aircon on full blast, hot and sunny days now draw me out into the street to do as the Dutch and soak up the sun… while it lasts. (“It’s all downhill from Queen’s Day” warned Rick, our running group coach.) 
One sunny weekend I got to do three things that had been on my Amsterdam must-try lists for some time. The first was to have apple pie at Winkel, a vastly popular (and always packed) cafe on the Noordermarkt. 

The apple pie here is reportedly the best in Amsterdam. I haven’t met a Dutch appeltart I haven’t liked, but I must say this one outweighs and outsizes all the ones I’ve had. The crust is almost cookie-like without being dry, and the filling is made up of generous chunks of baked apple with some crunch to it, instead of the usual mushy, applesauce-y filling. 
Another tick mark on my list went to the grassy hill (well, wedge really) on Museumplein. It’s been callin’ for some sprawlin’ ever since I first saw it, back in January when we first moved here. 

The Concertgebouw (concert hall) is on the right, while the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and Stedelijk Museum (the contemporary art museum, closed for renovation) are on the left.

Marlon and I killed a good two hours there while waiting for a dinner appointment, just reading, napping and taking pictures. Public spaces like these are another reason why I love Amsterdam.

And one Sunday, Marlon and I went totally Amsterdammer-like with a picnic at the Vondelpark. I even wore my bathing suit to the park, as the locals do when it’s hot. Swimsuits and grass still don’t quite fit together in my head, though.

We packed our brand-new/secondhand picnic basket with some chips, beer, cold water, and a light lunch…

… consisting of oven-roasted chicken and baby potatoes with cherry tomatoes, garlic and herbs.

Did your parents ever tell you not to read while eating? Ours did, to no avail. So out came the books…
… and the Leffe Blond beer. This is my passed-out-in-the-grass lasengga look. 

The day was so gorgeous. There seems to be so much magic in sunshine.

It can transform dogs into swamp creatures…

… and goths into happy campers.

When we found a wishbone in our lunch, Marlon and I both wished for more days just like this one. :) 
Amsterdam, all you have to do is grant that wish… and I’ll love you forever.
5 Comments
Posted on May 22, 2011
Category: Life in Amsterdam · Labels: , ,

Fun finds

In between all the trips we’ve been taking lately, Marlon and I have somehow managed to squeeze in some time to pick up some nice new things for the house. 
For the living room, I picked up this clean, graphic-print yellow and purple thistle cushion at Mikkili, a webshop with a lovely collection of Nordic design goods. 
My photo-printed lampshade from Pictureprint was delivered shortly after. I eventually went for the yellow Joya painting to add a bit of color to our mostly neutral living room. Now all we need is a cozy armchair and the living room will be all set!
I did a last-minute bathing suit run a few hours before we left for the Algarve. On the way back to the tram, Marlon and I spotted this wineglass chandelier by Leitmotiv in a little design shop tucked into the Nine Streets. We’ve been in search of a lighting fixture for the dining room since we found out that the Muuto Unfold lamps we wanted are sold out both here and in Denmark, where they’re produced. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that the chandelier in the store was the owner’s very last piece… and was being sold at a 50% discount. Deal!
Installing this fixture was hell on the nerves. It was Marlon’s first time to wire a light fixture. And I was almost afraid to breathe until each of the 32 wine glasses were hanging safely on their metal perches. 
It’s been up for nearly a month now, and so far no accidents or clinking glasses. Just soft light and interesting shadows… just what I wanted!

The change in lighting also prompted a reevaluation of our dining chair strategy. We decided to move the two Tolix chairs out to the balcony and bring in the two white Eames chairs from outside. From “vintage industrial”, the brief has now changed to “clean and modern.” So one sunny Saturday, we paid a visit to the Kartell store on Westerstraat. 

We agreed on a pair of transparent Frilly chairs by Patricia Urquiola, whose designs I’ve always liked. Eventually we can save up for another pair.

At nearby Noordermarkt, we discovered De Weldaad, a store with a great mix of vintage, industrial and vintage-inspired things for the home.

I got a cast-iron trivet to replace the grotty Ikea cork ones from Marlon’s bachelor days.

I can hardly ever go to Noordermarkt without picking up a little trinket for myself. I spotted these adorable teacup and milk jug ceramic rings that reminded me of all my tingaling tea-and-crumpets friends (you know who you are).

For daintier ladies, there were crepes and coffee… 

… and heartier fare for those with a bigger appetite. The little salmon slices and steaks are just too cute.

I got myself a little breakfast plate of toast, coffee and a hardboiled egg, which is pretty much what I have for breakfast. 

To paraphrase Beyonce: if you like it, you shoulda put it on a ring.

4 Comments
Posted on May 22, 2011
Category: Life in Amsterdam, Shopping & Finds · Labels: , ,

Orange fever

Here in the Netherlands, the biggest holiday of the year is Queen’s Day on April 30 (I can’t believe that was nearly a month ago! I have so much blogging to catch up on!). Marlon and I were so excited to be getting back from the Algarve just in time for our very first Queen’s Day. 
On Queen’s Day, Amsterdam turns into one huge flea market. Anyone and everyone can set up a stall on the sidewalk to sell… well, pretty much anything and everything. Around a week before Queen’s Day, people start staking out their spots on the sidewalk with chalk. 
Our Dutch friends from our beginner’s running group told us that our neighborhood is one of the best places to start exploring the flea market. “Wake up early, all the good stuff is usually gone before 8am,” they warned. So that’s just what we did. I’m not an early riser, but few words can rouse me to life the way “flea market” can. 
Sure enough, at 5am, people were setting up their wares along the sidewalks. 

By 7am, the flea market in the Oud Zuid was in full swing and there was a bright-eyed, cheerful party atmosphere everywhere.

There was definitely a lot of junk. Mostly old clothes, which I didn’t care for.

But we managed to score quite a few bargains later in the morning, such as this virtually unused wicker picnic hamper with a four-piece set of plates, cutlery and cups for €5 (Php 300)…

a large green glass jar for €2 (Php120)…

and a set of vintage crystal champagne glasses for €8.

We carted our purchases home and caught up on our sleep. After lunch, we decided to head out towards the city center on foot. On the way we saw the public library selling books…

Some little boys hooked up to a mic singing Katy Perry’s “Firework”…

And bars overflowing with orange-clad revelers.
To start getting into the swig, er swing of things, we got some beers to drink while walking.
As we walked, I realized that dolling up for Queen’s Day entails more than just wearing orange, the national color (after the House of Orange, the Netherlands’ ruling family). My cutesy splash of orange just didn’t cut it. Head-to-toe and nutty is the way to go. 
 
What a tragedy. Cute pa naman sana siya.
Ridiculous head gear is also a must.
This conehead gets plus points for improvisation.
So we picked up some orange headgear along the way…
 
 and decided to be king and queen for a day.

Heading into the canal belt past Museumplein, the general patronage atmosphere of the South gave way to party central. Police presence was noticeable, but there was nothing much going on apart from serious drinking, dancing, and yes, most probably drugging.
Okay pa ba kayo diyan?
Something like 800,000 tourists come to Amsterdam every year for Queen’s Day, and most of them don’t make it past the canals. So to say that the canals were packed is an understatement. Both on land…

… and in the water.

Partying on a boat is another great Queen’s Day tradition. I had been thinking about renting a boat with some friends, but when I saw this mad crush of orange, I was glad I didn’t. It was way more fun to watch.

After boatwatching for a good hour or so, we headed to a friend’s apartment right on the Prinsengracht, overlooking the canal. Outside, some dude had marked off part of the street with some “crime scene” tape and started his own street party, which had been well under way for a good six hours by the time we arrived. “The only crime here is white people dancing,” I observed.

At nine the police came, all Miami Vice-like, to break up the party. 

I think the party people tried to invite the police to stay for some booze and Eurotrashtronica. Alas, this is not Manila and the Amsterdam police appear to have some dignity. So after about half an hour of begging and bargaining, the party began to die a natural death as people flitted off in search of a new and un-policed dance floor.

I guess even orange fever has to cool off at some point. Same time next year, Amsterdam.

3 Comments
Posted on May 21, 2011
Category: Life in Amsterdam · Labels: , , , ,

Restaurant roundup

Babala: Nakapaglalaway.

For the last of my Portugal roundups, how could I not blog about the food? Though peri-peri chicken was half of the dynamic duo that drove me to the Algarve (the other half being ‘over a hundred beaches), Marlon and I found way more than we bargained for. I’ve decided to classify our culinary outings into five categories; it must be all the doctoral dissertation reading I’ve been doing lately.

1) Tasteless tourist traps. The Algarve is a mixed bag of culinary offerings, and the lazy foodies who don’t reach deep enough into the bag get the chaff up top. It’s the easiest to find if you’re not a local, but it’s certainly not the best. I only bring this up because Marlon and I had a nightmarish peri-peri chicken in Lagos’ picturesque old center. The moment I saw the huge serving of fries that came with it, I dreaded the worst—a fear that was confirmed with my first bite of dry, flavorless chicken. After that day I vowed never to take the easiest option when it came to finding a meal.

2) Transplanted expat cuisine. A significant distance up the culinary ladder are restaurants opened by the many foreign retirees that have made the Algarve their home. I lost count of how many listings for British-owned restaurants I saw.

Don’t get me wrong, the food can be really good… like Kathleen’s home cooking at The Village Inn in Estombar, where we had dinner the night we arrived. And where we saw the biggest-ass glass of port ever.

Restaurante No Patio, owned by a British chef, also gave us a great meal at a good value. It was tucked into a narrow side street away from the Lagos town center.

Let’s be clear: it wasn’t British cuisine, haha. The menu was a mixture of international dishes using local ingredients, paired with some great Portuguese wines.

Zero complaints about the quality of the food; in fact, both restaurants offer excellent meals. It’s just that I didn’t come to Portugal craving for food cooked by a Canadian and a Brit.

3) Peri-peri perfection. The vile peri-peri imposter I forced myself to eat in Lagos triggered an obsession with finding the genuine article. Going online after a few days without Internet access, I found numerous discussions that revealed the reality that peri-peri is actually not an Algarve specialty. Nevertheless, I managed to satisfy my cravings by downloading directions to O Jorge, a snack bar (what must be the Portuguese equivalent of Singapore’s kopitiam) in a residential neighborhood in the town of Albufeira.

O Jorge fulfilled my cravings on every level. From the little old men just hanging out and smoking by the door, to the big ol’ Portuguese mamas cooking in the kitchen, to the juicy chicken clothed with spice and smoke… this was authentic Portuguese goodness.

The owner noticed us enjoying the chicken so much that he gave us a big extra helping of the peri-peri sauce, which is basically chili oil. He also agreed to bottle a little for us to take home.

We had to leave it at the airport though, which both of us got really upset about. We didn’t talk to each other for a full hour until we both realized it was pointless to fight over chicken drippings.

4) Spectacular seafood. While peri-peri chicken may not be an Algarve specialty, seafood most definitely is. Before it became a retirement boomtown, the Algarve was all about fishing—and still is in many towns.

At a restaurant overlooking Praia da Rocha in Portimao, I had cataplana, a hearty seafood stew served in a big domed dish. My favorite ingredient was the tiny baby clams that were so juicy and sweet.

Grilled sardines are an Algarve specialty, and we had them at a harborfront restaurant in Portimao. They’re tasty, rubbed with coarse sea salt and grilled, but I found the many fine bones made them difficult to eat. Still, the sardines are much bigger than the canned kind we usually get, and were reasonably priced.

We drove west to the fishing village of Salema, where one of our best meals was in a small shack facing the sea.

Everything we had at this place was awesome. From the sangria tinta (sangria with red wine), to the octopus salad we had as a starter…

… to the seafood rice we had for our mains. Somewhere between a paella and a risotto, this dish alone was worth the drive.

On our very last morning in the Algarve, we drove circles around the town of Quarteira before finding La Cabane, a restaurant highly recommended by the travelers on Tripadvisor. The meal we had at La Cabane tied with our Salema meal as the best of the trip.

A steaming, flavorful broth of garlic, clams, lemon and parsley…

… a big pot of monkfish rice…

… and the best freaking bacalao I’ve ever had in my life. It had a thick, salty crust from being dried in salt, but was fat, tender and juicy at the same time.

The sizzling olive oil with garlic that we were encouraged to drown it with probably helped, too.

As did the cold, refreshing pitcher of sangria branca (sangria with white wine).

What a great way to say goodbye to the Algarve: by taking home a wonderful culinary memory.

4) A taste of home. Ironically, our furthest-flung meal was where we were surprised by the familiar, reminding us of the intertwined histories of the Philippines and Portugal. At Jardim das Oliveiras in Monchique, way up in the mountains of the Algarve, we ordered a few random selections from the menu of the day.

Our starter, the carne asada, was only slightly reminiscent of home, but when our order of “oven-roasted kid” was delivered to the table, the similarities between our two cuisines could not be denied. Kalderetang kambing in the highlands of Portugal, who woulda thunk?

After chortling over the irony of coming all this way to eat a carinderia staple, we fell upon dessert: a caramelly-dark, moist tart made with figs and almonds, which are grown widely across the Algarve.

And for the first time, I found a digestivo that I actually like: a homemade concoction of schnapps, lemons, honey and cinnamon, my favorite flavors blended into a powerful little sip.

Tsokolate na lang ang kulang! But then, that would be overkill. And we’re all about balance and moderation here. Right?

2 Comments
Posted on May 19, 2011
Category: Food & Drink, Wanderlust · Labels: , , ,

About towns

One of the best things Marlon and I did on our Algarve trip was to rent a car. All the guide books agree that it’s definitely the best way to get around, especially during holidays like Easter when the buses are down. At about €25/day (about Php1,600/day… cheaper than some car rentals in Manila!), the convenience and fun we got for our money just couldn’t be beat. It was our first holiday with a car… and now we know what we’ve been missing. We’ll definitely do it again!
The main advantage of having a car was being able to explore the towns of the Algarve. We would hit two, sometimes three towns in a day. We’d set out every morning from our digs at the Rio Arade in the sleepy little town of Estombar…
… and with Marlon at the wheel and CidadeFM blaring on the radio, drive along the big A22 highway or the smaller, closer-to-town N125 for anywhere from 20 minutes to a full hour and a half.
On these drives, I discovered that we’re probably the last people to find out about the Algarve. Waves upon waves of retirees from the United Kingdom have beat us to it. This made finding… shall we say, authenticity and charm a little bit difficult at times. I admit I was disconcerted at how packed and touristy some of the bigger towns were, especially in their old centres. 
I got a little spooked by the sight of so many retirement condos rising up everywhere, eerily similar in their homogeneity to the pastel HDBs of Singapore and the faux Mediterranean-themed housing developments of our very own Philippines. And so many of them were just empty, like sprawling ghost Pleasantvilles, which I found oddly unsettling. 
I’ve never thought so much about old age and retirement while on vacation. I’m not sure I’d like to spend my vacation in a sanitized Mediterranean matchbox. Still, I can’t judge… and I may eat my words when I’m older.
Still, there was authenticity and charm to be found in the towns of the Algarve—we simply had to walk a few extra steps and drive a few extra miles to small towns like Silves, with its red Moorish fort perched on top of a hill… 
… beside a cathedral that waited for a Easter procession to make its way up a winding road, solemnly silent but for the strangely mournful music of a police brass band… 
… and the soft drop of roses onto sun-bleached stone.
We drove to the center of Portimao, where we waited out a thunderstorm and ended up on its lovely marina, dangling our feet over the water.
Looking beyond the tourist kitsch peddled in the center of Lagos, I saw beautiful tiled plazas and buildings that reminded me of some photos I’ve seen of Macau, a Portuguese colony closer to home…
… an old cathedral made new by the festivity of Easter…
… and reminders that Portugal was once a colonizing force to be reckoned with. 
The Slave Market, where slaves from Guinea were first sold in Portugal, now an art gallery 
The old town of Albufeira, situated in a sort of basin or valley bordered by hills, was also pretty kitschy. But the higher we climbed, further away from the heavily touristed center…
… the more beauty we saw, in narrow alleyways and blue-skied panoramas alike.
We also went on longer drives to farther-flung towns, like Salema on the coast. The drive through the mountains to Salema was one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever taken. I didn’t have my camera with me, though, but I’ll always remember it. The town itself was so pretty too. 
Old ladies standing on the main street offered us rooms in their houses. Each house had a name written on it in handpainted tile, giving each of them the dignity of a grand seaside villa. 
We had dinner in a little shack beside the sea and the sunset. It was one of the best meals of the trip.
Our longest drive was away from the coast and up the mountains to Monchique, a spa (a.k.a. hot springs) town. We didn’t go there for the spa, but for dinner. An old goatherd and his flock was the first thing we saw when we got to the restaurant. You won’t see that on the strip of resorts by the coast.
Blazing sun was replaced by cool mountain breezes, and sand and surf with a quiet grove of olive trees. 
On our last day, we drove into Quarteira to hunt down a Tripadvisor-recommended restaurant. It was the hardest to find out of all the places we tried to find on this trip, but by that time we knew it could only mean that we were about to get some genuinely good food.
Before driving to the airport in Faro, we stopped at a small, tree-shaded park so I could nap. I was just so sleepy. It turned out that I was in good company.
When I woke up I took some pictures of the surrounding architecture…
… which had become home to a surprising number of storks. 
I must have counted five or six nests in a single block. And that was all I saw of Faro.
Comment?
Posted on May 11, 2011
Category: Wanderlust · Labels: , , ,

5 days, 7 beaches

Warning: you may experience beach overload!
With five full days in the Algarve and 22℃-25℃ temperatures forecast for most of our stay, I had made beach-hopping our top priority. On the southern coast of Portugal facing the Atlantic Ocean, the Algarve is blessed with over 150 beaches. And they. Are. STUNNING. 
After having seen seven of them (and not even the ones the guidebooks say are “unspoiled” and “paradise”), I must admit my braggart’s pride in our Philippine beaches was taken down a few notches. I’ll speak a little more humbly about them from now on, knowing that there are beaches like this in the world! 
As I’ve mentioned before, our warm waters and year-round beach weather is probably all we’ve got over beaches like these. Because stunning rocky cliffs, crashing waves and endless stretches of golden sand aside, the water was ice cold. I got used to it by our third or fourth day and was even frolicking in earnest by our last morning. I’ll say one thing about the Atlantic Ocean… it sure ain’t the Pacific!
I loved all of the seven beaches we managed to visit, though I liked some more than others. Here’s the rundown:
1) Praia da Rocha in Portimao was the very first beach we saw, on Easter Sunday. I’d forgotten my suit in the little town of Estombar where we were staying, a 30-minute drive away, so we’d had to double back. Then we got really hungry and detoured for lunch, after which followed a long fight for parking that made both of us impatient and cranky. When we finally came up to the edge of the cliff and saw Praia da Rocha for the first time, I almost fell to my knees.

I mean, seriously. How gorgeous is this beach?

We excitedly made our way down a long flight of cement steps to the beach, which was filled with Portuguese families and English retirees alike, hanging out in little beach bars, sprawled out on the golden sand, or cooling off under the shade of the many huge rock formations on the beach, like this one.

Yes, that’s me in my Winner Retro Bathing Suit #1. I would never have posted this photo if I didn’t love this bathing suit so freaking much. I got it on a last-minute shopping spree, literally less than an hour before I left for the airport, at a vintage store on the Prinsengracht. It reminds me of Liz Taylor and fits uber perfectly! 

2) Meia Praia in Lagos, one of the biggest bays in Europe, was our destination for Day 2.

This is Boracay-level sand we’re talking about… and there’s a 4-kilometer expanse of it.

It’s gorgeous, but there’s not much to see except endless sand (mala-desiyerto) and the white buildings of Lagos and Alvor (the neighboring town) shimmering in the distance.

And you can also see a little bit of Winner Retro Bathing Suit #2 ;)

3) Ponta de Piedade in Costa d’Oiro near Lagos is not strictly a beach, but for breathtaking sea views, this tops the list. An old lighthouse is perched on top of a range of cliffs that rise up to 20 meters (over 65 feet) out of the ocean.

Standing at this lookout point, you can feast your eyes on a spectacular, nearly 360-degree view of the ocean and cliffs.

While we were enjoying the view, this little old man with a fishing rod started walking down the edge of the cliffs to the ocean. The path is steep and rocky, and probably no more than three or four feet wide. Can you spot the super lolo?

You can also take a very long flight of stairs down to the Grottoes, where you can hire a boat and explore all the sea caves and rock formations along this part of the coast. It seemed like a fun prospect, but I didn’t want to deal with all the steps coming back up.

Besides, I had already set my sights on a nearby target…

4) Praia do Camilo is a small, sandy cove five minutes from the Ponta de Piedade. We drove by on the way to the lighthouse, liked what we saw… and vowed to come right back. “Let’s just run and take a quick look at the lighthouse, then get back here asap,” I remember agreeing with Marlon. Hah! Ponta de Piedade was definitely more than a quick look. But we did end up coming back to this tiny cove.

You can walk from end to end in less than two minutes (and I have short legs). So we crossed the rocks at the end of the beach…

And ended up in another small sandy hideaway sheltered by the cliffs.

We found a natural sinkhole, far prettier and much less freaky than the big ones in the news…

And a cave whose mouth framed the beach perfectly.

Great things can come in small packages. Praia do Camilo remains one of my favorite beaches of the whole trip.

5) Praia da Falesia in Albufeira was our most convenient beach trip. We simply had to take an elevator from the garden in the Sheraton Algarve, where we stayed (thanks, Ate!) and take the resort-made boardwalk to the beach.

We saw lots of windswept (and I mean windswept) pines and other trees along the way.

Here, we were pampered with shaded loungers and towel service. And I thought we’d left our life of luxury behind in Singapore! It was definitely a nice change.

It was a long stretch of beach, like Praia da Rocha but without the rocks. 

6) Praia do Tunel in Albufeira is just a short walk from the narrow alleys of the old town and the main tourist hub which is the praca (plaza).

This was the most unique beach walk for me. You stroll along a long, whitewashed promenade lining the cliffs, until you get to the very end of the bay and are rewarded with this panorama.

There’s also an elevator that goes right down to the beach. Marlon and I decided to skip the sun-worshipping that day and just headed back to the old town after soaking up the view.

7) Praia Sao Rafael between Sesmarias and Albufeira was our last beach before we bid the Algarve goodbye. It’s located in what seemed to be an affluent neighborhood, so it had its own resort-quality paved parking lot, beach bar, shower and toilet facilities, and even its own logo. 

It was also small and cozy, like Praia do Camilo. Marlon and I had decided that these small coves were more to our liking. Somehow they end up having more to see and explore… more character.

By this time I had already gotten used to the icy waters of the Atlantic, so this was the beach I enjoyed the most. Huge crashing waves can be fun!

If I can only keep coming back to beaches like these, maybe I won’t miss home too much! ;)

2 Comments
Posted on May 5, 2011
Category: Wanderlust · Labels: , , ,

The trip that almost never was

Our trip to the Algarve, Portugal was never supposed to happen. Two months ago, Marlon and I had booked an Easter trip to Istanbul and were super duper excited about it. Then, a week before we were set to fly, I got a text from my sister:
“How long did it take you to get your Turkish visa?”

Wait a minute. VISA?!?!?

Surprise surprise! Turkey is not on the list of Schengen states, as I had so wrongly assumed. I can’t blame the Filipino passport curse for this, though—I really should have double-checked. After a midnight panic-fueled flurry of surfing, Marlon and I decided that the easiest thing to do would be to rebook the Istanbul flight to October (making it a birthday getaway instead) and find a new place to go. Just a week before Easter, this was not the easiest thing to do as prices were high and most accommodations were fully booked.

We decided on Faro in the Algarve region of Portugal because a) we found relatively affordable flights leaving Black Saturday, b) accommodations at some top-rated places on Tripadvisor were still available, and c) Portugal is the home of peri-peri chicken, which we first fell in love with at Nando’s in Singapore (it’s a South African franchise though). Other than that, we didn’t know much about the Algarve, except that it was a coastal region in the south of Portugal, with tons of beaches on the Atlantic Ocean.

Definitely sounded better than showing up in Istanbul without a visa! It turned out to be a fabulous decision. Our five days in the Algarve were simply made of awesomeness. Well, save for one really bad tourist lunch….

And the decisions upon decisions we had to make! The Algarve offers such an overwhelming array of options that we were constantly agonizing over where to go and what to do. Did we want to:

Hit one of the Algarve’s 150+ beaches (!!!) and enjoy some sun?

See Moorish castles and forts?

Explore the colorful alleys of some pretty old town?

Enjoy a scenic drive?

Head up to the mountains for some cool air and gorgeous views?

Spend an entire morning lazing around in our hotel room? (Thanks to my sister for her Starwood points!)

Hunt down some hard-to-find hole in the wall with the promise of great local cuisine?

As you can tell from this random sampling of photos, Marlon and I were practically paralyzed every morning trying to decide on an itinerary for the day, then going back and forth and changing our minds every few hours. But that’s not such a bad problem to have, as far as vacation problems go!

1 Comment
Posted on May 5, 2011
Category: Wanderlust · Labels: , , , ,