Out and about in Figueira.

Yesterday morning I got up and ran round the local park, snapping shots of trees broken by the recent hurricane as I went. Even in the sunshine it gives everywhere a slightly shabby air.

On the seafront various places are boarded up, pending repair from Storm Leslie.

In the land of the Anglophile Portuguese, I have spotted these language errors:-

• The ladies’ toilets at Oporto airport are labelled “Nao fumadores”, “Non fumeurs”, “No smokers”. So ladies who smoke are not allowed in. Where are they supposed to go for a pee?
• In our hotel, arrows direct you to the “Toillets”. I seem to have a bit of a toilet theme going on here. 
• And there is a bar on the sea front which offers a range of “gin’s”. 

But everyone has a smattering of English, even the cleaning ladies. Hounded out of our room by the aforementioned cleaning ladies, who clearly wanted to do an in depth clean even though we had only slept here one night, we set off yesterday to look for the chess playing venue and the venue for the opening ceremony, set to take place on Saturday afternoon. The venues have changed from last year because of storm damage. it was a longer walk than we planned. The map we had acquired was deceptive.

By the time we finally located the Assembleia Figueirense where the opening gathering of the great and the good, with lots of speeches of thanks to sponsors, would take place, Phil was more than a little hangry. Hangry is a term I have borrowed from our daughter, who uses it to describe various of her offspring when they are grumpy because of hunger.

Serendipitously we were close to a little restaurant, Cais do Heleno, where we were served excellent fish, “robalo”, and a half litre of vinho verde, which they have on tap, all for around twenty euros.

 And the view over the estuary was quite nice too.

All we need to do now is manage to get wifi in the hotel room. Currently we go down to the reception area, as the receptionist tells us that their service has difficulty reaching our end of the hotel! She gives Storm Leslie and the hurricane as a partial excuse. We have our doubts.

So it goes.