It was a chilly long ride back from Cabo da Roca, and my stomach was rumbling. Afterall, it was way past eight at night, and this hungry boy could have eaten a cow.
But no deal. My new friends, Komei and Charlotte insisted that we should have a go at the famous local cherry, syrupy drink called ginjinha. And there was no better place than to have it at the birth place of the tipple, a tiny postage-stamp-sized bar at Baixa called an unimaginative A Ginjinha.
The owner smiled as we approached and was quick to point out that they were about to close shop, so whatever that we were about to have, we are to have it quick. So we dutifully doled up our Euros and, slightly unnerved by the ancient poster of the drink’s 19th-century inventor (a cleric named Espinheira), we toasted to each other’s good health and gulped in down.