After moving to Portugal, we realized that our bucket list had grown to the point where it is now better described as a bathtub list. There are just too many different places to visit in Europe! In Portuguese, we’ve learned to describe it thusly: “É um lugar muito diversificado.” Which means “It is a very diversified place.”

With all these choices and diversity, we decided to just start with the “A’s,” and just knock them off one by one in alphabetical order. We’d already been to Amsterdam, and so lo and behold, Athens was up next!

We were as excited as kids visiting Disneyland when we saw our first view of Greece from the plane (little did we know that would become more than a metaphor despite the fact that it was supposed to be solely a Grecian vacation). Greece! Athens! The Acropolis! Our bathtub list was about to get one more rubber ducky taken from the tub.

After landing in Greece, we found out that Greeks have a very hard time with spelling in the English language.

In fact, they think the 1978 film Grease was all about their country. Even after over 40 years, they still have Olivia Newton John Travolta (yeah, they’re sort of like conjoined twins) greeting tourists. Although they sure looked like the real thing. They even posed for us just like the movie poster. Awesome.

And if you don’t believe the Greeks have a hard time with English, just check out these signs:

If you ever want to move to Greece and need a job, just apply as a translator. Just remember to not parking where you’re not supposed to.

Speaking of translating, after seeing their alphabet there’s no wonder why the phrase, “It’s all Greek to me” was popularized. We’re just glad not to have to learn a new alphabet in Portugal. Although, I do have to say it’s pretty easy to see why this Greek word here is “men:” the second-to-the-last-letter is a pair of boobs. So I think the word translates literally to: “likes boobs.” I guess Greek is easier to learn than I thought!

In any case, we were excited to visit Athens and the Acropolis, although we were told that Athens itself isn’t that much to see. Our cab ride from the airport confirmed that. It’s a rather dreary city, with really only the Acropolis looming above giving it any semblance of interest or beauty.

Our initial impressions were undoubtedly affected by our cab ride. Our driver wasn’t of Greek descent, which is neither here nor there except for three things: he didn’t speak English (and probably not Greek either), he didn’t know where our hotel was, and he had no idea how to get there even after being provided with an address and a map via my phone. He also had no other electronics in his car (which was held together with duct tape) other than the taxi meter.

So the entire way I held my iPhone out so he could see the GPS guiding him to our destination. Despite that, more than once we had to shout out to him to make a turn (repeating what Siri had just said, only louder), just before he barreled down the wrong exit. We were relieved that we actually made it to the hotel. To add insult to injury, he wanted more than the stated maximum for cab fare we saw posted on big signs at the airport, claiming that it was due to the road tolls, which he went through and had paid like a regular driver. I was dubious of this, but gave him the money anyway figuring I just paid for a source of material for my blog. Plus I kind of like avoiding getting stabbed.

Our taxi adventures continued on the way back to the airport. Our flight was early in the morning, and this other driver actually had some electronics in his car, including a GPS. But that was a waste anyway because he totally ignored it. Instead, he raced down side streets like a bat out of hell, with the GPS frantically rerouting itself, looking a lot like the electronic snake in that electronic maze game. The scariest part of the drive, however, was when he hit the freeway. Not only was he driving like a madman, he could barely keep his eyes open! I spent the entire freeway part of the journey with my own eyes focused solely onto the rearview mirror, ready to bop him on the head if his actually closed. As it was, I would occasionally make a loud noise just to make sure he stayed awake; coughs, burps, farts, whatever it took. Carolyn thought I must’ve eaten something onerous, but I didn’t want to tell her why I was doing what I was doing so she wouldn’t freak out. Once in a while I wondered if he steered the cab so close to other cars’ bumpers while going over 140 km an hour just to keep himself awake, which freaked us both out plenty as it was.

When we got to Crete, we rented a car.

Our hotel, called the Jason Inn, is actually a lot nicer than the name implies. Not that there’s anything wrong with the name Jason Inn, but it does sort of sound like a two star flea bagger on the outside of Las Vegas.

But in fact it was pleasant, clean, quiet, and had a nice breakfast buffet on the roof with a view of the Acropolis. Of course, just about everyone in Athens puts chairs and tables on the roof for a view of the Acropolis, but hey.

Despite our pleasure with the Jason Inn, we did get a kick out of some of the construction issues, namely this light and power cord almost within touching distance of our small balcony, and the shower head which was mounted right over the bar holding up the glass partition. We clearly were not in Japan (because everything is made just about perfect there).

Anyway, for this first part, we’ll just show you some of the sights we saw while walking around Athens, and then the next entry we’ll get to the place that keeps Athens from being another Baku, Azerbaijan (you’ll understand that reference if you keep reading).

First we’ll check out this cool street art which was right around the corner from our hotel. When you first see it, it looks like a complete picture of a vampire-toothed purple-haired woman. But as you approach, you see the art was created on different walls. Pretty cool. It reminded me of the movie Labyrinth, which had non-CGI optical effects just like that.

A typical restaurant scene with lots of outdoor tables. The area around the Acropolis had no shortage of places to eat, most of them fronted by a charmer encouraging anyone and everyone to come eat the best food in the city.

We chose this one because Carolyn loves twinkle lights. That, and the waiter who encouraged us to come in was very chatty and the restaurant was not too busy, so we had a nice discussion with him about Greece and even politics. He doesn’t like the Germans.

Near our hotel the local Walmart displays its wares. Actually, it was a street filled with second-hand items. You name it, you surely could find it. Even a second hand, I’m sure.

After lunch, it was time for us to get back in the saddle.

Speaking of saddles, my horse-loving sister had this store named after her. I’ll give you three guesses as to what her name is.

This is a government building protected by two Buckingham-Palace-esque guards. They have a rather funny routine with the changing of the guard, complete with synchronized leg kicks that wouldn’t serve them well at all in any kind of real battle, unless the enemy were turned around with their backs to them, bent over.

We took a Hop On-Hop Off bus just to see more of Athens than we would have on foot. It was a good way to go, except that Athens really doesn’t have that much interesting to see aside from the Acropolis and grey-haired men wearing blue shirts.

Of course there are some ruins here and there. This is Hadrian’s Arch. Built in about 131 AD, it is one of many Roman ruins scattered throughout the city.

Speaking of ruins… don’t think for a minute Europeans aren’t very well versed on American politics. Someone captured one of the prevailing sentiments pretty well.

This may be a response to the above, I dunno. Like most European cities, graffiti is prevalent, and sometimes, like the above, even in English. We were so grateful for this one in particular being in English because otherwise we would have never understood it and wouldn’t have known what we were supposed to be doing.

Unfortunately, along with the graffiti there were other unsightly areas. Athens wasn’t a pigsty, but it surely doesn’t rank high on any “cleanest cities in the world” list. Which made me wonder… and yes, thanks to the internet, there is actually a cleanest cities in the world list. The top five: #1 Calgary, Canada (Woo hoo! You go Canucks!). #2: Zurich, Switzerland. #3: Luxembourg. #4 Adelaide, Australia. #5: Singapore. There is also, of course, a dirtiest cities list, led by Baku, Azerbaijan, mostly because it sits on some very rich oil fields. I guess that’s where the term “filthy rich” came from. 

 

After a long day of sightseeing, there’s nothing like a cold beer to cool you down. Mythos beer was the most common we saw, and it was good! Also, the gyros in Greece are pretty much the same as the gyros you get from the fast food restaurants in the mall, so yeah, you’re eating authentic ethnic when you pass up that Taco Bell for the gyros.

We came away from Athens thinking about two kinds of animals: cats and turtles. Wild cats were everywhere, and once in a while, usually near some ruins, you’d come across a turtle. This guy was crossing the road where he might have had to put the strength of his shell to a mighty test under the wheel of a car, so we put him back in the grass. Like most turtles, he didn’t even thank us.

This is the Panathenaic Stadium, completed in 144 AD. It is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble. Back then it could hold up to 50,000 spectators: a lot less if the home team had a losing season, but a lot more during the first Olympics because the athletes were all naked. Two thousand years later, all we have close to that is beach volleyball and Speedos.

The world’s first running statue. We caught this freeze frame as he was bursting through the park on his way across the street.

Fresh fruit and produce are often artfully displayed, although I’d hate to be the one picking a cherry from the bottom, sending them tumbling in a veritable cherries jubilee.

This Aphrodite is artfully displayed as well. Plus she’s 50% off. What a bargain!

And so Aphrodite made it to the street next to the second hand stores, where she found a row of third and fourth hand stores. By the time it gets to fifth hand, we think it gets put into the small stairwells.

I have no idea what this sign says, but since they have a picture of Bogie and Bacall, it must be a classy joint.

I think the middle store is selling vitamins based on the sign, but with all the ladders it could also be a hardware store. Either way, it’s probably a good place to get some iron supplements.

Next up: the Acropolis.

For our Portland friends, no, not that one.

 

One of the great things about living abroad is the opportunity it gives one to meet and make friends with people all over the world.

Most Europeans we’ve met seem to innately understand and appreciate that there are different cultures, languages, religions, and points of view, and that they should all be respected. They also have an intimate relationship with the destructiveness of war and bigotry (there’s nothing like devastating an entire continent to change one’s perspective for a good long time).

Of course, I think anyone who has spent time traveling outside their home town can tell you that for the most part, people everywhere are generally caring and nice when experienced one on one.

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We recently joined a group called the “Sesimbra International Community,” which is simply a collection of people living in our area who are originally from outside Portugal. The only other commonality is that everyone speaks English (and most of them Portuguese, along with at least one, two, or three or more other languages). Recently, we got together for a potluck. To represent typical American fare, Carolyn made a casserole, and I made a cherry pie. Yes, we could have been as American as apple pie, but cherries are in season, Besides, I like cherry pie better, and aside from the pitting, it’s easier to make. And neither George Washington or I had to chop down a cherry tree to do it.

We were delighted to find the following nationalities represented (and I hope I didn’t miss anyone): Italian, Mexican, French, Portuguese, British, Australian, and Slovenian.

Chatting with someone from Slovenia for the first time allowed me to ask whether Melania Trump, who is of course Slovenian, is well regarded there. I was told that she is (while allowing for the distorted worldview she surely has when one gets so rich and famous). Slovenia only has two million people, so the Kevin Bacon six degrees of separation thing is probably only about three there.

Everyone enjoyed the lunch and all the conversation. We were the only two Americans there, which made it that much more delightful for us, even if I sometimes have to strain through the accents. I’ve never been very good at understanding accents, but I think it’s improving, if for no other reason that almost everyone we speak to has one sort or another.

While many Americans visit Lisbon and the rest of the country on holiday, not that many, percentage-wise, settle in Portugal, and in fact very few Americans live in Sesimbra. As a result, sometimes we feel like we are scrutinized a bit as everyone tries to figure out what these crazy Americans are all about.

Like in so many social interactions in the U.S. today, politics tends to come up in most conversations. What I almost always hear is that everyone is pretty puzzled by what’s going on there today, especially because America has long been a country well regarded by most Europeans.

The Portuguese in particular see America through the lens of movies (almost all the movies shown are American with Portuguese subtitles) and other pop culture, as well as of course through the world news, which is often dominated by the U.S. They generally seem to look up to America as rich, successful, and powerful. But now they are a little baffled as to how this very powerful and rich country elected someone like Donald Trump. I still have yet to find one European who even remotely likes or respects him. When the topic first comes up, I notice most Europeans are initially cautious about it. They don’t want to offend me, if I happened to be a Trump supporter. When I’m able to confirm that I see the same things they see, I usually perceive a palpable sense of relief, and the conversation opens right up.

My analogy about it all is that it’s a lot like finding out your parish priest is a pedophile. Suddenly everything you liked about that priest and church is called into question.

Speaking of pedophilia (something so heinous that even among the worst of the worst in prison, pedophiles are considered scum), in America you can even be a pedophile and still be given a pass simply because you’re rich, famous, or talented (and not in prison). As a comedian we recently watched pointed out, Charlie Chaplin (he married both a 16 and 17-year old) and Elvis Presley (he first met Priscilla when she was 14) were both technically pedophiles. There is also Woody Allen and Michael Jackson as well. Closer to home, my late wife Dolly was abused by her father throughout her childhood years, and that awfulness still reverberates around that family.

And yet Elvis and Charlie Chaplain still command some degree of respect from most Americans. Which begs the question, just how talented, rich, and famous do you have to be to get away with raping a minor? I guess Elvis and Charlie have answered that question.

While Trump isn’t apparently a pedophile (although his very creepy comments about his daughter, including: “…If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father….” and “Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife?” are comments that make you wonder once you’re done being totally creeped out), his other sins are many. But because he’s rich, famous, and promoting a conservative agenda, it’s apparently all okay.

It’s hard to explain to anyone who isn’t American that the American culture has lurched headlong into one that worships two things above all else: money and fame. If you have both, you can pretty much do whatever you want, and many of the rest of people will even clamor for you, even if you’re a known liar like Trump (with a documented 10,000 lies and counting). But he’s also a known cheat (any serious golfer knows if you’re a golf cheat, you’re pretty much a low-life), philanderer (anyone doubt that?), self-professed pussy-grabber, bigot (obviously), and name-calling narcissist (double obviously). Everyone in the world sees this, and can’t imagine what’s going on with America. I mean, come on!

Seriously, if you need a guy like that to champion your agenda, shouldn’t you think just a little teensy bit about whether your agenda needs a little re-thinking?

Most Europeans express those sentiments in a variety of ways, and remain perplexed, because they love America, and don’t understand how it has gotten so far off track.

In the end, the world is a lot nicer place when people from all over the world come together and recognized that we’re all just human beings. Experiencing it in our little town of Sesimbra was a welcome reminder of all that.

Chapter seven of seven. Hoo boy! Writing the blog about our trip may have taken me longer than the trip itself!

Indeed, the delightful weeklong drive around northern Portugal provided a plethora of picturesque photos (I just had to pay homage to the “P” right there, especially since, um, our journeys were often defined by the “P” if you know what I mean… and you’ll automatically know what I mean if you’re middle-aged or later), but we certainly didn’t see all there is to see. I found that out because every time we talk to a Português and they ask where we went, they follow up with a question as to whether we saw this place or that, and our answer always seems to be, “Oh, we must’ve missed that!”

Apparently the things to see in Portugal are never-ending. We know we’re going to have to go back up north again when we get tired of not being bored in retirement.

Regardless, we enjoyed every minute of our journey. We also saved one of the best visits for the last entry:

Tomar

The town of Tomar has a population of about 20,000, and was an important city throughout Portuguese history. The main attraction is the Convent of Christ: a former Roman Catholic complex which also was a stronghold run by the Knights Templar. The castle of Tomar was built around 1160; the Keep in Tomar is one of the oldest in the country.

The towers of the castle were a something of an advancement in that they were built in a round shape, which provides better defense than square towers, unless of course the attack is nuclear.

Originally, most of its residents lived in dwellings located inside the outer walls of the castle for protection. The entire complex is quite expansive; they probably could have hidden almost everyone in the town inside the buildings.

In fact, legend has it that the song made famous in the movie Annie was first written here to make the people who couldn’t be squeezed in feel hopeful that there might be room the next day: “The sun will come out, Tomar-oh, bet your bottom escudo that in Tomar-oh, it’ll be fun! Tomar-oh, Tomar-oh! I love ya Tomar-oh! You’re only a day away!”

I so wanted to show all of our individual pictures and make corny jokes or pithy comments on all of them, but there’s too damn many photos for that. I think Tomar set a personal record for us in terms of photos taken; we were there for quite a while. Of course, I had to share a few separately because they’re just too ripe for the pickin’. For instance in the above I’m sitting right next to a kitchen and I’m pretty sure those holes had something to do with cooking, but it sure doesn’t look like it. It reminded us of the public toilets in the Roman Colosseum and a story of sponges we have since tried very hard to forget. Still, based on looks alone, the phrase, “this food tastes like shit!” can’t help but come to mind.

This is just to give you a sample of the many glorious pictures you’ll see if you have the time to watch the slide show. We were quite impressed with the entire shebang.

And so without further ado, I present the slide show of photos. Wait, where is everyone?

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And that’s it for our trip up north! We’ll surely be up there again sometime, because there are a lot more sights to see. Portugal is truly a historical and natural wonder.

You can scroll down if you missed any of the previous six chapters.

Tchau for now!

On Top of the World, Ma!

The Serra da Estrela (which translates to “Star Mountain Range)” includes mainland Portugal’s highest point (6,539 feet / 1,993 meters) above sea level. Unlike most mountain summits in the world, you can drive right to the tippy top. So we did!

Here are some panoramic shots from atop the mountain. The temperature was almost exactly 32 degrees, or in the much more sensible measurement of celsius: zero. It was easily the coldest we’ve been since we’ve been to Portugal, except for that time I got locked in a walk-in freezer after thinking it was the men’s room.

We drove up one side of the mountain and down another, and both were slightly harrowing, made all the more so after we noticed many of the guard rails were made of stone. I’m not sure I’d trust the stone not to break in a thousand little pieces if rammed with any amount of force, meaning we’d break into yet another thousand pieces when we hit the ground two million meters below.

But as you can see, we made it safe, sound, and chilly.

The road led by this massive wall, the other side of which was crawling with crazed zombie Mexicans just like in World War Z. Oh wait, those weren’t Mexicans, those were Spaniards! Good thing Portugal already built a huge wall! Actually, it is the non-water side of a dam. At least we hoped it would stay non-watery.

At the top, they have about five different stores, each offering various cold weather gear, cheeses and meats. Because nothing says “keeping warm” like cheese and meat.

The funny thing was, each of them offered almost exactly the same thing, even though some of them were side-by-side and even shared the same entrance.

They each had display cases filled with aromatic cheese and meats, always with a friendly offer of some samples, and each of them had snow gear and souvenirs, apparently all purchased from the same very talented distributor salesperson.

It was like being in a strip mall with five 7-11’s in a row.

On the plus side, you could try on a hat exactly like this in five different stores!

During our explorations, we took a small detour on a road with no idea as to where it led. It ended up being a pretty hairy drive, with drops off the side that would’ve turned our VW Polo, Marco, into a pancake… covered with raspberry syrup from our bodies, if you know what I mean. But we survived, with the added bonus of confirming that the sweat glands in our hands work just fine, thank you.

Here is a slide show of some of the sights we saw in the surrounding area:

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The next slide show is filled with incredible vistas of the countryside, unmatched by even that of the highest castles we’ve been on.

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On the way down, we stopped in a little town called Manteigas.

As you surely must know by now because of all the Portuguese lessons you’re taking in preparation for your visit to us in Portugal, “Manteiga” means “butter.”

Accordingly, I assume those are terraces are where they grow buttercups. Because buttercups are what they make butter out of, right? Carolyn says “no way.” I say “whey.” She says, “I curd of told you that.” I say, “Tit for tat!”

You don’t want to have butterfingers when you’re driving on the roads leading to the town. You’d turn into butter squash pretty quickly.

I think this is a butter stream where they churn all the butter, kind of like Willy Wonka did with his chocolate rivers. Or maybe they were churning margarine, it was hard to tell because at that point in its production butter is clear, as we all know.

Despite the fact that butter can be a little fattening, it was a charming village. We had some pizza there, because everyone knows when you go into a Portuguese town named “Butters” you have to have pizza. The crust was, of course, buttery. We were going to have pepperoni, but we decided on da udder one.

A picturesque view of a butter farm. You can tell by all the buttercups and milkweed.

Okay, don’t have a cow, you know I gotta milk these cheesy jokes for all they’re worth, right? What? They’re not worth much? Oh, well, you’re getting what you pay for. I guess I’m the butter of my own jokes. Dough!

Anyway, we very much enjoyed the drive through the mountains. The scenery was awesome, the views were to die for (literally, if you made one wrong turn), and it was great to see some snow, even if the yellow snow didn’t taste anything like butter.

But the best news is… this is the second-to-last entry in the Portugal Road Trip Saga! Just one more to go!

 

Ha ha! It’s not really part thirteen, it just feels like it.

We spent about ten days driving all over northern Portugal, snapping pictures of castles and scenery like we were picture-taking-y snapping turtle-y people.

(That’s what you call an analogy that not only went completely off the rails, but off the bridge and into the river 500 meters below.)

In any case, the result is a lot of photos, memories, and blog entries, and this is really Portugal Road Trip – Part Five. I think.

Almourol

We thought Almourol would be the crown jewel of our castle visits. Indeed, when you see a picture like the above, you can see why we were looking forward to the visit.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as cool as the pictures make it look. But I guess you could say that about most models and movie stars too.

However, I did sustain a wound in pursuit of my art, the definition of which is to entertain you, dear reader, especially as a reward for slogging through this blog, probably while you’re sitting on the pot, or driving. If it’s the latter, stop that! And watch out for that lady with the stroller! Aaaaaggghh!

The sign on the right, fittingly, means “Danger Zone.”

“Ha!” I said to that. “Danger is my middle name!”

(My parents are a bit strange. I have a brother whose middle name is “Middle Initial.”)

Anyway, those signs should be all over pretty much every castle we visit, because almost every one of them has stairs and/or battlements with no railings. Also, some of them are still guarded by descendants of soldiers who just can’t quite understand that the wars are over, and so you often have to dodge arrows and boiling oil and the like as well.

But, intrepid explorer that I am, when I saw this bilingual sign (which means I could completely understand it despite the lack of French), I had to have some fun with it.

So I jumped off the stairs just to prove that there really was a danger of falling from heights. As a result, I sustained near life-threatening injuries (well, they would’ve been had I jumped on a spear or something).

Below are photos of the leap in progress, <parental advisory warning for extreme gore> and photos of the resulting damage done… all because I no longer have the balance required to land on my feet.

Getting old sucks.

For those of you who know of the venerable Paul Harvey: and now… the rest of the story.

Actually all of the above is true, and I didn’t Photoshop any of those rivers of blood (although the head hitting on the right was a different catastrophic injury), but the real truth is seen in the picture below.

You see, I did jump off the steps, but from the third one. And I did fall as a result, because I’m too damn old to stay on my feet after jumping off just three steps. Sheesh. I Photoshopped the first photo above to make it look like I jumped from halfway up.

This is the un-Photoshopped version that caused my gruesome injuries, as well as the destruction of my favorite pants.

As I said, getting old sucks.

So the first thing you gotta do before you go to the castle is pass inspection by these fearsome army men. Actually, they’re the aforementioned soldiers who are still attacking visitors. Okay, best one out of three: there’s an army base not far from the castle and they were there to escort some dignitaries (besides Carolyn) to the castle for sightseeing. They were kind enough to pose for a picture in exchange for not shooting me.

You have to walk the plank to a large cruise ship which takes you to the castle for a few euros.

This is the bow of the ship. There wasn’t enough room to do the “Titanic” scene, unfortunately. Our hearts will still go on.

This is the cheerful and garrulous Captain of the ship. Just kidding. He was none of those things. But he was quite adept at steering a small boat for a couple hundred meters.

Once you land, they like to see if you’ll take these steps to nowhere, and if you do, everyone laughs hysterically.

If you take the correct path, you get to walk under a bridge of cactus. My speculation is they might have once served as a eco-friendly defensive tactic way back when, which means those cacti probably weren’t there in 1129 when it was conquered by Portuguese forces. Indeed, none of the historical writings mention any kind of massive sticker shock.

Once in the castle, you can look down and see where the boat docks, as well as our trusty Marco the Polo. Not sure if you can tell which one it is in that sea of cars, but it’s the dark one.

But here’s what I found interesting. They take you in a boat to the castle, but this is the size of the river channel you would otherwise need to cross to get there.

And here’s how wide it is right next to the castle.

In fact, here’s a little crossing you could take without even getting wet! All they have to do is build a walkable path beyond and voila! No more boat needed! I’m guessing they keep the boat because it’s sort of a nice story that you have to take a boat to the castle.

But that means when you’re all done with your visit you have to wait at the dock for the boat to return. He gave us about twenty minutes to look through the castle. We got back to the dock in nineteen. Despite that, he was already on his way back to the original dock when we got there, so we had to wait some more. Oh, well, we’re retired. We can wait. I decided not to even give him a dirty look when we returned because I didn’t want to be dragged out to the middle of the river and keelhauled.

As you can see, from the outside, it’s a pretty cool-looking castle. The location of it dates back to the 1st century B.C.E. (Before Castles and Everything), although they’re not sure exactly when the current castle was initially constructed. When they excavated in and around it, they found evidence of Roman occupation, but it is otherwise medieval.

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Once inside, you’re treated to some nice views of the river and surrounding countryside, although not as much as castles built on top of mountains.

These are various shots from inside the castle. Since it’s a castle, it’s still kinda cool, but it is fairly small, and doesn’t really compare in coolness factor to many of the other castles we’ve seen.

Still, from the outside, it is unique and interesting. Enough so that I’ll close this entry with a repeat of that top picture. We really did take this photo, even if it almost looks professional. We’re happy with one impressive shot per trip, even if it’s completely the fault of the subject matter.

Trancoso

According to Wikipedia, Trancoso is famous for being the place where the 16th century poet and shoemaker António Gonçalves de Bandarra lived and made his prophetic texts. You know ol’ António, right? The only reason I mention it is because that’s about the only thing Wikipedia says about Trancoso.

Despite that, we enjoyed the town and castle. The town was quaint, and bigger than some of the small villages we’d been to. As usual, we had pretty much the run of the castle to ourselves, and came away with a slew of pictures.

This is one of the main drags. Not the guy in the picture, he never poses in drag. Publicly anyway.

The castle was mostly grass and walls. In the old days, that area would have been filled with wooden structures and smelly people. Now there’s only one. Wooden structure, I mean.

One of the reasons we love castles is because they’re almost always built on top of hills, where we can gaze over the landscape and be on the lookout for invading Mexicans. Oh, wait, that’s only in the U.S.

Saaay… why doesn’t Trump just build a bunch of castles? After all, it worked for all these Europeans way back when! In fact they could charge admission and have it all paid for quicker than you can say, “I thought Mexico was supposed to pay for a wall!”

You’re always on your own when it comes to safety. You have to pay extra for guard rails, except you can’t pay anyone, and there are no portable guard rails. Just be sure to wear New Balance shoes.

Anyway, on to the slide show:

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Sortelha

Most days we figured out where we were going to go the same morning, sometimes only after fighting over the phone and its map as we drove away from the hotel property while dodging pedestrians and going through roundabouts the wrong way.

“Let’s go north!”

“No, I wanna go south!”

“Okay, east is is!”

“Watch out for that pedestrian!”

But one of those mornings we were given a sign from above, and so knew we had to follow where we were being led. After all, it isn’t every day there’s a big X in the sky telling you where to go. It wasn’t a star, and we aren’t kings, but hey, if X’s are good enough for pirates, they’re good enough for us.

Unfortunately, we never found any ancient treasure, although we did up in Sortelha. Back in 1900, Sortelha broke the 1,000 person population barrier, and so was obviously primed to become the next New York City. Unfortunately, the latest census now lists only 444 people. Doh! Based on graphing a trend line on the decline that started in 1960, Sortelha will be out of people in a couple of decades. With property values dropping accordingly, we’re going to bide our time and try and buy the castle pretty soon.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to come home to that?

Or this?

Well, her anyway.

Ok, so once again we’ll present all the photos in a slide show:

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Côa Valley

We decided to stop at the Prehistoric Rock-Art Site of the Côa Valley because it isn’t every day you get to see drawings from over 20,000 years ago. Which makes you wonder about how far we’ve advanced when today we can’t keep most of our own pictures much beyond a few decades without them either degrading or disappearing into the computer because they can no longer be seen by the latest operating system.

But, in the meantime, you can still see vistas like this until the internet is replaced by something else.

The prehistoric art in Côa Valley was discovered when they were building a dam. The whole project stopped so they could investigate the priceless art.

Which also means we still get to gaze at the beauty of the valley.

These are artifacts from 24,000 and 30,000 years ago. BP means “Before Present, ” and is a time scale used in archaeology. Since of course the “present” time changes (unless you’re dead, in which case you really don’t care much about any of this), the present in “BP” is generally assumed to be January 1st, 1950. That’s also the month that U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered the development of the hydrogen bomb, which may or may not be a coincidence. It may also mean that in the future, “BP” will mean “Before Pulverization.”

In any case, this is what little Johnny Caveman doodled while his teacher was droning on about how to kill antelopes or drag girls by their hair some such. Little did he know he’d be famous 20,000 years later.

Johnny Caveman’s sister apparently tried to one-up him by drawing a picture of their pet ox. I think she has it farting.

There was a large and modern museum where we learned all sorts of stuff about what these drawings probably meant, and how they cleverly depicted movement and things like that. Since we arrived late because, as usual, we had no plan or idea as to what we were doing, we didn’t get to take a tour down into the valley to see the actual drawings. So after we left I stopped off the side of the road and etched my own drawings into some rocks, giggling all the while at how confused archeologists will be 1,000 years from now since of course we will never otherwise find ancient cave art of a dinosaur.

 

Coimbra.

Coimbra is a university town in the middle of Portugal that deserves its own entry in this blog, even though we only spent part of one day there.

Way back when (1131 to 1255) it was the capital of Portugal. It is the fourth-largest urban area in Portugal (after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga), with roughly 150,000 people.

It’s one of the few towns we visited on this trip where we didn’t go to a castle. The main one in or near Coimbra looks to be Castelo da Abrunheira, but from what I can see on the internet, it’s pretty derelict.

Like most towns and cities in Portugal, Coimbra is chock full of ancient buildings, twisty/turny roads through hilly areas, and lots of history. Much of that history is centered in the University of Coimbra, which was founded in 1290, making it the oldest academic institution in the Portuguese-speaking world. Its historical buildings are classified as a World Heritage site by UNESCO.

So that was where we spent most of our time.

The first four photos are the views from the university grounds.

The next two are from a walk we took in a nearby park.

And this next one is of a building… just in case you’re reading this in braille and can’t see the photograph.

And now on to the University of Coimbra!

This is a panoramic shot of the main square in the university. The buildings here offer three very interesting tours of some cool historical stuff, as you’ll see below.

This is the front entrance (used as an exit) of an amazingly decorated old library, which you’ll see the inside of below. Note the smartly dressed cape-and-tie students.

This is a church on the University grounds. You walk past it to get to the science museum, the inside of which you’ll see below.

This is a statue of King João III, or as his close American friends from New Jersey called him, “King Johnny da Turd.” Actually, since he ruled from 1502 to 1557, there was no such thing as New Jersey. But they woulda called him that had there been, I’m sure of it. Of course he might have had them beheaded if he thought they were really saying “turd” instead of “third,” so maybe it’s a good thing New Jersey hadn’t been invented yet.

We’re not from New Jersey and we speak a little Portuguese, so we don’t call him King Johnny da Turd. We call him King João the Wow. During his reign he colonized Brazil (earning him the nickname of “The Colonizer”, which sounds like a great TV show), and led the Portuguese to become the first Europeans to make contact with both China and Japan, which led to a lot of tea, which ended up in Britain, which resulted in them invading –and this is true– 90% of the world’s countries. By 1913, the British Empire ruled over 412 million people, which was almost a quarter of the world population at the time. I’m sure all that happened because of all the caffeine in the tea. So see, the British Empire was all Portugal’s fault. 

We’ll call this the Door of the Day since I can’t remember where it was exactly. Looks a little holy-ish though.

You walk through this to get into the historical inner square of the University. I’m guessing the clothing at the top is the result of college dares, hazing, or perhaps it’s actually the underwear of the workers who were installing the grate but kept falling off, except for their underwear which tended to get snagged on the grate. Then no one wanted to move any of it because, you know, it’s men’s underwear, which should never be touched by anyone but the owner, their wives, or their mothers, and even then only with a lot of mental griping as to why men are so stinky.

On closer inspection, maybe they’re socks or handkerchiefs. Oh well, this is what you get when we travel without a guide.

That’s where the door is from the previous photo in case you were thinking I made all that up.

You can walk down these stairs to go into the library, unless you have no legs, then you have to roll.

This is the central square. It was all once a royal palace. In fact, the first one in Portugal.

This is the Via Latina, erected in the 18th century. My high school Spanish would translate that as “The Road of a Latin Woman” (even though “via” is more of an Italian word), but I’m guessing that’s not what it really means, especially since we’re not in Spain or Italy… or Kansas.

This is simply called “The Tower.” And of course they would have built a phallic building right next to a Via Latina. Anyway, it was built in the early 1700s, and has bells that still chime plus a staircase all the way to the top. We didn’t bother going up because we’ve walked up plenty of ancient spiral staircases over the last few years, and we’re two years older than we were two years ago, as you probably are as well.

This is a picture of a red car. An old building just happens to be behind it. In all seriousness, red cars are a little bit of an exception in Portugal. It’s something I noticed when we first got here: almost all the cars are either grey, silver, white, or black. Dunno why.

A view across the square.

A view from the square, overlooking the Mondego River, which is the longest river located exclusively in Portuguese territory. It begins its journey from the Serra da Estrela mountains, which we visited and you can read about later.

Unlike a lot of university buildings I’ve seen, this one does a very good job of being labeled. It means Faculty of Medicine, in case your mental faculties are waning.

The first part of the three-part tour was into the Biblioteca Joanina. They didn’t allow photography in the library itself, so I had to steal a couple of pictures off the internet. I wanted to do that because it truly is an amazing place. We just stood and gawked in awe at the number of old books and the grandeur of the rooms.

It was built in the 18th century, and is now a priceless National Monument.

The floor below the Biblioteca Joanina is a depository of many other old books, some of which are gigantic in size.

“Ssssh!”

Inside the complex is a small chapel, as usual, ornately decorated.

This is a courtyard near The Tower. I’m guessing it’s called The Courtyard.

We wanted this table for our dining room, but apparently it’s not for sale. Bummer. When I tried to explain to them that “priceless” means there’s no price and so therefore it’s free, they just looked at me funny, as the Portuguese often do.

It isn’t every day we find a door customized to fit my large American bulk.

They apparently hadn’t learned about blueprints yet.

This is an assortment of floor, wall, and ceiling decor Carolyn found especially interesting.

Near the University complex is a science museum that isn’t so much dedicated to science as it is to the history of the dedication to science. In other words, their displays were mostly of the things that were on display way back when. So it’s a sort of museum of old science. We found it interesting, except…

Once again, Carolyn found herself trapped inside a display case in a museum.

Here’s a close-up. To get her out of there I had to explain that sure, she’s old, but she’s not that old. Once they checked her ID, they let her out of the case. Whew! Crisis averted! I keep telling her to stay on the beaten paths, but she’s an explorer, that one.

This is a whale of a picture. I wrote that on porpoise.

Whales are so ginormous, it’s almost hard to fathom. Get it? Fathom? Ha ha! No? Anyway, I found it interesting that recently scientists discovered the prehistoric bones of a four-legged whale in Peru. I wonder if it turned into a very large frog later. In any case, this one had already evolved past the leg thing, saving the female whales untold millions in razor costs.

Fierce pussies aren’t afraid to use their teeth and claws.

Even in death, these animals can’t get away from their herd mentality. Oh deer!

This room contained all sorts of old scientific instruments. Don’t know how they sounded in an orchestra, though.

If that isn’t one of the weirdest skeletons ever, I don’t know what is.

Lots of old taxidermy, although today they call it Uberdermy.

These skulls demonstrate why I avoid being bitten by animals with big teeth.

The museum used to be a place of learning with seats designed to keep you wide awake because they were so uncomfortable.

When you’re dead, he’ll pick your bones.

Guess he picked these clean too. But seriously, those are freaky long arms. As humans evolved from the apes, I think the friction from the ground is what shortened our arms. However, they definitely had an easier time clipping their toenails, so I’m not sure this whole evolution thing is all that smart.

Not all genetic accidents lead to adaptations in species, otherwise we’d have two-headed animals all over the place. On the other hand, if a human developed that way and one head was a right-winger and the other a left-winger, it sure would be entertaining to watch them argue! Or what if one was religious and the other an atheist? The religious one would go nuts worrying that his other head would land them both in hell! That might be quite an issue for conjoined twins!

Peregrine Falcons are near and dear to me because I developed a limited edition scrimshaw knife set back in the early ’80s which highlighted their status as an endangered species. Their decline was largely due to the extensive use of DDT, something my very conservative boss at the time scoffed at; he thought DDT was awesome. Fortunately, they didn’t listen to knuckle-headed anti-environmental conservatives like him back then, and so the cessation of the use of DDT allowed this magnificent animal to recover enough to be taken off the endangered species list in 1999. Maybe my little collector’s item helped with that!

Here’s another table we wanted to buy as well. But again, not for sale. Haven’t the Portuguese heard about free enterprise? Sheesh!

Well, that’s it for Coimbra. That was a long entry! Thanks for sticking with it and getting all the way to the end, honey. By the way, what’s for dinner?

 

Monsanto

Monsanto is a name that, for some, conjures up the horrors of genetic engineering, bullying corporate practices, and poisons that can melt your skin clean off. That company is now owned by Bayer, which means they can sell you a pain reliever to take care of the pain they just caused. Aren’t huge corporations wonderful?

However, in Portugal, Monsanto is a small village, and it’s so cute it’s known as “the most Portuguese village of Portugal.” There are less than 1,000 inhabitants in the entire parish.

Traces of mankind date back to the early Stone Age. Later, the Romans came along, and then the Visigoths, and then the Arabs, and then whoever qualifies as the most Portuguese of the Portuguese, because of course that’s who must live in the most Portuguese village in all of Portugal.

In the 12th century, King Afonso I of Portugal took Monsanto back from the Moors. Unfortunately, the medieval castle was largely destroyed in the nineteenth century because of an explosion in the ammunition depot of the castle. Fortunately there’s enough left to make the steep hike above the village plenty rewarding, including of course some awesome views of the countryside.

Granite abounds in the area, and some of the rocks are absolutely gigantic. They are so prevalent that some of the houses were built right around large boulders, as you can see here. Clearly, this house rocks!

The Portuguese are honest to a fault, even when it comes to their marketing. In this case, this was the sign on the outside of a little bar in the village. I decided not to try it because, well, I just don’t like the taste of shit, even if there’s alcohol involved. Unless I’ve already had a bunch of alcohol, then of course I’ll try anything and even think it tastes good, even if it’s that shit, or anything shitty. Except for actual shit. That’s always gross.

But the little village was anything but gross. It features narrow cobblestone alleys bordered by medieval homes, with the imposing walls of the castle above still keeping watch over 1,000 years later.

We took a ton of pictures but culled them down to only the ones that would be award-winning… if I was the judge and our pictures were the only ones in the contest anyway. It is a cool place, this slide show is as worthwhile as any of our slide shows.

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Belmonte

Belmonte is a castle we stopped by after we were somewhere else and saw on a map it was only about 20 minutes away. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the inside was closed. Still, it didn’t look like we missed much compared to some of the other castles we saw, so we settled for a few photos and made our way back to our hotel.

The first historical information about Belmonte dates once again back to King Afonso I (1112-1185). He got around! Belmonte is also the birthplace of Pedro Álvares Cabral, the navigator who discovered Brazil. So I guess he’s like the Christopher Columbus of Brazil. I wonder if he was a big jerk too?

Anyway, the few pics we thought worthy:

 

Montemor-o-Velho

We really liked the Castle of Montemor-o-Velho. It predates the very existence of Portugal –which has the world’s oldest set of borders– but it is well-preserved with nice grounds… and virtually no one there but us.

“Where is everybody?”

It’s a little known fact that the ancient Portuguese invented recycling, and here’s the proof. I promise I didn’t Photoshop those in. They literally had recycling bins in an ancient castle. Who knew?

They were even kind enough to put English translations on them, because Portugal is literally England’s oldest ally. The friendship between England and Portugal goes back to 1147 when English crusaders helped King Alfonso I capture Lisbon from the Muslims. In gratitude, the Portuguese addicted the English to tea. Today, the Portuguese don’t drink it much anymore because it’s, you know, kind of wimpy. Although not nearly as wimpy as ordering a “Double Ristretto Venti Half-Soy Nonfat Decaf Organic Chocolate Brownie Iced Vanilla Double-Shot Gingerbread Frappuccino Extra Hot With Foam Whipped Cream Upside Down Double Blended, One Sweet’N Low and One Nutrasweet, and Ice” from Starbucks.

The picture of a little kid with glasses was installed in 1350 to instill fear in potential attackers that they might be going up against nerds. Even then, barbarians knew the nerds were the ones who invented all the coolest stuff, especially when it came to armaments.

This exhibit demonstrates why the Neanderthals went extinct: they tried building things with bricks made out of paper. Stupid Neanderthals.

This castle’s uniqueness was not only how well cared for it was, but it was one of the few we saw where it wasn’t the focal point of a small village. It stands apart and alone, with the municipality of Montemor-o-Velho and its 30,000-ish inhabitants off in the distance, as if in acknowledgement that the time of the castle’s protection was long over.

Okay, so now we’re to the slide show! Enjoy!

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Oh, well.

One of the main purposes of our move to Europe was to use Portugal/Lisbon as a launchpad for exploring the rest of Europe. But what we have discovered in the meantime is that Portugal is a place full of wondrous things to see all by itself.

Northern Portugal features scenic beauty, historic villages, the highest point in Portugal, and castles galore. We came to see as much as we could, and we certainly did that. Seven days of driving put over 1,000 miles (1,600 km, or .0041866 of the distance to the moon) on our little trooper of a car, Marco the Polo.

But the real difficult part of the whole trip was cataloging and organizing all the pictures. While the castles became something of a blur to our memories, each one had its own unique characteristics that made it worth viewing. After figuring out which of the over 1,000 pictures we had was what, I then had to organize, label, cull, and somehow put them in the blog while still being entertaining.

O meu Deus!

So I organized, labeled, culled, and put a bunch of them in the blog. I’m not sure about the entertainment part, but if you’re interested in scenery you probably have never seen before, at least there’s that!

We used the city of Viseu, with a population of about 100,000 (100,000 in metric), as our launchpad for visiting the surrounding area. While we didn’t find Viseu all that interesting on its own (it did have a ginormous seven-story mall with a skating rink on the top floor and an indoor fountain that spouted all the way to the top), it did serve as an excellent point from which to see everything we saw up there.

The hotel we stayed at, The Pousada De Viseu, was interesting in that it was a converted hospital, and quite beautiful inside.

We had a few hiccups upon check in: they wanted to charge extra because I had the audacity to bring my wife. A good old fashioned American-style pitching of a fit cured them of that notion. Also, the electronic room keys only worked after ten or twenty attempts, but otherwise it was a very nice place.

Above are some photos as we traveled in and around Viseu. They had a nice little stream running through town, part of which had hot springs, but the only access to the hot springs was in a hotel/spa.

Of course, being on the road for a week means eating out a lot. However, a breakfast buffet was included with the hotel (and it was pretty good!) and we tend not to eat out very fancily as we travel. We’d rather spend time driving and seeing more sites than sit down for a typical three-hour Portuguese meal.

As a result, our lunches often looked like this… a bunch of flotsam and jetsam purchased at a grocery store.

Which is fine except that sometimes you end up with a really crumby wife.

I did have a tasty turkey burger in White Castle. What? White Castle you say?

For those who know that chain of American hamburger restaurants, you might not have known their reach extended all the way to Portugal. The reason you wouldn’t have known that is because it’s not true. 

Actually, the whole town is named White Castle. And it has nothing to do with the hamburger chain. But, when in White Castle, one must eat a burger I guess.

One would of course expect Castelo Branco (which literally translates to White Castle, in case your Portuguese is rusty) to have a castle, right? Well, it does, but after seeing about a dozen of them throughout that area, we have to place Castelo Branco’s castle pretty much last on the list.

This is about as good as it got in terms of Castle-ish scenery.

The above photo makes it look interesting from the outside, but in truth it was pretty barren and didn’t offer much to see, other that the typically great views of the countryside from the castle walls.

But now that we have the least interesting castle out of the way, we can get to the other ones, which ranged from “cool” to “this is freakin’ awesome.”

We’ll start with marvelous Marialva.

Marialva dates back to Roman times, being reconstructed during the time of Trajan and Hadrian. According to the 2011 census, the village itself boasted a population of 255, making it quite the bustling metropolis. It isn’t often we get to visit a town and thereby increase its population by almost a full percent.

Construction of the castle is dated back to around 1179. I wonder how many things we build today will be around almost 1,000 years later?

They have a suggested trail of the most important historic towns and castles, and while we didn’t follow those instructions, our route throughout the area looked an awful lot like that Family Circus-esque trip as well.

Below is a slide show of some of the pictures we took. It’s a cute little town with a cute little castle. And of course… we love castles!

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Usually you get a great view from atop the castle walls. But it can be even better when you climb up above the castle itself!

Oh, well.

Carnaval is a festive season that occurs before Lent, and the festa-loving Portuguese go all out in their celebrations.

Our home town of Sesimbra is one of the notable areas of celebration in Portugal, so we made the 10 minute drive to the area…  and then spent another 45 minutes trying to find a parking space. The little town was packed!

On Sunday they had a parade filled with colorful participants. Monday was clown day, almost everyone was dressed up as an authentic clown. I think they had a parade of clowns later, but we didn’t stay for that.

Tuesday they had yet another parade. Three full days of light-hearted fun and partying! You gotta love the Portuguese!

Being one of the rare Americans who live in Sesimbra, we were anointed King and Queen of the 2019 Sesimbra Carnaval. We couldn’t let them down so we bought the most elaborate costumes we could find.

Here below is a picture of us leading the parade.

As you can tell, our Aquasize class is really paying dividends for Carolyn, isn’t it?

Okay, so maybe Photoshop is the only thing that made us King and Queen. But we enjoyed ourselves anyway, even if we’re just the peasants.

Moving back to reality, the crowds were plentiful as the parade made its way down the Sesimbra boardwalk, which fronts the ocean.

They even lined the balconies above, like in New Orleans. No one’s throwing beads here though!

This clever float had these poor souls hanging on for dear life.

Okay, so it was the clever use of a mirror. Kind of like real-live Photoshop!

At the beginning of the parade route.

The eyes have it!

When people hear the word “Carnaval,” they often think of racy outfits like these.

But in Portugal, this is what you get. Ha!

People dress up just as colorfully, but generally it’s a lot more PG than R-rated.

It’s party time everywhere you look!

They even had mimes. Mimes! Who does mimes anymore? The Portuguese, that’s who!

Pipocas means popcorn. We think it’s a cute word.

The thing I love most about Carnaval here, especially on Clown Day, is that almost everyone participates, From one to ninety-one, people are dressed up as clowns. It’s especially nice that even teenagers participate and have the same kind of playful fun.

On top of the hill you can make out the outline of “Our Castelo.” The Portuguese don’t think much about their castles and the like, because they’re so used to them. But we still love our castles!

The March weather was kind, in the sixties (upper teens celsius). Just a lot of beautiful blue like it is so often in Sesimbra!

Even in our Aquasize class everyone got into the spirit of things. In the above picture we’re the ones in back, me with the big red nose. Below, we’re on the left hand side. We always occupy the deepest in the pool on account of our differences in height. 🙂

There we are with our instructor, Patricia. She’s an awesome teacher. She makes it easy to enjoy exercise!