Tuesday 1st July 2008
Miranda do Douro – Mogadouro – Barco de Alva
„… 2 artists (painters) are living in two parallel, but intertwined spaces. They never can see each other, but everything they do is interacting at each point of their timespaces, in a way which is bad for the Art and consequently for the Universe. One of them must die. A comittee has been formed to decide which one should die, and it should be the worst painter. I have been chosen to decide who is the better artist, but I refuse to do it, because one of them is a former friend of mine, a painter-mathematician, and I could not be objective…“
I think we had to suffer both from the consequences of our exhausting bike ride yesterday, as we were both quite lethargic today, without any energy, somehow. Well, I was in especially bad form, the main reason being though, that I had a bad hay fever attack and this usually puts me out of function.
We spent the first part of the day preparing to depart from the campsite, and headed then towards Mogadouro, a little town where I wanted to make a stop to have lunch, to look for an internet connection and to make some sketches. We found the town after a nice drive on nice roads, but there we could not find any internet, and I was too tired to walk to the interesting parts where I could have drawn. The result being that we had only a lunch, and I even had a long siesta after that.
I had planned to spend the night in another little very ancient town not far from the river. We drove across wonderful landscapes of vineyards on stepped hills by the river Douro. I started wondering if the wine here is as good as the famous „Ribeira de Duero“ in Spain, (Duero being the same river as the Douro, just called differently), and my brain went on asking itself what exactly makes a wine how it is, surely not only the river bank on which it grows! I would be curious to taste the wine here, unfortunately Kevin does not like wine. The best thing will be to bring some nice bottles to my parents and to let them invite me to dinner! Anyway, until now I could not find any adequate present for them, so I guess this would be a great idea.
As we finally arrived in the town I had chosen for the night, we did not find it so appealing at the first glance and we decided to go on. I am not sure if it was the right decision, because we were both in a sort of negative, apathetic mood, still very tired, and nothing seems really good enough for us at that time. I hate it when I am like that, but in fact more than anything I hate my hay fever. I mentioned it already some days ago, but it made my life hell as I was living in Germany, from April until October, every year…
But at the end I must say that a big surprise was awaiting us, which could make us think that all that bad mood and laziness had a good reason. We arrived at this place, called Barco de Alva, which does not even exist on my map, and it turned to be like Christmas. First of all it is a wonderful place, the place where the Douro leaves the border, makes a 90 degrees turnd and heads towards Porto, where it joins the sea. The landscape looks fantastic, the little town has it charms too. But that is not all. This place seems to be an embarkation point for river cruisers, and we are parked right now in front of the „Douro Princess“, which, we suppose, brings her passengers –most of them English and American there and back to Porto (or the contrary). I love to look at boats, I can do it for hours and hours without being bored, even if they don´t move, my fantasy does the trip…
But it is still not all. As we arrived we noticed already 4 English motorhomes parked, with enormous tents mounted and attached to the motorhomes, and under each tent was a powerboat, and men working on them with a lot of tools and machines. I kind of got the feeling that there was power there, soemwhere. I really could smell it.And suddenly we saw it, triple plugs were installed in the area everywhere.
Kevin went to one of the tents and asked what was going on. They told him that there was an international competition of powerboats next weekend, on Saturday the qualifications, on Sunday the final. The guys told Kevin that there would be about 50 boats participating, and that we perhaps could get away with staying here for the night, but then wed better leave. And yes, there was power everywhere, of course!
What a joy, really! If you have never lived on a sailing boat or a motorhome, you cannot know how exciting and freeing it is to get a possibility to be connected to mains power. This is the main reason why we sometimes spend time in campsites. But when the power is suddenly there, out of nowhere, and free, it is really like Christmas! And believe me, to plug the motorhome in there into these cute little sockets, was the same as to plug ourselves in: the energy was suddenly back, full power!
So I went sketching at once, starting with the Princess Douro, but my God, these things are so difficult to draw! I think I will try it again tomorrow… I made some other sketches, of simpler boats, and one of the village.
By the way, the behaviour of the village inhabitants was very different from what I had experienced in Portugal until now. As they saw me, they walked rapidly towards me, came very close, and walked then behind my back, stood there for a while totally silent and then went away. I found it very unpleasant, almost scary…
We spent a long part of the evening having a drink outside, on a bench, in front of the extraordinarily illuminated bridge and the Douro Princess. It was simply wonderful. We totally changed our plans, and decided to be here at the weekend for the competition, I never attended something like that, had never ever seen such powerboats before. We don´t know yet how we will manage it, but I think we will have 2 or 3 days around the area, and then come back for the competition. I doubt we will find any place to park the motorhome then, but well, we could park it anywhere and then ride here with the bikes…
By the way we have started a new American TV series, House M.D. Unfortunately without English subtitles and it is hard for me to understand. Oh, and that reminds me that I have a great anecdote to tell about House M.D., but this will be for another day…
