Today we left Lisbon and journeyed on to Porto and Northern Portugal. First, however, I’ll bring you all up to speed on what we finished with in Lisbon. It was an interesting 7 days.
After two days of running around the Old Town of Lisbon, we went to the airport and picked up our rental car that we will have until the 18th when we head to Madeira. The rental company said to pick it up at noon at the airport, so we hopped on the metro and headed to the airport, getting there about 11:45. So far, so good - then, we couldn’t find ‘ACE’ rental cars - because the sign was at the counter of two other rental car companies and was a 3” X 5” placard on the counter. Every rental car agency had long lines, but the one we had to be at was ridiculously long. “Take a number and wait your turn.” So we took a number and found a seat. That was at 12:30 - at 2:40 pm our number was finally called. The rental agent said that was a normal day for them since they had the cheapest rates on their cars. By the time we got back to the hotel, we had dinner and called it a day. Talk about a waste - the saving grace of the day was watching Portugal beat Poland on PKs - otherwise, it was a 1-1 tie. Good game.
To make up for that, we went to Evora the next day. We had read about the Roman ruins in Evora - which is a 1.5 hour drive from Lisbon - so we decided to drive out and see everything Evora claimed. Not only did this little town have a Roman Temple of Diana, it had the requisite cathedral and a Chapel of Bones. We walked all around Evora, including going through where they were setting up for what looked like our county fairs. We had barbecued sardines and chicken at one of the fair restaurants. The sardines would be great except for all the bones. We both took several pictures - Evora is definitely a place I’d recommend people visit. Absolutely beautiful - I took more pictures there than in Lisbon. Then we capped the day watching Wales beat Belgium in the Euro Cup - 3 - 1. Gotta love the underdog.
Next day, we headed up the coast to Peniche. We knew it had an old fort, and the coastline was supposed to be magnificent - rocky coves, waves breaking - all the spectacular pieces you need for pictures. While we found some of that, most of it was the Portuguese version of Newport Beach - everyone was headed there for surfing, fishing, sunning themselves. It’s a resort town. We both got some really good pictures, but it wasn’t quite what I expected. That night, we watched Germany barely beat Italy - also after a 1-1 tie, and 6 - 5 in PKs. Again, a good game.
Yesterday, we finished our time in Lisbon by heading up the coast a shorter distance to Ericeira - Portugal’s surf capital - then winding back down through Sintra and the castles there. There are 3 castles: the Nacional Castle, Castelo dos Mouros, and Pena Palacio. We went to Pena Palacio. It was 34 degrees celsius and we climbed 1000 meters to get from the parking to the castle. My face was beet red. And remember - what goes up must come down. We walked around and took several pictures - unfortunately, the air has been less than optimal for view pictures (too much marine layer). That was really too bad because the views would have been breathtaking if clear. We had a delicious late lunch at the palacio, then got back to the hotel to watch the France/Iceland game. Yes - Iceland! Not sure how they did it - and the BBC news was reporting that one of every five Icelanders was in France for the game. We had watched Iceland beat England while in Sao Miguel, so we expected a good game and were rooting for Iceland (again, underdogs!). Not quite the outcome we wanted: Iceland was down 4 - 0 at the half, so we turned the game off. They wound up losing 5 - 2. Considering that they weren’t expected to make it out of the tournament round - I think they did quite well.
So this morning, we packed up after breakfast and checked out, hopped in the car and drove up to Porto. Well, Lee drove. As we were looking at the roadsigns, every time a castle was listed all I could think about was Eddie Izzard’s “We’re up to here in castles, what we’d really like is a bungalow!” Three hours later we arrived and checked into our hotel. We walked around and found food at a cute little family run place right down the street. The guy who spoke English wanted to know where we were from and how did we like Portugal so far. He was stunned that we’re Americans and staying here for so long. And he made sure to tell us places here in northern Portugal that we should see. He even wrote the places down for us. Two of them are castles.
So, with that - we are planning out our days here in northern Portugal. I’ll post some new pictures shortly - until then, ciao.
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