Often when you leave somewhere that you have truly enjoyed being, you do so with a heavy heart. That would not be me today. I have absolutely loved walking round Lisbon, and it is a fabulous place to go and spend some time. Today, however, we are heading east back to Castelo Branco and beyond to Monsanto. Before we leave the lovely hotel that is the TURIM Boulevard Hotel, we need to pay the bill.
We have spent the morning having one last Pastel de Nata and strong coffee before walking back up to the hotel. Tesco bags all packed up (no room for suitcases in TUT), and ready for reloading into the van. We have such class! We head downstairs to reception, where we have the very nice surprise of being let off the cost of parking. As the van would not fit into the car park, they allowed it to be on the pavement outside the front door of the hotel. A saving of over £60 to park in the premier spot. Sometimes abundance finds you in the most unusual ways.
For the first time in two days the Rolex shop next to the hotel gets a view that isn’t the side of our wonderful campervan TUT. In a great mood, we are heading out of Lisbon, being reminded on the journey that each of the areas of Portugal has its own unique beauty and that beauty is everywhere.
We are heading back to the plot of land that we have fallen head over heels in love with – our version of heaven. The Lisbon break has been good in helping us to apply perspective, and the perspective it gives to us is that the region of Castelo Branco is so beautiful that it makes our hearts ache. We love it. We stop in Castelo Branco to see our estate agents (happy to recommend Maria Reis and the team at Remax Castelo Branco to any interested parties) because they said we could ask them if we had any queries. Well right now we have two. Firstly, is there a key to the storage shed so that we can look inside, and secondly, can they help us to open a Portuguese bank account?
The answer to the first is not yet but they are working on it, and to the second, yes, just return to the office at 9.00am tomorrow and they will give us a personal introduction. It is about now that we decide to do something just a little bit naughty. We decide that we are going to buy stuff for supper and go and eat it at CasaBo, and then stay the night there so that we can watch the sunset whilst eating dinner looking at one set of mountains, and then eat breakfast watching the sunrise on another set of mountains in the opposite direction.
What a fantastic night. We fall in love with CasaBo all over again. Yes, there were some footsteps along the nearby road around 6am, but we didn’t care. It was probably one of the neighbours making sure everything was okay. We know we have found our spiritual home and know how blessed we are to have found it so quickly and easily. The bank awaits, and another major step towards Portuguese residency. What a blast!!