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We are awake early and on the road before 09:30. As it is overcast we don't bother with the coast road up to Vila Nova de Milfontes but drive on the main road through flat open fields.
There isn't much to see in the town, typical low whitewashed houses and seasde businesses shut down for winter, so we drive through and set off for Beja.
Our drive is pretty despite the odd patch of drizzle, first up through a eucalyptus forest then through extensive cork plantations until we get to Aljustrel. The land is scarred with mine workings; zinc and lead but the mines were put on care and maintenance in 2008. Driving through the town it appears to have been affected quite badly, everything is run down and there are a lot of obviously unemployed men wandering around.
Further on the land becomes very wet; puddles in fields and patches of marsh, yet the lake on the map is nothing but a damp plain with reeds around the edge.
We reach Beja and check in to the city centre campsite just before 13:00 then set off into the centro historico only a five minute walk away.
Beja is a strange town, although it it mentioned in numerous tour books it doesn't seem concerned whether people visit it or not. The standard Portuguese cube-stone pavements are everywhere, but there are no black-and-white patterns. What Beja does have in abundance is tiles. Nearly every building in the old town is either decorated with them or has its complete facade tiled. The streets are a cobbled nightmare for the wheelchair; many in the old part have a 2m width restriction; drop-kerbs are rare and most have a care parked on them, in fact we've noticed everywhere that in Portugal pavements are for plonking cars on.
The narrow streets lead to various sized plazas, or placas as they are called here.
We sit outside a cafe for coffee and a regional custard tart. The bill for both of us is €3.00 plus there is entertainment. To get to the cafe we had to pass a police scooter [on a dropped kerb] and now a police 4x4 has arrived. The massed force clamp another 4x4 parked on a zebra crossing just as the owner returns. We can't speak Portuguese, but we're sure the conversation goes along the line of'; 'I was only 5 minutes', 'There was nowhere else to park' and 'you fascits should try catching real criminals'.
In another square a chidren's roundabout is turning to bland music which we are sure is a Portuguese version of Father Ted's Eurovision song, My Little Horse.
Our Lonely Planet book mentions two good restaurants in the same street, but when we find them they are closed and to get up their steps would require an angry man in a 4x4.
As the sun dips behind the buildings it starts to get cold so we abandon the idea of eating out and head back to the warmth of the van.
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