Mertola, Portugal

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Rough start to our day—

Aden was awake for most of the night sniffling. It appears that he caught a cold, and so did I. We can’t escape the germs on this trip! Poor Aden sounded absolutely miserable this morning, and I didn’t have any medicine to give him. We’d have to stop at the pharmacy later as we departed Setenil de las Bodegas.

Andi’s health is still on the iffy side, too. He isn’t experiencing diarrhea or vomiting like he was, but stomach cramps still come and go. Andi said the cramps are different than before — now they are more of a stabbing pain in his side. After much deliberation, Andi and I decided that if things aren’t any better for him by the time we get to Lisbon, Portugal next week that we’ll call it quits on our Europe trip and return home to Wisconsin.

Eating a bland diet continues to be a challenge for Andi while we’re traveling. We don’t always have our own groceries between lodging, and it can be tough to find suitable foods while eating in restaurants. Andi said he’s never eaten so much grilled chicken in his life! Or, he orders grilled fish, rice, or boiled vegetables if we can find it on the menu. Long story short, Andi’s doing the best he can to manage his stomach issues while traveling, but it’s been a challenge.

We’ve gone back and forth about returning to Wisconsin, or staying the course with our travel plans. There have been many moments over the past five weeks where one of us was ready to hop on a plane and forget all this, but like everything in life — it’s not as simple as that.

For one, we’re not in a convenient place to get a flight home which would mean several connection flights and a string of long travel days. It was also expensive to fly from the USA to Europe, and it’ll be expensive to return someday to see parts of the world that are close to us now. Returning home early, we’d also be giving up on our aspiration to travel in Europe as a family. Tory and Aden are growing up quickly; the time to travel together is now. As soon as we return to our lives in Wisconsin, we’ll all slip back into our regular routines and end up spending less family time together. We can say this won’t happen, but we know it’s true.

All that to say, Andi and I aren’t willing to throw in the towel on our Europe trip just yet. Onward we go — even when some days, like today, are a little bumpy.

This morning, Andi and I worked together to pack our bags and return the airbnb rental the way we found it. My head felt like it was going to explode, but I pushed through to get the job done.

As the four of us carried our luggage down the cobblestone streets of Setenil de las Bodegas, I couldn’t help but snap another photo of this beautiful village. This Spanish pueblo blanco — wow! I have truly never seen a place like this. It is absolutely stunning!

We had a longer drive day today. We left Setenil de las Bodegas, and drove four hours west to Mertola, Portugal. Our driving route brought us back through the city of Seville, and from there we traveled the same highway we did last week across the Spain / Portugal border.

Before we left the Pueblos Blancos area, Andi stopped at a pharmacy to buy cold medicine for Aden and I. My head was throbbing, and it felt like someone was tickling a feather behind my eyes. Aden didn’t look much better. His face was white as a ghost and snot was running from his nose. Tory was not pleased to be sitting beside Aden in the backseat. She scolded him for littering his used kleenexes on the seat. Eventually, Tory tied her coat across the backseat of the car to divide their space.

Not more than 20 minutes after we left Setenil de las Bodegas, Aden threw up in the backseat. I knew it was coming, so I had one of my trusty gallon-size ziplocs at the ready. I never travel without a few ziplocs in my bag because they’re excellent for catching kid puke — sturdy, the right size, and they zip closed to contain the mess.

I’m pretty sure it was drainage running down Aden’s throat that caused him to throw up. He seemed to perk up afterwards, and didn’t throw up again the rest of the day. Of course, he did throw up the medicine we’d just given him outside the pharmacy. Andi and I decided we needed to get some food in his belly before we tried giving Aden cold meds again.

Once we made it past the city of Seville, we decided to find somewhere to eat lunch. We passed an IKEA from the highway and I half-joked to Andi that it would’ve been a good place to stop for lunch. We passed by a mall shopping area, too, but it was too late to get over several lanes of traffic to go there. Plus, it was raining, and that always complicates things. In that moment, all I wanted was for something easy to eat. Why can’t figuring things out while traveling ever be easy?

As Andi continued driving, I searched for lunch options on Google Maps. Every restaurant name was in Spanish, of course, and all the food menus listed fish. “Which way? Andi asked. “On the left or the right? Where do you want me to stop? Perferably somewhere close to the highway,” he said. I know he was trying his best to navigate us through traffic and the rain. “I don’t know!” I shouted back, a bit too aggressively. I didn’t feel well, and I didn’t want to be the one to make a decision. But I did. I picked a restaurant close to the highway called Venta Pazo.

As predicted, most of the menu was fish — and not just normal fish, but soke, hake, and swordfish just to name a few. The restaurant had some meat options, too, like sangre encebollada (blood and onions), cola de toro (bull’s tail), tripe stew, and rinones al jerez (kidneys in cherry sauce). Yikes!

Luckily, we were able to order spaghetti from the restaurant menu for Tory and Aden. I ordered grilled chicken with french fries for my meal, and Andi ordered roasted chicken with rice. Actually, the quality of our meals and our table service was very good. After lunch, as we walked back to the car, Andi said, “I’m happy with that choice. I got exactly what I wanted. I guess we should eat at more Spanish truck stops.” Ha.

We crossed the border from Spain to Portugal around 3:00pm. Most of our drive outside of Seville was rural countryside, and it was very pretty. The rain had stopped, and the sun was shining.

Andi booked us one night’s stay in the small Portuguese town of Mertola tonight, just over the Spanish border. This charming town in the Alentejo Region of Portugal is set high on a hill overlooking the Guadiana River. It’s not a touristy town by any means; the kind of place you’d probably only stumble upon by the recommendation of a friend.

Since we are only staying for one night, Andi booked us two hotel rooms at Quinta do Vau. There weren’t many lodging options in town, so two hotel rooms right next to each other seemed like our best option. Tory wasn’t very excited about sharing a room with Aden and all his dirty kleenexes. Maybe Andi and Tory should have shared a room, and Aden and I in the other.

We are only in Mertola for one day so whether I felt like it or not, I decided to go see the sights of the town. Andi gave both kids the option of walking around town with us, or staying back at the hotel to lounge in their room and surprisingly, Tory wanted to come exploring. Aden did not, so we set him up with the internet password and his phone, and he laid in bed to watch a show.

Mertola is a small town, and easily walkable. Our first stop was to the church called Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Anunciacao. At one time, the Romans had roots in this village, then later the Islamic Moors, and finally the Christians. Evident by the circular turrets and stair step details on the rooftop, we’ve learned through our Moroccan and Spanish travels that this was another Moorish mosque converted into a Christian church. Elements of each one of those cultures can be seen in Mertola’s architecture today.

Andi, Tory, and I walked through the church, exiting through the other side of the building to a small museum with Roman artifacts. Before it was a Christian church or an Islamic mosque, a Roman temple existed at this site. Pieces of tile work and Roman columns were on display in the museum, as well as several historical information placards.

From the church, the three of us walked to the Mertola Castle. Perched on the hilltop, this fortress once served as protection for the village. Today, it’s an official national monument and free of charge for visitors to explore.

All three of us were hungry for dinner, but at 5:00pm the only places open to eat something were Portuguese snack bars. In addition to beer, these establishments serve simple tapas, hamburgers, and Prego sandwiches (sandwiches with thin-sliced beef, garlic mayo, and bread). None of us really wanted that, so we decided to go to the neighborhood convenience store and see what food we could find to hold us over until Portugal’s proper 7:30pm dinner time.

Inside the market, we bought a fresh baguette, a package of deli turkey, sliced cheese, butter, an apple, two individual bags of chips, and a 4-pack of jello. Andi, Tory, and I returned to our hotel room(s) to join Aden, and eat our evening snack.

It turns out, the best view of the Mertola castle is actually from our hotel room at Quinta do Vau. We’ve seen so many historic castles on this trip, and they still amaze me! Every town in Portugal and Spain has one. I can’t wrap my brain around the idea of growing up in a place with such an extensive history.

Andi wanted to eat dinner at a restaurant down the street from our hotel called Casa Amarela. I was feeling worse by the minute though, and Aden didn’t look much better. I asked Andi if he’d be upset if only he and Tory went out to dinner, and Aden and I stayed back at the hotel. All I really wanted to do this evening was get some rest.

At 7:30pm, Andi and Tory walked a few blocks to Casa Amarela Restaurant. There were only a few other tables of people there, so they were seated right away. When they returned to the hotel about two hours later, Andi said he and Tory had a really nice evening together. Unfortunately, it started pouring rain on their walk back to the hotel and they were both soaked by the time they arrived home for the night. They had to hang up their clothes and shoes to dry on the towel rack in the hotel bathrooms.

We will be staying in the central Alentejo Region of Portugal for the next few days. Tomorrow, we plan to drive about 1 1/2 hours north to the town of Moura, Portugal — an area known for its local sausages, cheeses, honey, olive oil, and wine.