Sharpening Knives While Riding a Bike

Just another typical Sunday in Portugal

When you are thinking about what town you might live in, in a country you never visited, you read a lot and spend too many hours watching YouTube videos. Truth be told I was interested in Vila Real de Santo Antonio because I had watched two Americans biking through pine barrens to the beach and along protected trails to a castle.

The pedestrian/bike path to Castro Marim.

Last Sunday

Last Sunday Denise and I ventured off on one of those bike/pedestrian trails. It runs next to the salt ponds where flamingos are currently gathering. There are a few sheep tossed in, to remind us of Scotland … and metal sculptures in case you need motivation.

It is only 4 km from VRSA to Castro Marim … we had ridden there before but had not explored fully. On this trip, I was bound and determined to get inside the castle. News flash: we did not. Instead, we zigged when we should have zagged.

Zigged When You Should Zag

Don’t worry … I didn’t break my elbow this time. In fact, I didn’t have any “incidents”. Instead after visiting a church on top of a hill (which I would have never ascended on a non-electric bike) and viewing a windmill up close, we meandered through tight cobbled streets. We turned left and found this guy.

Que fixe! (How cool!).

Seeing him brightened our day! You see Denise and I didn’t bring many household items with us from the States. However, we did bring our chef knives. As any chef with all his/her fingers will tell you, a sharp set of knives is safer than a dull set in the kitchen. So we had had our knives professionally sharpened every 12 months when we lived stateside. We looked for a person to sharpen them in Cascais and struck out. Everyone we asked suggested we go to Continente and buy a knife sharpening machine. But no … these were pretty good knives and we wanted a professional.

So imagine our surprise when we spotted the gentleman above. At 11:30 on a Sunday morning, he is pedaling away sharpening knives. We approached slowly, pecking away on my translator in hopes of communicating with him. I asked if I returned with my knives would he sharpen them. He nodded as he continued to pedal and then started giving me instructions. Frankly, I had no idea what he was saying. I heard words for “front”, “right”, and “right”. Perhaps he was giving me directions to a storefront.

It was then that Denise spotted a young man standing on a balcony. “Fala inglês?” It’s sad that these are still our two favorite words in Portuguese and ones which we can stay perfectly! However, he did and acted as our interpreter. A few minutes later, Denise dashed off on her bike (she dashes faster than I do) to retrieve the knives and return them (by car). I circled around the block a few times and tried (in vain) to find the entrance to the castle. In 20 minutes, we met back up at the knife sharpener.

Thity minutes and 2€/each later he provided the knives after testing their sharpness on this thumbnail. It turns out, a few days later we saw his bike parked in Vila Real de Santo António. Next time…