On our way to Coimbra we hoped to visit some sights along the way. In particular, not too far from Évora is Cromelique dos Almendres which is a Megalithic site referred to as the "Stonehenge of Portugal."
First, we refueled the car with gasoline. Leaving the gas station the car immediately began to hesitate and stumble. While Dan was driving, I found our rental paperwork which didn't have much information entered on it except "Diesel." We had such a hard time getting a car at the car rental counter and garage in Lisbon. The rental car counter guy said to fuel with "95." Unfortunately, this was the second one for which paperwork had been completed and nobody mentioned that it was a diesel. Not wanting to damage the car, we trashed our sightseeing plans and quickly began trying to locate a car repair.
The car's navigation system came up with an address about 7km from where we were so we headed there. The address was in a residential area and there did not appear to be a car repair in the area. Despite that, I rang the doorbell on the gate and waited. An older woman, older than me, came out. We did not have a common language. I showed her a photo of the car repair address provided by the car's navigation system. She agreed that we were at the right address but it was not a car repair shop.
Back in the car, this time I used google on my phone which gave me another car repair within about 5km away. We followed the directions getting a little worried along the way because we were on dirt roads and felt like we were once again on a wild goose chase, but soon I saw several cars parked on the hill in front of us and knew this was a correct address.
Using Google Translate, I showed the mechanic our problem and asked if he could fix it. He nodded and in the next two hours managed to siphon all the gas out of the car. He put some diesel in the tank, jumped the car, and after paying him, we were on our way. He asked for 100€ and we gratefully gave him more. He was happy, and we were embarrassed but thrilled to resume our vacation.
The view from the car repair shop was of a castle on a hill. Montemor-o-Novo Castle dates back to the 13th century. It had walls, fortified city gates, and several towers but we just wanted to move on and put incident behind us.
Next stop Coimbra, fingers crossed.
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