In the morning, I watched on my iPad as my phone travelled slowly north of Lisbon through towns in the north of Portugal. I realised, with a start that I no longer had GPS services to ferry me comfortably to cafes with the best for breakfast. I couldn’t even check the Google reviews for a venue before I entered it.
I went on long walks and sat in cafes and thought, for the first time in a long time, without distraction. I wrote in my diary again. Next to me, a boyfriend took photograph after photograph of his bikini-clad girlfriend in various sexy poses: looking towards the camera. Looking away from the camera. Looking at the ocean. Slight pout. Hand on hip. Hand touching hair.
My last night in Portugal we stumbled on a gathering of people in a sidestreet in Lisbon. A busker sat in the middle of them, playing local folk songs on his guitar.