Covilhã

Covilhã - big city, very high buildings, nice hotel and ....extremely expensive food. I couldn't believe my eyes. A dish that I would normally eat in Lisbon with 5 euros, I could have bought it in Covilhã with 17!!! so we looked and looked for a restaurant for quite a while. This time the meteorogists were right. It started to rain. Cats and dogs. Alternatively. Cats, then dogs, then cats, cats, dogs, dogs, terrible rain. Spotted a restaurant in the last minute and treated ourselvese with some wonderful cheap salad and fish. Total bliss. Bliss increased by the arrival of the "green fairies" - I don't have to explain this term for the ones who already meet them quite often. On the nearest wall there was a huge tv screen (football! Manchester with another team), men watching every move carefully. We tried to chose a bottle of wine. Oh, that was an adventure. Our waiter, a guy from Capo Verde, didn't know what was available from the list so he went to ask. He came back. Then we wanted to know if we should take a big bottle or a small one. Oh no, another question. He asked again. Came back. After a few more similar questions we ended up with a bottle of red wine. Showed it to him, telling him "this is the one that we want" but guess what, he forgot-isn't that sweet ? and he came back saying "please, forgive me, I don't know which one it is, can you tell me once again?". He was just too lovely not to tell him. We even wanted to give him a big tip but he left before we ended our diner. Imagine coming from Capo Verde to Covilhã-crazy world we live in.

Green fairies, green faires, green fairies.....






The next day - exploring Covilhã, actually socializing rapidly with the locals just enough to ask for the famous "church with azulejos" - nice church, fast pictures and here we go.

What should we do now? Headed for the mountain to find the almost deserted resort Penha da Saude.Nobody there. Saw some cars, got out of the car and tried to look at the houses. A second thought-why not look closer at the house and see how they look like inside so we approached the window-that kind of window through which you don't get to see from the outside, but you get to see from the inside. So we approached and got to see something-I saw an open book on a table. Second attempt. Got to see more. Third attempt-hey, enough. A guy was banging on the window desperately trying to make us go away and stop peeping in peoples' houses :-)