Lagos, Portugal - Day 3

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Today was our last day in Lagos, Portugal. Our family had a quiet morning in our rented apartment.

Andi didn’t sleep well last night because he is still experiencing some stomach cramping and bowel discomfort. He heard back from his GI doctor in Wisconsin yesterday who concurred with the diagnosis Andi received from the doctor in Lisbon last week. Andi’s Wisconsin doctor said it’s going to take some to heal the trauma his stomach and colon have experienced with the bacterial infection and resulting inflammation, and didn’t recommend any change to his current treatment plan. He said some stomach cramping is normal as Andi’s gut continues to heal. Andi and I both wish there was some quick-fix remedy to getting him back to feeling 100%, but unfortunately healing takes time.

While Andi worked on his computer this morning, I blogged and did some laundry. We figured out a pretty good system for drying clothes in this apartment by placing the drying rack in front of the mini-split heating/cooling system with the blower fan turned on high. Now that I know our clothes will actually dry, I’ve been washing everything we brought in our bags!

Mid-morning, Andi proposed a change to our travel itinerary. From our current location in Lagos, we’d planned to slowly make our way north to Porto, Portugal, eventually circling back to Lisbon to return our rental car. The weather has been colder in Portugal than we expected without much change predicted in the 10-day forecast. Temperatures in Porto this week are high 50° F / low 40° F which isn’t warm enough for us. Andi suggested we delay visiting central and northern Portugal for several days, and drive to Seville, Spain instead which is about 2 1/2 hours to the east of where we are now.

We’d have some logistics to figure out, like driving our Portuguese rental car to Spain, but Andi thought we’d be able to do that for a small fee. Our plans are flexible otherwise; we don’t have any lodging booked or other commitments until we need to return our rental car on March 15. Of course, we’ll need to find somewhere to stay in Seville. If everything works out, driving to Spain sounded like a better plan to me. We planned to visit southern Spain later in our trip anyway, and this new arrangement would allow Portugal’s weather to warm up a little bit.

While Andi ironed out the logistics of our new plan, Tory, Aden, and I did some school work at the kitchen table. They weren’t very excited about school, but I promised they could choose our afternoon activity while Andi worked in our apartment.

At 1:00pm, the four of us walked 10 minutes into Old Town Lagos for lunch. Our airbnb host recommended a restaurant called Buteo Kitchen & Bar. We took a chance, and sat on the outdoor patio as the sun was shining in Lagos today, and the wind finally calmed down a bit. Andi ordered a few dishes for us all to share — bread and hummus with pickled carrots to start, deep fried chicken wings, grilled Piri Piri chicken, and grilled Iberian black pork. Piri Piri is a popular Portuguese hot sauce made with red chili peppers, garlic, red wine vinegar, and paprika. We wanted to try this popular dish, but asked for the hot sauce to be placed on the side of the chicken just in case it was too spicy. It definitely would have been for the kids. The sauce reminded me of Sriracha.

Andi had to leave our lunch at 2:30pm to get back to our apartment for work calls this afternoon. Tory, Aden, and I finished eating, and then walked down the cobblestone sidewalk to get gelato. The kids picked their usual go-to’s — chocolate and vanilla. Tory’s chocolate gelato was made with Milka which is a Nutella-like spread that originates from Switzerland. We like it because it spreads much better than Nutella does. Her gelato was chocolately and creamy.

I gave Tory and Aden the choice of going to the beach this afternoon, or spending a few hours at the science museum. They picked the science museum. It’s a shame to visit the beautiful Algarve and not spend any time on the beach, but it’s not very warm outside (even with the sun shining today), so I echoed their choice for an indoor activity.

The three of us walked to the Centro Ciencia Viva de Lagos a few blocks away from the gelato shop. Tory laughed at me for being so directionally-challenged that I had to use Google Maps to navigate us there. I discovered a “live view” feature that shows big, directional arrows pointing where to walk down the street. This was helpful for me because signage on old town streets isn’t always clear. When we arrived to the science museum, Aden said, “Look, Mom, that’s the food market. The science museum is located right above it!” I guess I didn’t notice that when we visited the food market yesterday.

Inside the Centro Ciencia Viva de Lagos, I paid €12 for the three of us to enter the museum. We had the entire place to ourselves this afternoon which was amazing! The small museum is discovery and navigation-themed, which is fitting given Lagos’ history of explorers departing from this city to unknown lands. I loved that all the exhibits were hands-on (as the front desk employee told us when we arrived, “every exhibit is touchable”) and displays used simple explanations to describe the science behind the discovery. Since we had the entire museum to ourselves, a friendly museum worker approached us every 15 minutes or so to explain each exhibit in more detail. He was really helpful.

Tory and Aden learned about navigational tools such as quadrants and astrolabes used by navigators to plot latitude by the stars. They played an interactive navigation game, racing their ships from Point A to Point B using ocean currents and wind.

One of our favorite exhibits was the maps area which showed the progression of maps over the centuries. It was interesting to look at maps without the Americas present, or ones that showed inaccurate sizes of Africa and Asia. The kids and I talk about maps and geography through our travels and in our homeschool, so Tory and Aden are pretty well-versed in where countries, continents, and oceans are located around the world. Still, it was pretty challenging to correctly put together a cube map puzzle that didn’t list country or continent names — only showing their shapes and a few key city names. Tory and Aden worked together to solve this puzzle, and had a lot of fun doing it.

Tory loved the outside boat garden, located in a courtyard behind the science museum. Here, the kids worked together to get a toy ship to float across the tank of water. They also tested to see which items would sink or float, and built a dam for the water using blocks. The patio was shaded and a bit chilly today, but I imagine this is a really fun place to bring kids in the summertime when the weather is warmer.

There was also a pirate ship playhouse outside with a real treasure chest. The key to opening the treasure wasn’t the obvious choice, so they had to think outside-the-box to figure out how to open it. Tory was determined to figure out how to open it (and she did eventually!); Aden lost interest after two minutes. Isn’t it funny the way different people’s brains work? The kids also liked an anchor pulley system which taught them that using a larger pulley wheel meant less energy is needed to pull the rope.

The Morse Code game was maddening and had all three of us laughing. Aden stood on one side of the museum holding two flags in various positions to communicate letters of the alphabet while Tory and I stood on the opposite side of the museum and tried to guess what letters he was communicating. We had the hardest time interpreting Aden’s message because his arms got tired, and he’d fall out of position. Later, Tory tried her hand at being the communicator and realized it wasn’t as easy as she thought.

The last exhibit we visited was a fun submarine playhouse where the kids worked together to keep the submarine systems activated for 99 seconds. At 5:45pm, I had to tear Tory and Aden away from the exhibits as it was time to leave. The museum was closing soon at 6:00pm.

We had such a fun afternoon at the Centro Ciencia Viva de Lagos. It was perfectly designed for elementary school-aged kids with lots of interactive exhibits and play woven into learning. Our experience was made even better that we had the entire museum to ourselves all afternoon.

I think it’s important in our travels to let Tory and Aden pick our activities sometimes. We all should have some say in the things we see & do in places we visit. The kids were so giddy as we made the 20-minute walk back to our rented apartment. “Can we go to a science museum again, Mom? Please!” they begged.

Andi was just finishing his work calls as we arrived to our rented apartment around 6:30pm. He didn’t feel like going out for dinner, nor did the kids since we’d been gone all afternoon, so we decided to order something from Uber Eats. Tory made gnocchi for herself and Aden had McDonalds again. Andi ordered Korean chicken sticky buns and edamame for us, though the meal didn’t agree with his stomach so he didn’t eat much of it. After a month of travels and eating out in restaurants, and given the lackluster take-out meals we’ve had lately, I told Andi I want to start buying more meat and veggies at the grocery store and cooking our own meals. It’s challenging to do that sometimes when we stay in airbnbs with limited cooking utensils or without any spices, but I’m tired of wasting money of crappy take-out food. Plus, I think it’ll be easier on Andi’s stomach.

The rest of our evening was a quiet one at our airbnb apartment. Tory and Aden talked to their friends back home on Facebook Kids Messenger, and Andi and I went to bed around 10:00pm. Tomorrow, we’ll say good-bye to Lagos, Portugal and make our way across the border to Spain.