My wife and I are holidaying in Portugal. We each have a Fitbit watch. We walk the same distance each day,wandering around city centres and castles. My watch consistently has me taking 2000-odd more steps than my wife,which drives her crazy. She wants to swap watches. I don’t. What should I do?
P.M.,Mulgrave,Vic
Simon Letch
A: Portugal is the Escher drawing of countries. Lots of steep,hilly cities with crazy-angled streets and never-ending stairways:you walk up to a castle,turn left at a church,go right at a monastery,next thing you know you’re back where you started,but upside-down.
So you can clock up a lot of steps in Portugal,both hi-tech Fitbit steps and ancient,slippery,castle-rampart steps with no handrails,safety barriers or regard for public safety. And if you and your wife are anything like me and my wife,I have an explanation for your Fitbit discrepancy. We visited Portugal last year and after every 10 metres of walking,my wife stopped to take a photo of a tile on a wall because Portugal is the galactic epicentre of tiles. And I would keep walking because I’m a culturally challenged dolt who already got his daily,tile-viewing fix during my morning shower. So I’d have to stop and wait for her to catch up,then I’d remember how “We’re supposed to be doing this holidaytogether,Danny” and I’d feel guilty and walk back to her. That’s 13 extra steps for every 10 metres and it adds up fast.
So there’s no need to swap Fitbits:you’ll both get exactly the same daily steps if you walk at your wife’s pace and stop to look at every tile on every wall of every building in that stunning,charming,historic,leg-shredding country. Portugal:the ThighMaster of the world.
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