Moura, Portugal - Day 1

Friday, March 8, 2024

Our day began in Mertola, Portgual at Quinta do Vau Hotel. Breakfast wasn’t included in our hotel stay, but the cost was €6/pp to add it to our bill, so Andi decided it was easiest to eat here this morning before leaving for our next destination. The hotel was kind enough to serve us breakfast at 8:00am since we needed to be on the road by 9:00am. Typically, the hotel’s breakfast service doesn’t start until 8:30am.

The woman working at Quinta do Vau Hotel this morning only spoke Portuguese, but she was very kind in trying to make our meal a pleasant one. She set out special kids character plates for Tory and Aden to use, and served us toasted bread with jam, deli ham and sliced cheese, yogurt, banana bread, and sliced strawberries. The coffee tasted like pure battery acid - ha! - but otherwise the food was enjoyable. Aden and I were still battling head colds, so we loaded up on medicine and Vitamin C at breakfast, and went on with our day. No other choice but to do so while traveling…

This morning, we planned to visit the town of Moura, Portugal about 75 minutes north of Mertola. We are looking forward to staying in Moura for the next few days at a property called Burrico D'orada. Typically, Andi and I don’t like booking accommodations ahead of time in our travels to allow for more flexibility, but we knew we wanted to stay at this property. The host named Rita has excellent online reviews, and she’s already gone out of her way to provide Andi with recommendations about things to do during our time in Portugal.

One activity the owner of Burrido O’rado suggested we do in the Moura area is visit the Medronho Museum and go for a wild safari Jeep ride. She was kind enough to call ahead and book us a reservation for 10:00am this morning. The safari ride would take our family through a cork oak forest, and also give us the opportunity to see many wild animals of the central Portugal region. The weather was not a favorable temperature this morning (cloudy skies, rainy, and 50 degrees), nor were Aden and I feeling up to adventuring, but Andi and I decided to go on the safari ride anyway, because, well, it was already booked.

The four of us arrived to Medronho Museum, the place we’d agreed to meet our safari tour guide, at 10:30am. It appeared the safari Jeep ride was connected to the museum as a woman from behind the counter greeted us, and said she’d be the one showing us around today.

Andi and I quickly realized our scheduled “Jeep ride” was more like a ride in the back of a pickup truck. We grabbed our rain coats from our rental car as the sky looked like it could dump rain at any minute. Our guide also gave us some blankets to keep warm while we rode along in the elements.

From the museum, we entered into the gate of the Herdade Monte Santos property. It was beautiful countryside with rolling green plains, a few small ponds, and white wildflowers starting to grow in the green grass.

As our truck drove along the dirt path through the rural pastures, our tour guide stopped at a few animal pens to show us miniature horses, goats, fallow deer, and wild boars. She didn’t have much commentary to add, but she did speak some English which was helpful. She told us the baby pigs we saw running around in the pen were three days old.

I was really excited to learn about the cork oak trees that are native to the central Alentejo Region of Portugal, and I thought this was the main reason for our safari ride this morning. Portugal’s Alentejo Region produces more than half of the world’s total cork. I’d seen a few pictures online so I knew the process of harvesting cork from the oak trees involved removing the outer bark of the tree. We saw several trees with bark removed from their trunks, but whenever Andi and I asked our tour guide if these were cork trees, she’d say “no, that’s a strawberry tree.” We were so confused! They didn’t look anything like the strawberry bushes we have at home in Wisconsin, and besides, weren’t we on a cork oak tour?

Our back-of-the-pickup ride concluded about 30 minutes later at Medronho Museum. We thanked our tour guide for the ride and information, glad that it didn’t rain on us this morning. The guide invited us into the museum to have a look around at the exhibits. The small exhibit showcased the various stages of growing, harvest, and distillery of the strawberry tree fruit into Medronho brandy, gin, and liqueur. Huh. We were still confused. So, no cork?

There was a small gift shop in the museum, so Andi asked the guide if we could sample the strawberry tree alcohol. She agreed, and poured a small shot of the liqueur. Whoo! It was very strong and tasted like Everclear. Needless to say, we didn’t buy any.

After the museum, we hopped in our rental car and drove to the town of Moura. The small town has a population of about 10,000 people so it had a bigger grocery store and a decent-sized main street with stores and restaurants. Rita, the host at Burrico D'orada, told Andi we had to make a stop at her friend’s meat & cheese store called Casa Cavalheira. This fifth generation specialty grocery store has been in business for over 100 years and sells a variety of wines, black pork sausages, sheep and goat cheeses, breads, olives, honey, and more.

The minute we stepped into the store, we were greeted by the store owner and his wife. “Oh, you are the Americans!” he said. “Rita sent you.” The owner apologized for his broken English (which, of course, was much better than our Portuguese!) and asked if we could speak French with him instead. Unfortunately, we could not. A conversation in broken English would have to do.

No matter though; the owners of Casa Cavalheira rolled out the welcome mat for our family by giving us little shot glasses of wine to drink (bottled water for the kids) and slicing up black pork sausages and cheese for us to try. He told us that his great-grandfather started this business in 1918, and they still use the same processes to produce sausages and cheeses today.

The products tasted excellent. Andi purchased two different black pork sausages, a block of goat cheese, a jar of honey, and a bottle of red wine from the store. Before we left, Andi asked the owner for a good recommendation for lunch to have grilled chicken. The owner directed us to a place down the street called Churrasqueira O Alentejano.

Churrasqueira O Alentejano is not a restaurant we would have been drawn to ourselves, but it turned out to be an excellent choice for lunch. Inside the door of the restaurant was a big, open grill with whole chickens cooking on it. The waitress seated our family right away at a table for four next to two larger parties of customers. This was clearly a place locals frequented often, and enjoyed together.

Our waitress didn’t speak English, but Andi was able to communicate through the help of Google Translate and hand gestures that we wanted two plates of chicken and french fries. Within minutes, she brought two heaping platters of whole chicken, grilled and chopped, and fries. Wow! The chicken looked and smelled amazing. The four of us gobbled up our meal.

After lunch, we drove to the Intermarche grocery store in Moura, and loaded up on supplies for the next few days at our rental house. We bought the usuals of yogurt, gnocchi, and jello as well as ground hamburger, carrots, and mushrooms to make for dinner tonight.

As we were leaving, Andi stopped at the grocery store fuel pumps to fill our rental car with diesel. This is the third time we’ve filled up this rental car with fuel, and it confuses Andi and I every time. One reason is because our rental car uses diesel which is contrary to what a typical small-sized car in the United States would use. In addition, there are four pump handles at the fuel bays in Portugal — two are labeled “gasoleo” and two are called “gasolina.” All four handles are different colors. I have to Google it every time to figure out which handle is regular diesel. Putting the wrong fuel in our car would cause the engine to explode, so it’s kind of important that we get it right! (For the record, “gasoleo” means diesel in Portuguese.)

Most fuel stations in Portugal require the customer to pay before pumping, so Andi walked up to the fuel service counter at Intermarche to pre-pay for his purchase. Today, the Portuguese woman looked at him like he was crazy, and motioned for him to go back to the pump to fill our car with fuel first before approaching her booth. Apparently, this fuel station is set up so that you pump first, then pay and exit through an automated gate. Who knew! Always something new to figure out while traveling.

Finally, we arrived at the Burrico D'orada property around 4:00pm. Our host, Rita, greeted us at the gate and welcomed us to her home. This piece of land was originally owned by her grandparents who were farmers. They lived a simple life, she told us, working the land and raising animals without any formal education. The name “burrico” translates to donkey in English, and is the nickname of her grandfather because he was a farmer. D’orado is one of the districts in this Alentejo region.

Rita showed us to the rental house where our family will stay for the next few days. She included so many warm, personal touches inside the house such as a hand-written note welcoming our family, her grandmother’s handmade quilt draped across the sofa, and a carved wooden spoon on a shelf in the kitchen that belonged to her great-grandfather. She shared details about all these special touches as she showed us around the rental property.

This house has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. Andi is especially excited to enjoy his morning coffee next to the wood-burning stove.

Right away, Andi and I knew this would be a comfortable place for our family to stay for a few days. He messaged Rita if we could extend our visit from two to three nights. We absolutely love traveling and bouncing around to see different places, but it feels like we’ve been going hard the past week. With Aden and I not feeling well, Andi and I decided we needed a couple days to take it easy and Burrico D'orada seemed to be the perfect place to do that.

Rita sent Andi a message around 5:00pm to say she’d made soup for dinner — would our family like some? We’d planned to make sloppy joes for dinner, but welcomed her homemade meal. Around 7:30pm, she delivered a big pot of veggie soup to our door, with fresh picked greens, poached eggs, and cooked sausage. Wow! What a presentation and thoughtful gesture. The soup tasted warm and comforting.

We spent the remainder of the evening inside our rental house, playing games, eating dinner, and watching How I Met Your Mother re-runs on television. The internet is not great at this property, which makes all of us a little twitchy, but also forces us to slow down and enjoy each other’s company. Rita left a basket of games and toys, and a blank notebook and markers on the table for Tory and Aden to enjoy, so the kids kept themselves plenty entertained. I could tell Tory’s been deprived of art for a while because she drew so many pictures this evening!

Tomorrow, we have another full day in Moura, Portugal. Rita has arranged for us to learn about a unique wine they make in the area called talha wine which includes a wine tasting and interpretive center. We’re excited to see it.