On Sunday Dec 1 we took a car trip to the city of Fafe to take a look at a house under construction. Builders do that pretty frequently here, they'll publish CAD simulations of what the house will hopefully look like, while it's under construction, in hope of an early sale. Generally the real estate sites don't publish the actual address of the properties they list for privacy reasons (and to allow the agent to get hold of you before you see the property), but Pat has gotten really good at finding them on Google Maps based on the approximate location from the listing and the basic features of the roof and property. She found this one and we took a Sunday drive to see it.
It was actually in a nice neighborhood and pretty well along in construction, but we decided that there were just too many unknowns (including when the thing would actually be ready to occupy) so we set it aside.
A flyer was posted on a little community bulletin board nearby for a "
ceia de natal dos idosos" (Christmas dinner for the elderly). The text says "Each mark on their faces represents the life experience they have to offer us. ... Our gratitude and affection to all the elderly! May their life examples make us happy elderly people one day! Thank you to these wonderful people!" Such a respectful and tightly-knit society.
On the way home we stopped at a nice little café and Pat had her first
Francesinha, that traditional Portuguese thick sandwich with three types of meat, melted cheese, a fried egg, and a spicy tomato and beer sauce poured over it. Yes, it is as filling as it sounds, but hers was quite good, better than the one Gerrit had a couple months ago.
We took our favorite short afternoon drive to the bird sanctuary, but nobody was home. Hardly any birds. Pat got a beautiful shot of about the only visitor though, a lone egret fishing for lunch.
Then on Tuesday Dec 3 we had a marathon house tour with our trusty agent Bernardo. He took us around to five places! They were all on our must-see list. Fortunately they were mostly in the Ponte de Lima area so there wasn't too much driving involved other than to get to that area. It was a lucky day. Four of the five places were quite beautiful, and one of them was a real standout. After getting home, and again the following morning, we mused over our notes and photos and realized that we loved the standout. It's very unique, architecturally outstanding, has a stunning view, is in a large, quiet, wooded hillside area of lovely homes, but is not far from shops and civilization. Bernardo took some video as we toured around, and here is a one-minute excerpt along with a couple photos. Click "full screen" when you start the video, and "exit full screen" when it is done. We're waiting to inspect the technical documents from the seller now.
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Photo on our cloudy visit day
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Photo in the summer
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(As usual, you can click on any picture, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.)
