October 2014

It’s Friday afternoon and we just got back from a day of exploring.  Our first stop of the day was a lovely medieval town nestled inside the walls of an impressive castle.   This one was, as they all are, perched on the top of a hill, but it seems that the owners of this one had to settle for a lot less vertical drop which must have made for a much easier life of it.  At least until some other group of tough guys came on the scene looking for a new place to live.   I guess that this particular town wasn’t pillaged to often as here we are today with a town that’s still intact and occupied.

The castle walls surrounding the town are quite impressive and I would guess that there are more than 100 tidy homes nestled within it’s walls.   I didn’t have the foresight to take a shot from the road as we approached.  You’ll just have to click here to see a description of it.  It seems that this place has been occupied since the Romans.  That’s a long time.  I’ll bet that there have been a slew of renovations since then. As you enter the walls of the city, you are greeted by, guess what?  Tiles.  What else.  We are in Portugal after all. Everywhere you turn there is a beautiful view.  There were several churches within the castle walls. I’ll bet that the residents spent a lot of time praying that the next conqueror to take the village wouldn’t have “terrible” as part of his name. Along the way we came upon several kitties, obviously related, enjoying a nap on the top of a Renault.  Nice day for a nap, I’d say.  Brenda wanted to take them home. After that we drove up the coast to visit the seaside village of Peniche home of yet another fine fleet of fishing boats.  The coast is amazingly rough.
This video doesn’t do justice to how treacherous this stretch of coast is.  Notice ththe fishing boats in the distance as well as the fisherman.  Everywhere you look the scenery gets more and more dramatic.  This sign makes the point.  And let me tell you, every so often a really big one can come up on you.   The graphics are well, “graphic”.   You get the point, words or not.
And nothing says “stay away” quite like a massive lighthouse perched on a huge rocky cliff. Just around the point is a harbor, one of very few for many miles up and down the coast.  The boats here are bigger than in other areas that we have visited.   

I went into a building where fisherman were selling their catch to a broker.  It didn’t look to me like they had caught much.   Quite a lot of fisherman and only a dozen or so boxes of catch. In town there was yet another castle and nestled just outside of it’s walls, a few locals were having a cookout on the beach complete with some nice red wine.  They didn’t ask us to join them.  However, as a group of young women peered over the edge…  Yes, they invited them to join them with much arm waving.  Alas, no takers. Everywhere there is even a tiny bit of protection from the surf, there will be fishing boats.  Launching through the surf is just part of a day.   And just on the other side of the cove you can see a beach.  We saw, lunch!And after an exhausting few hours of touring of course, we had to have lunch, of course.  The view from our table.  Not so bad.  Food and wine?  Good too. The road on the beach is on a narrow spit of land connecting this tiny island with the main land.  I’ll bet that there are times when the road isn’t passable.Well, as I finish this post it’s getting dark so I guess it’s time to eat again.  Yikes, we had better walk lots tomorrow to work all of this food off.  Did someone say food?

It’s Thursday afternoon and we just got back from a day trip up the coast and back.  We are staying very close to Nazare, a small resort town and fishing village.  As is the case up and down the Portuguese coast, there are very few protected harbors.  In Nazare, they have carved out a very well protected little harbor inside of two gigantic breakwaters.   Inside is an interesting mix of commercial fishing craft and some sailing and power yachts.

Most of the boats in the harbor were less than 40′ and it was pretty clear where the pleasure boats and working craft were located.  Not together, as by and large, they didn’t mix.  I guess that the “yacht set” didn’t want to smell fish.

Me, I was drawn to the fishing boats and enjoyed seeing the many colorful boats. In the distance you can see the “other side of the harbor” where the yachts are.One group of fisherman were unloading their catch.  Note that the two boxes closest to the front are full of octopus. or would that be octopi?  Anyway, the other one has fish, or should I say fishes?Nazare has several miles of wide beaches and along the way were large racks of split fish drying in the sun.  Tasty yes?  “Mom…The fish are looking at me!!!  Tell them to stop.” We headed up the coast and stopped to watch the waves crashing up on the cliffs.  I can only imagine what this scene would be like in heavy weather.  In spite of it being a calm day, with no wind, the waves were sometimes crashing up as high as 100′ cliffs.   The noise was deafening.   If you think that these waves were more wimpy that I am describing.  Trust me, you had to be there.
It’s hard to understand how big these waves were and how high the spray was going.  However, one minute in this surf and you’d be crushed.

I guess this is like fishing and it’s always “the big one that got away”.  Anyway, if you look closely you can see some spray nearly up at the top of the cliff.  That’s Brenda standing at the top.  Still not convinced?  Oh well, I give up.  They looked big to me at least…

So, after that, we headed up the coast a bit further to have a late lunch.  We’d have eaten earlier but we weren’t able to find the place suggested as we blew by the “exit” on the coastal road. Anyway, we finally found it.  This beach was several miles long and nearly deserted.  We were told that, in the summer, it is mobbed.   The waves were huge here too.  Quite a few surfers. Interestingly, we drove along the coast through mile after mile of pine trees in what looked like a huge managed pine farm.  Nearly every tree for miles had these cuts in the bark to collect pine sap.  I wonder what this is used for.  You’d think that the process of cutting such a big slab of bark out would kill the trees, but it doesn’t.   We saw trees where the bark had grown back over the old scar. We did spend some time on the beach, no make that looking at the beach.  No swimming in monster waves for us chickens.  Besides, we are told that the water is always cold.  No, I’ll have an ice cream.  Brenda and I are happy to watch others in the cold surf.  Besides, it is nearly November.

Perhaps I should wrap this up for now and start to think about dinner.   I know, I’ll go wake up Brenda from her nap.  Yes, good idea.  Tonight we are going to head into the village for dinner at a place where locals eat.  

We got a bottle of wine at the the grocery and were stunned, as always, by how low the prices were.  There wasn’t a bottle in the place for more than six Euro. The best bottle of port was only 7.5 Euro.  No wonder many places have a sign that says “a meal without wine is breakfast”.   

I guess that we’ll share some wine to regain our strength after a hard day of almost going onto a beach before dinner.  Indeed…

It’s Wednesday afternoon and we have just arrived at Quinta do Campo, a lovely Inn near the seaside resort of Nazare.  The owner met us at the door and gave a breathless description of the 900 year old estate.  It seems that this was at one time a monastery serving a local castle and has been in his family for hundreds of years.  Anyway, they now have turned it into a B&B and they also do a lot of meetings and weddings.  It’s an amazing place.  Check out their site for a video of it’s history.  I hope that you speak Portuguese.  If you don’t, there are words to follow and it’s quite interesting.

We’ll be here for a few days and then will continue north.  Our plan is to book each location a few days prior to arriving so we can be flexible on our itinerary and adjust as we go.  This approach is taking a bit of getting used to for Brenda who gets a wild look in her eye as soon as we are within a few nights of being homeless.  I expect that she will begin exhibiting symptoms beginning Thursday morning but I am sure she will find something really great for our next stop.

Here’s a view of the front of the “main house”.   It’s fairly new, only “hundreds” of years old.  This part, 900 years…  That’s pretty old, I’d say.   I’d love to look this nice after 900 years.   I understand that there is a big space inside where they do weddings.  The next time Brenda and I get married, perhaps this will be the place.  Talk about a destination wedding.   Want to go to Portugal?This is the library where I am doing my post.  Alas, no WIFI in our room.  Imagine… How archaic.  No wait, this place is archaic…really.  However, in spite of the age of this place, the Internet is the best we’ve had yet.   Perhaps it’s not that antique after all. Today we drove from Sintra up here via mainly local roads and that involved many, many roundabouts that everyone takes at breakneck speeds.  Along the way we spotted a lovely area to pull off and enjoy the view of the rolling countryside.  What a view.   Then, we noticed this funky food truck.  Inside was a commercial bread mixer humming away and two women turning out hundreds of wonderful smelling fresh baked breads and treats.  It turns out it is a coal fired mobile bakery and we bought a fabulous baked ham and cheese sandwich fresh baked roll.  We wanted to see some of the coastal areas on our way north so we took some local roads, sans GPS and decided to visit a lovely fishing village, Ericeira.  The town is on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic and there isn’t a harbor, just an enormous breakwater that juts out into the ocean.   The view of the “harbor” is beautiful.  However, “harbor” isn’t really a fair description as there were 4-6′ waves crashing up on the beach in the harbor itself.  This place makes the open harbors of the Bahamas look like a lake.  And, today was a calm day.  This is a real working fishing village with lots of traditional and modern small fishing boats.  The harbor is under a massive cliff reinforced with concrete.   This part was a sort of rugged park area. I walked out on the breakwater and took a panorama to give you an idea of what it looks like.  The breakwater was made up of hundreds of enormous “jack” shaped cement forms, stacked up on one another.  This photo shows how big they are.  No this isn’t an illusion.  They are huge, tens of tons each.  Amazingly, many were broken from wave action.  Imagine what sorts of waves would break something like this.The waves were crashing up everywhere.  I can only imagine what a winter storm must look like. To the right was a boat ramp where boats were attached to a tractor and dragged up a concrete ramp.  Timing things right was a team effort.
The older boats have iron skids on the keel and bilges so that they can slide right up on the ramp.  For the newer boats, made from fiberglass, they are lowered into the water from a crane.  All boats are taken out of the water immediately upon entering the harbor.  The “boatyard” was jammed with all manner of craft. Some were very colorful.  Notice the hard chine with the iron shoe to skid along the cement when the tractor is pulling them too and from the water. Along with the boats were huge amounts of fishing “stuff”.  I was particularly taken by this pile of ceramic jugs.  They are used to fish for octopus. These are left in the water for a period until a local octopus takes up residence.  Then they pull the jugs up and, what do you know, octopus for dinner.It was great fun to travel up the coast today and see the sights.  Tonight we’ll head somewhere local for dinner.  We’ll be here for a few days and then we’ll head up toward Porto, home of the famous wine by the same name.

Along the way… roundabouts at breakneck speed.  I am actually getting used to that and Brenda, hands over her eyes, is too. Well, sort of…

Off to find a nice bottle of wine for cocktails.

It’s Tuesday morning and we are in Sintra, about an hour’s drive from Lisbon.   The weather is very nice with warm days and cool nights.  We are staying at a lovely old B&B that was once owned by the government and is now private.  It’s located just outside of town and like everywhere else in this area, is on a hill, no make that the side of a mountain.

In “days of yore” this must have been a pretty rough place to live where “might was right” and the baddest guys got their way, well at least until a “badder” guy came along.   And, there is an amazing castle that overlooks the town and overlooks our inn too.  Believe it or not, this is the view from our room.  Amazing.Our room is the corner one in the tower.  No kidding.  Nice job Brenda, for finding this place.It seems that towns were generally built within a reasonable distance of the “tough guy’s” castle, where there was some level of protection from the invading guys who wanted to kill the resident tough guy and take his place.

Anyway, towns were built under the watchful eye of the castle.   This is Sintra, viewed from the castle.  In the distance you can see the Atlantic.  The view is really amazing.   I would think that you’d have several days warning if invaders were on their way. The town of Sintra has many lovely buildings.  I enjoyed watching this artist painting in a particularly picturesque spot. Actually, everything here is picturesqueEven the local spring where folks fill up water bottles is pretty. The water at our inn is from a private spring on the property and there is so much water that spigots are left running at times to bleed off the excess.  There is an old cistern that is no longer used out back and now is the home for many goldfish.   The Castelo dos Mouros was built during the 8th and 9th centuries and is quite an impressive place.  I can’t imagine how hard is must have been to lug all that stone around in a time when all you had to work with was brute strength.  It must have taken hundreds of years and many laborers to build it.  I would think that if the local “tough guy” asked for your help, well, you helped and said “how high do you want that wall”.   Yes, that’s a real castle.  Yertle the turtle would have loved it here and he would have been able to see a lot. To walk along the top of these walls would induce vertigo in all but the most bold “knights of old”.  There was a young woman who was sitting on the very top of the wall in this tower and to look at her made me weak in the knees, and not in a good way. It is truly an amazing place.

So, fast forward hundreds of years and the then king decided to build a country home on the site of a monastery that was destroyed in an earthquake.   This palace is situated on a mountain top that is EVEN HIGHER than the castle.  No self respecting king would settle for less.   And, it’s a lot more ornate than that nasty old castle.  And for almost 100 years, until it was opened to the public in 1911, it was a home away from home for various kings.  It’s currently undergoing a major restoration.   There is nothing subtle about the Palácio Nacional da Pena.The level of detail is something that only a monarch with access to the national treasury would be capable of.  To arrive through this entrance a king would know that he had indeed arrived and that yes, he also had a LOT of tile. No shortage of bright colors.  I would expect that the castle, in subtle granite tones, would have been painted like this if there had been a Home Depot nearby. I wonder if the king ever polled his subjects asking “What do you think?  Should I go for more earth tones?”Yes, tile everywhere and a really nice courtyard. Charming spot for an intimate dinner.  Perhaps we could take some cues from this for our dinners at home.  Great centerpiece.  Subtle like the rest of the place. Anyway, not a bad spot to visit.  However, it’s a really LONG WAY UP to get there and I would imagine that this was a place that the monarch would only visit for a really LONG weekend.  “Oh Jasper, could you go into town and get me some more port?”  “Yes, right away your Majesty.  I’ll be back in just two days time.”

Today, visitors take a bus and it’s still a long way up, both ways, to visit.  We were pretty pooped at the end of the day.

Yes, Sintra is indeed a lovely spot.  And, it makes me appreciate even more that I live in a softer, gentler time, when life is not so “brutish and short”, well at least not for me.  However, if I couldn’t be the “king of all that I could see”.  To be king, well that wouldn’t be very nice.  Yes, I’d like that a lot.

“Bob, Bob, snap out of it. You’re just a little guy and back then you’d have been fetching firewood for the king and if you were really lucky, port!”  

Yea, I guess…

Perhaps a drive in the car is more my speed.   Yes, I could do that… 

Well, it’s Monday morning and yesterday we left Lisbon to head to Sintra.  We went back to the airport pick up a car and drove from there.  We plan on keeping the car for much of the rest of our trip as the rental is amazingly inexpensive at less than ten Euros per day and having a car gives us a lot more flexibility.   It will also be good for us as we plan on exploring some of the smaller towns along the way as we head north to Porto near the boarder with Spain.

Saturday we did a lot of walking, a great deal more than planned, in large part, because I got us really lost as it was getting dark.  Brenda loved that little bonus, let me tell you.  We were both plenty sweaty after that debacle.

“This way, I’m sure it is, you know, down the hill.  No wait, it’s back that way.  Hello, can you speak English?  WHERE ARE WE?”  Where’s Google Maps when you need them?

Funny how the streets look different when it’s dark.  During the day we explored the waterfront area of Lisbon, where a lot of museums are located.  So as to not completely exhaust ourselves, we decided to focus on just a single one, that and another 18,000 steps, the Museu de Marinha, recognized as one of the finest maritime museums in all of Europe.  I have to say that I agree with this statement, even if I haven’t been to many of them.  The displays told the story of the maritime history of Portugal.  What a terrific collection.

The museum is housed in an old monastery.  And let me tell you, this place must have been the home to a LOT of monks.  It is a HUGE building and the museum didn’t take up nearly half of it. The story of Portugal’s nautical history is told through a seemingly endless collection of scale models, many of which I understand were built by the staff of the museum.  I guess that tile work isn’t the only thing that Portuguese do well. They were constructed in exquisite detail and many were quite large, up to 8′ in length.  I took a lot of photos but most of them didn’t turn out that well as the rooms were not brightly lit.   However, here are a few examples.  There were dozens of glass cases packed with ship models. The detail on this one, like most, was amazing. The detail, down to the smallest gun was amazing. I really liked this little model of a boat for laying mines.There was also a room just packed with full size and beautifully preserved classic craft and royal barges.  The “queen” of the fleet had it’s last official visitor when Queen Elizabeth II visited, I think in the 50s.  And, the staff was nice enough to put most of the explanations in both Potuguese and English.  How thoughtful.With 80 rowers heaven help the one that got out of sync.  What a mess.  Off with his head!!!  How about this ornate stern?  Too bad that the queen wouldn’t have been able to see this while she toured about. While not good enough for QE II, this is quite a gig as well.   Perhaps for a minor prince.  Hmm…There are also a number of early amphibious aircraft on display. This is a particularly lovely Grumman.This wooden amphibian was built in 1917.  It’s hard to believe that it was less than 100 years ago.  Imagine what things will look like in another 100.  If Al Gore is right, we’ll have lots more amphibious craft to get around. Late afternoon we stopped at a lovely cafe for an “adult beverage”.  What a spot. There are great cafes all over.  Looks very “European” doesn’t it?  Wait, we are in Europe.The locals are not subject to pastry shortages, or are we.   Us visitors do have to keep up our strength.  Seeing the trolleys rumble past just completed the moment.
There are an amazing number of sights to see in Lisbon.  Bummer that we couldn’t spend our entire month there.  So many monuments so the golden age of exploration.  How about this jutting out into the harbor.  Really big…And impressive.  It must be frustrating to have gone from the “age of exploration” to the “age of austerity”.  Well, it’s taken two days to get this post down as the internet access isn’t so great here in the 19th century chateau where we are staying in Sintra.  I’ll just have to promise you a treat when I post about this magnificent spot.  Where else can you look out of your window and see a huge castle looming on the mountain top just outside?

Besides, breakfast awaits.