Portugal: The Great Navigation Era from Sri Lanka

Although located in the Iberian Peninsula, Portugal has always been in a corner. On the China version of the world map, which occupies most of the Pacific Ocean, Portugal is located at the westernmost point of Eurasia and farthest from China.

On the land-based global world map, Portugal has found its own position and become the closest Eurasian continent to America. This is why there is a famous saying in Cape Rocca that "the road ends in Sri Lanka and the sea begins here".

Therefore, Portugal faces the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean trade cannot reach Venice and Genoa, so it is difficult to get involved. In addition, the Portuguese persisted in bypassing Africa to reach Asia, which made them miss the American continent and the opportunity to gain a powerful country in history, but it opened the prelude to the era of great navigation in Europe.

We went south from Spain, ready to enter Portugal. Fortunately, a friend told me in advance that Portugal's expressways don't have railings like toll stations, and you need to buy a transportation card at a gas station or other places to enter the calculation of deduction again.

Before entering Portugal, we saw an obvious place similar to self-service refueling. After stopping, just bind the license plate number with the bank account number. Unlike from Barcelona to South France, there are toll stations to remind you to enter the French highway system. There are no railings here, let alone the border police.

In this way, it entered Portugal smoothly, and the speed limit in Portugal was the same as that in Spain, with the highest 120. But empty highways and speeding cars make you have to speed up. After walking a long foggy mountain road, we entered the rainstorm area, but the speed did not decrease. We still drove the 140 expressway.

Because I drove abroad for the first time, I didn't think about the cell phone signal in advance. After we entered Portugal, there was no signal. Only the blue dot is moving in the mobile phone map, but the specific road and direction can only be seen by the eyes.

Suddenly, it seems to be back to the pre-smartphone era. At that time, the driver of long-distance bus had at least one map to use. Fortunately, Portuguese and Spanish are almost the same. As long as the direction is right, you can finally reach your destination.

Braga, the largest city in northern Portugal and the third largest city in Portugal, looks like Prague, but at least no one in Portugal will confuse them. The originally dilapidated city was even more dilapidated in the rainstorm. After several rounds around the city, there was still no parking space, so we just left here in a fit of pique and headed for Porto. After all, it's not a good idea to get off and walk in a rainstorm.

Porto in Portugal and Bordeaux in France are always confusing names. They are all ports and also produce wine. There was no rainstorm when I entered Porto. After living in the city center, I'm going to have a good tour the next day.

Porto is built on a hillside, and the roads in the city are complicated and tortuous. Not long after I got my driver's license, I finally got stuck on the hillside and was in a dilemma. In desperation, I can only stare at it with a red face and embarrassment, turn around and find a taxi driver and back the car up the hill.

After parking the car, I took a walk along the Porto River. The buildings on both sides were exposed to the sun, and some silk was worn out, showing a sense of vicissitudes. In the old city of Porto, we finally found a winery that is still open, so we sat down to taste the red wine of Porto.

But the sweetness of wine is like fruit juice, which is hard to swallow, so I have to give up the plan of buying a few bottles to take back. Without navigation, you can only ask for directions by mouth from downtown Porto to Lisbon. We use Spanish, the other party can understand, but we can only answer in Portuguese, but most of us can understand. Through this barrier-free dialogue, I know the general route.

After driving for a long time, we decided to try the national highway. After all, the scenery here is better. The weather is still rainy, and the traffic on the national highway is simply congested compared with the high-speed traffic with few vehicles. Two-way one-way lanes can't overtake at all, and there are many big trucks walking in front, so we can only slow down and see the rural scenery of Portugal in rainy weather.

In this way, when we arrived in Lisbon, it was already night. The friend who received us only knew the approximate address, but the mobile phone could not get the route. We can only stare at the small blue dot of the GPS in the mobile phone. It is feasible to walk in the general direction of the city, but once we enter the complex route in the city center, it is basically useless.

We walked in the dark, so we got on the vasco da gama Bridge, which is the most famous bridge in Portugal. At that time, we didn't know it was the first long bridge in Europe. We drove on the bridge for about half an hour, and the feeling of nowhere to escape suddenly struck, which was even more terrible than the feeling of claustrophobia in the secret room. At the moment when I finally got off the bridge, I vowed never to get on it again.

Although after returning from this bridge, we finally know that the place we want to go is closer, but I prefer to bypass the downtown of Lisbon and go by Ponte 25 de Abril. After many hardships, we finally met the people who received us, ate Lisbon's famous roast suckling pig with some new friends and spent the New Year together.

We stayed in a hotel provided by a friend, which is located in a rural town half an hour's drive outside Lisbon, not far from Casca. The next day, I went to the small town of Ise, Casca, and felt the surging waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

Along the seaside, we reached the westernmost point of Eurasia, and the highway reached Cape Roca. The sea breeze is fierce, and there are some Asian tourists sporadically. The gloomy weather and dead plants make the words in Cape Rocca leave no romantic connection. Probably people in China are obsessed with such insincere things as "Tianya Haijiao", so they are fascinated with places like Tianya Haijiao and the farthest end.

Our friend told us that there was little rain in Lisbon, just in time for the rare rainy weather. On rainy and sunny days, we wandered around Lisbon. Sintra is a beautiful mountain town. It is another experience to go to Sintra Palace along the stone-paved mountain road in heavy rain. The first day of the new year is undoubtedly closed, and the world is not always open to welcome tourists.

On the contrary, the narrow and stony roads in the old city of Lisbon, together with the Portuguese who have no idea about traffic rules, are drivers' nightmares. Walking along the estuary of the tahoe River to the downtown area, the Belem Tower, the Monument to the Finder and the most famous egg tart shop are relatively good impressions left by Lisbon.

After a few days' stay, we left the bridge on April 25th, headed northeast, entered Spain from badajoz, finally rested in Madrid for two days, and then returned to Barcelona from Zaragoza.

The tight schedule is an experience of this cross-border trip. In fact, at any time, we always waste time in the first half and eat, drink and be merry in time, while in the second half, we hope to seize the time and catch up. If it takes 30 minutes to stand and 40 minutes to understand, why not divide the time equally?