A Last Bit on Portugal

By now I have usually written some final thoughts about my summer travels, sensations will still linger and I am often still recovering from the grime and chaos for a few days after returning home.  It's not like that with Portugal, which has me feeling sort of meh.  I not necessarily complaining, although I probably sound ungrateful.  People ask how was Portugal and I just want to shrug my shoulders and say it was pretty good, I guess.  That's just how I feel about it.  It mostly struck me as calm, clean, and crowded.

I might have already said it, but I bet all of Europe was vacationing in Portugal this summer.  I was a white person in a sea of white people.  Normally I am the only foreigner for days, in Portugal I was with nothing but foreigners.  The Portugese people I did meet were helpful and kind, as I stumbled through the language, in which  I could barely say thank you, and even giving us a ride to a bus stop when we got lost.  

It's Eurpoe so it's mostly churches,museums, and walking around.  Lots and lots of walking around looking at stuff, contemplating the roots of colonization and the cult of Christianity.   We had perfectly amazing weather, 75 and sunny every day, except for that day in Evora.  Lucky for us we got out just as the Iberian Penninsula was starting to have a heat wave where temperatures were going to top 113 degrees.  During our stay the temps were so nice we slept with screenless windows wide open all night, which also meant the night was punctuated with racous and drunken street noise.  Since all of Euope was on vacation in Portugal that would explain the daily wafts of pot in the air and the constant presence of cigarette smokers.  So much smoking of all kinds.  We found ourselves getting up and moving a lot.  

I'll admit it was nice to just be able to drink tap water and not have to keep my lips tightly pressed together while in the shower to avoid even a micro drop of bad water getting in my mouth.  I also appreciated being able to just put used toiled paper in the toilet instead of a trash bag.  Good plumbing and sewer systems are a nice perk of going to a developed country.  

I'm not completely  displeased  with the daily costs for the two of us.  We spent $120 per day for the both of us which included accomodation, food, all transportation, treats, admissions and activities, souvenirs, small gifts for friends, and a 6 piece wardrobe splurge for Maya.  Actually, that's  pretty good considering all we got for the money.  We even had daily gelato and sometimes twice daily cafe outings too.  It helped that we only ate one meal out each day where we shared the more than enough for two people entree.  We prepared very simple meals in our accomodation.  Beans and rice, pasta and vegetables, always a salad, but most days we just  bread, cheese, and fruit for dinner and felt perfectly happy about it. Breakfasts were a simple boiled egg and toast or an apple with peanut butter.  We just loved renting that apartment in Guimaraes and the price was great which helped keep the costs down. 

I'm glad we changed things up a bit, got out of our comfort zone and relaxed a little!  I tested Maya to see how quickly she would answer when I asked her about a trip for next summer, I was curious to see how much she enjoyed an easy and sedate travel experience.  Given a choice, I said, would you rather hike to small villages in the Andes Mountains in Ecuador or go to Amstredam and Berlin?  Honestly, I thought she wouldn't even hesitate and say definitely Ecuador, this Euopre thing is too darn easy! There's no challenge, no hardship, no unknowns! But she didn't do that.  She paused, thought it over for a minute  and said "I've always wanted to go to Amsterdam!"  

Portugal is about the only European country we can afford so it's not likely that we will be back on this side of the world any time soon.  I'm happy to have had such an enchanting and easy going experience this summer with my daughter, a truly marvelous and delightful travel companion.

Day Trip to Evora

It was 103 in Evora, we could feel every bit of that hot dry heat.  We had special sights to see, ones we had been looking forward to since we started planning a trip to Portugal.  It's a long train ride east, around 1 hour 40 minutes each way and cost about 25$ per person round trip.  Not a cheap or easy day trip.  

We used atlasobscura.com again to seek out the strange Capela de Osos....Chapel of Bones.  Not enough room in the town cemetery? Want to remind folks of their immortality?  Want to scare people into leading a good Christian life or else?  Line a chapel with bones! Thousands of bones stacked like firewood and skulls placed in decorative patterns makes for a super erie chapel.  

The inscription over the door reads "We Bones That Are Here, We Are Waiting For Yours"

The other draw to Evora are some nicely preserved Roman ruins.  One source atrributes the structure to a Temple of Diana, another to Julius Ceasar.  It's known to be one of the best preserved Roman ruins on the Iberian Peninsula, due in part to it being used as a slaughter house during Medevil times and then being walled in for a few centuries.  

Just having a pineapple Popsicle at a cafe looking at Roman ruins and stuff.

There's a bus every hour so so back to Lisbon, but we prefer the train, even though it meant spending 6 hours in the Evora oven.  There are only 2 trains to Evora in the morning and 2 trains returning to Lisbon in the afternoon.  We wandered around, shopped, and sat in a cafe to spend the time.  There were cathedrals to see but we had been in sooooo many and they all charged admission so we didn't bother.  It was a long day but worth it.

Getting to Lisbon

Our final 3 nights are in Lisbon, as usual we save the big city for last.  Our train from Guimaraes connected in Porto where we met up with Wilmington friends.  We had an outstanding lunch that might have been the best meal I've had here so far.  

The place was in my Lonley Planet book.  Seems like lately so many places in the LP books are overrun, but this one didn't have a huge wait.  

The best places are the ones that don't seat more than 20 people .... They do what they do very well. 

We ate and then walked them to the bridge so they could hook up with their cruise boat.  We climbed a billion stairs to get up to the top of the bridge where people could walk across for a great view of Porto.

We easily made our train to Lisbon and settled in for the three hour trip.  In Lisbon we had to connect to the Metro, but not understanding how it all worked we got on what turned out to be the wrong train.   Maya figured it out and I asked the person sitting next to me where the train was going....and we jumped off just in time.  The metro station was underground....duh we should have known that! When we pulled into our stop, Baxia-Chiado, there were three exits and we didn't have a clue which one would lead us up and out to where we needed to go.  We went up the wrong exit first, walked a few blocks, realized we were going the wrong way and had to backtrack.  All this with just a paper map as we are just using our phones with wifi in our accomodation only.  

First impression of Lisbon: all of Europe is here on vacation.  It's a little Times Square, a little Fisherman's Wharf, and a lot crowded.  Can't say I love it.  We wandered around a bit and made our way to the Doll Hospital which I read about on atlasobscura.com.  For 2 Euros we got a tour of a doll museum and repair shop, they take their work very seriously and have work sent to them from all over the world.  Understand, we weren't there because we like dolls or toys.  We went there for for the creep factor.  Maya is particularly creeped out by dolls and it makes her skin crawl the way they "stare" at her.  There are bins of doll parts, tortured ruins of dolls needing repair, and entire rooms filled with dolls.

Look at her freaked out face.  She can barely contain herself.

It's a box of eyeballs.

We are staying at Shidao Hostel, pretty low key with a wide range of ages, in other words I am not the oldest person here.  The 20 somethings are quiet, it's not a party hostel....obviously I actively avoid paces like that.  It's darn expensive though, 70$ a night, ouch! That's the going rate for a decent private room with a shared bath in a clean hostel, which surprised me.  It does include a light breakfast and a communal kitchen. The dorm bunk beds are a bit cheaper elsewhere but I'm not interested in that scene.  Our room has these twin beds, other rooms have full size beds.

We didn't do much else in Lisbon, except for visit the large cathedral...

Tomorrow we will take a train for a day trip to Evora to visit a chapel lined with bones, see Roman ruins, and eat falafel.

Braga Day Trip

Braga is the third largest city in Portugal and it was our 2nd choice for where to have the five night apartment stay.  After our day trip today I am really glad we chose Guimaraes.  Braga is just too big feeling and I don't like the architecture as much, too many modern buildings and traffic.  Our main reason for going to Braga was to visit the Bom Jesus do Monte located 5 k outside of the town.  We got the bus to Braga this morning and had directions on which city bus to then take to the sanctuary.  We left the bus station to walk to the bus stop and even though we had a map we got really turned around.  After ant 10 minutes of walking in the opposite direction of where we meant to go we saw a family leaving church services and asked them for directions to the bus stop.  I don't speak a word of Portugease and only one of the family spoke a bit of English, in the end they offered to just drive us to the bus stop because it was too hard to explain and my map didn't seem to be useful to them.  They seemed like pretty nice people so we did get in their car....and it all turned out good.  Hitchhiking is risky.....but the times we have done it with the kids have been good experiences.  

We decided to walk up all 650 steps to get to the top.  Took me about 20 minutes as I huffed and puffed my way up.  Maya ran up....XC has made her strong.  Back in the day pilgrims crawled up on their knees.

Another way to get up or down is to ride on the fully water powered railway.  Bom Jesus is only one of three of this type of transportation in the world.  It's hard to explain how it works, I had to read up on it.  This was one of those times that had Luis been with us he could have given us a whole physics and engineering  lesson.  We do miss having a teacher as a travel companion.  This link does a good job of explaining for those interested.

How the Funicular Works

We took it for the ride down just for fun, takes three minutes and costs 1.20 Euros.

The bus back to Braga has an abbreviated schedule on Sundays and we didn't take note of it before ascending the stairs so we were stuck waiting an hour.  Here's a pic of the bus schedule for Bom Jesus back to Braga.....for next time.

By the time we got back to Braga we were starved, but it being Sunday most restarunts and all the shops were closed.  We found a cafe, had a quick sandwich and just walked back to the bus station.  We had no desire whatsoever to walk around and look at churches and certainly could not bear another  museum.  Just didn't care too much for the "big city"  vibe in Braga and wee so glad to be back in Guimaraes.  

Our bags are packed for the morning train back to Porto where we are having lunch with some Wilmington friends, Bee and Georgie,  who also happen to be vacationing in Portugal.  They are heading out on a Douro River cruise and have the afternoon free so we that it would be fun to try and get together.  After lunch we will get on the train and head for Lisbon for our last three nights.  

Last Day in Guimaraes

We just grew to love this town so much! Sure, there are a lot of tourists here but it still has that small to mid sized town energy that we like.  We did finally make it up to the castle and palace.  It all reminded me of a Playmobile set the kids used to love.

I'll say that the "Vaudeville Ronde Voux" really made our stay here unique as wee had 2 fun shows/events to attend for free each day.  European circuses are weird...I don't really know how to explain it.  It's not cheesy like Ringling Brothers with glitz and glam, it's more bohemian and packed with very artistic performers.  We we're absolutely memorized by the final show. Four acrobatists accompanied by a vocalist who sang in three languages and a base player.

Our apartment turned out to be pretty good, and especially for the price.  The plaza has a few small restaurants and shops but otherwise it's residential.  Even so, right outside our window there are always people talking and shouting into the night.  In fact there s a group of loud and annoying drunks out there right now at midnight.  

Porto Day Trip

Porto is absolutely mobbed with tourists, shoulder to shoulder everywhere.  We took the train, about 75 minutes, and stayed for 5 hours.  The train station itself, Sao Bento, is listed in guidebooks as a sight to see in itself.  

We came specifically to go to the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Photography Museum.  During our last two trips to Mexico, Frida Kahlo images were everywhere so we've become fans enough to seek out this unique exhibit.  The photographs tell the story of her life, some taken by others and many taken by her.  We learned so much about the passion and pain that defined her life.  She had a pet monkey named Fulang Chang which we wished we would have known when we got our dog because we most definitely would  have named her that and probably called her Fufu for short, yes, we would have. I'm sure we wouldn't have been the first.

I'll go ahead and say it, Portugese food isn't very exciting.  We have enjoyed that special cholesterol elevating dish, the Francesinha.  I did a lot of research to seek out the tastiest, inexpensive, not overrun by trip adviser devotees example in Porto.  I came up with Casa de Pasto O Golfino and it was indeed wonderful.  We order just one with a side of fries and a salad and it's way more than enough food and costing us 12 Euros.  The place sits only about 20 people but we didn't need to wait long.  

There are some lovely architectural sights to see and we did enjoy wandering around shopping and looking at stuff.

After some souvenirs, museum admission, transportation, and food we spent $100 in Porto for the afternoon.  Took a bite out of the budget since we have been getting by on $45 a day, not including accommodation.  Bigger city bigger money I suppose.  Portugal is affordable, especially accomodation.  We are doing well on average spending $90 per day with everything included....admissions, accommodations, food, transport.  

There's always room in the budget for our twice a day cafe and pastry on a plaza habit.

We ended the day back in Guimaraes with two treats.  One was a total lunar eclipse which would be the longest one for the next century.  We went up to the highest point in town, a castle built in the 13th century on a hill, for the viewing.  Second, we watched day two of this circus festival with an oddly funny juggling act.  The program description: There will be some juggling.  There will be some slackness.  There will be puddles.  

How can that not be fun?