Porto in the Douro Valley

 28-Apr-2022

Porto in the Douro Valley

So Port wine originates in the Douro valley of Portugal.  The vineyards are located on the steep slopes of the valley walls. There is not a lot of rain which equals sweet wine.  In addition, the steps to produce wine and the quantity produced are strictly regulated.

The vineyards are spread along the valley and owned by various families. These vineyards have been in the families for four or five generations.  When the  economy was bad, many folks left for Brazil and sold their holdings to the people who stayed. As a result, the vineyards became consolidated into larger holdings.  The largest is a family named Symington.  They produce most of the Port wine sold in the USA under many names.  It all comes from the same tanks.

Symington's tanks

Theresa's tanks

We spent the day with a lady named Therese whose family owns one of the smaller vineyards.  She took us on a walk through her place to show us around. Therese knows just about every vine and olive tree in the place.  After the walk we had a nice lunch  with lots of her product. 

Theresa gives us the lowdown.

Lunch at with Theresa and her sister.

There is much more  to  the story of the Douro valley  wines but I forgot most of it for some reason.

Hotel was great but not much of a town.

If you break it you bought it, Roman ruins and some Macho Fado

 Lots of activity today in Coimbra, the university town of Portugal.
This is the place that inspired the costume design and the look of the Harry Potter series.

This is rush week for the students in the college of law so we saw a bit of silliness.  Here are a couple of freshies talking with one of our group.  Red is the color of the dress for law students.

On to the touring...
First stop was an added attraction not  on the official itinerary.  We visit Antonio who  owns a factory where ceramics are made.  Antonio  walked us  through the process from clay to beautifully painted pieces.  The work is done mostly  by women both in the factory and working from home.

Under construction

Finished product

We asked where these pieces can be purchased in the U.S.

"Home Goods" was Antonio's reply.

Next stop was a Roman archaeological site.  Not much to see here but they had nice flooring.

Back to the hotel for an impromptu wine party to drink  up the bottles we bought at the cork farm, then off to another Fado show.  This one was all men and they were very good. I have some of their music to share later with Rani and Ravi (who asked).

Time for bed. Tomorrow we drive to the Douro wine country.  I wonder what we'll do there?

Nobody Crosses Pedro

We began today with a visit to Alcobaça to tour the ornate Baroque-Gothic Cistercian Monastery of Santa Maria, where we'll hear the star-crossed story of King Pedro and his doomed mistress, Inês. 

The short version is that Pedro married Constance in a political marriage but didn't love her.  Instead, he had the hots for Inês. When Constance died Pedro and Inês shacked  up and she had several children.  The king (Pedro's dad) and the Portuguese nobles didn't like this situation because Inês' family wanted to get Spain to take over Portugal.  When Pedro and Inês got married the king decided to have her whacked.  He sent his henchmen to Coimbra to kill Inês.  When Pedro found out he went nuts and wanted to start a war with his dad the king.  His mom Queen Beatriz, talked him out of it. Pedro promised to be cool but when his dad died he got his revenge. Now that Pedro was king, he dug up Inês, made her the Queen, put her on the throne and forced the killers to  kiss her hand (yuck).  Then he cut open the killers and personally ripped out  their hearts while they were alive.  That's why they called him, "Pedro the Cruel".  

Nobody crosses Pedro.

Pedro and Inês are buried in the Alcobaca Cathedral in two ornate tombs.

Later we enjoyed some fun in the sun in the old coastal fishing village of Nazaré. The water was too cold to take a dip but the beach is beautiful.

Now it's back to our hotel which is supposed to be medieval style with crazy old keys for the doors and a bellboy that is dressed like a squire.  It took our neighbors 10 minutes to work the giant skeleton key to get in their room. The halls are full of armor, swords and crossbows but they said we can't  use them.

Corks and Pines

 24-Apr-2022

Breakfast at the five star hotel.

One of the things we noticed on these tours is that the least expensive hotels have the best breakfast. This place is nice but the breakfast reminded us of home.

Anyway, off to the bus for an hour ride to our next stop, a cork oak farm.  I know I made a joke about cork trees but this place is no joke.  The farm has been in the family for many generations.  The matriarch is almost as old as Gladys and the rest of the family runs the place.  Our guide Carlos  loaded us into a safari trailer pulled by a tractor and we chugged off through the farm. Carlos is the current boss of the business which produces cork, wine and olive oil.  With 10,000 acres it takes a lot of work. They  also charge hunters a daily fee to come in and hunt wild boar.

Here is a short description of how to harvest cork.

The trees are cork oaks and the cork comes from the bark. The cork is harvested by removing the outer layer of bark by cutting around the tree and splitting the dead layer to remove it.  The live bark underneath is left for the next harvest. It's kind of like a haircut.  

This sounds simple but it is not.  A new cork oak takes 9 years to mature enough for the first harvest.  That cork is not usable and is disposed of.  The next harvest is 9 years later and that one is also not used.  The tree is 27 years old before any usable cork is obtained. This means that cork farming is a long term business. The cork bark is bundled and shipped to a factory where the cork is turned into bottle stoppers for Cooper's Hawk (and 80% of the rest of the wine bottles in the world). Only 30% of the cork ends up as stoppers but that generates 70% of the income.

Coming soon to Avenida

Cork tree that has been harvested

After the tour we went to lunch at the farm.  They  have a large room with walls covered in hunting trophies and antlers.

Lunch was great and we enjoyed our visit with Vittoria, the future head of  the cork empire.

We'll publish more photos later when  we get some free time.

Now it's off to Nazare

A Rest Day

 Lots of stuff happened today. 

Trip to nearby Belém, visit to a monastery, Vasco De Gama and a horse parade followed by a dinner of paiea and lots of wine. I'll do an update later but at least I'll leave a picture of the paiea.

Heading for Evora tomorrow so we'll have some time on the ride to catch up.

nite nite

It's all about the Fado

 23 Apr 2022

A Lisboa stroll took us through some colorful neighborhoods with amazing graffiti.  Here is the Model doing some imitation...

Of course everywhere we looked we saw blue and white tiles. Some had pictures.

The trolleys of Lisbon made an appearance.

And the world's largest sardine store.  They sell tins of sardines and nothing else.

The Fado

A couple of days ago I said that we saw a Fado performance at dinner and promised to talk about Fado a bit. Fado is like Portugese Soul or Blues music.  It is usually slow and kind of sad but not always.  The singers are the stars but the musicians contribute their share to the performance.

We heard two singers for this show so it was a bit special.  The first performance after the salad course was Filipa Biscaia dressed in modern clothes.  She was followed by another singer dressed in traditional Fado style with a long, black dress and a shawl. Both were very good.  The tunes that they sang were both traditional and more upbeat/happy.   The musicians played a Spanish guitar and a Portuguese guitar; kind of like a mandolin. Both guys were excellent musicians.

After dinner they all sang again. There was even a sing-along. Filipa sang the chorus and we sang the 'Ai, Ai, Ai!' part. I didn't even forget the words.

The food was good also.

Sorry, we would not record the performance. Waving a camera would  have taken away the unique feeling of a Fado session.

Filipa has some pop music on Spotify but I found a link to a Fado session here.  The session takes shown on the link took place in a small restaurant a few years ago, not the classy place we saw her.

Alfama and Miles of Tiles - And FADO!

Walking and climbing hills is today's activity.  We visited more of the Lisbon neighborhoods including Alfama, the oldest and most interesting area in Lisbon.  Alfama was originally where the Moors lived near the Lisbon castle on top of the hill. Most of the area survived the 1755  earthquake because it is on solid rock which did not shake as much. Alfama is up on the side of the hill so the tsunami did not reach that far. The streets of Alfama are narrow, twisty lanes with lots of interesting spots. The people who live in Alfama have a different personality from other folks in Lisbon. They are more assertive and a bit louder according to our guide Rafael. As usual, the natives are being priced out due to the tourist demand for B&B's etc.

After we finished in Alfama everyone separated and we took a walk to the Mercado de Ribeira aka the Time Out Market. This place was a typical produce market until the Time Out Magazine folks took it over and turned it into a world class food court with a couple of dozen restaurants, 8 bars a dozen shops and a high end music venue. The place was packed but if it rains tomorrow I am told that the crowd will double.  They host about 1,000 people per hour. 

We had a beer and left for the tile museum.

Museu Nacional do Azulejo is an artistic collection of tiles unique to Portugese culture dating back to the 15th century. The museum is housed in a former convent established in 1509. The building includes ornate baroque chapels of Madre de Deus church decorated in full Portuguese baroque splendor, with gilded and carved wood, paintings and tile panels.

This is a 360 degree photo here that will allow you to drag and scroll around a view of one of the chapels.  I'm not sure if it will  work but let's give it a try.

The chapels are beautiful but the tiles are the star of the show.  500 years of tile are well organized into eras and styles.  Photos don't really show the beauty but here are some examples...

A couple of dogs attacking a bull.  Dog on the left has the bull by the horns.
Dog on the right has the bull by the .....

Tonight  we go to a Fado dinner and show.  Fado is kinda like soul music in Portugal.

Hanging out waiting for dinner and the Fado performance...

Beautiful venue for dinner and Fado.  Former club building now a restaurant.  We ate in the library room.

Fado was fantastic.  More later. (No, we could not record.  No rules, just would ruin the experience.)

Did I mention that the Portuguese like to eat late?  This is the hotel restaurant at 11 pm. Folks were waiting for a table at the door.

Walkin' around Lisbon

First official day of the tour.  Rick counts today because we meet Rafael our guide, listened to him tell us the ground rules and then go  for a walk around some of the neighborhoods. Lisbon has a lot of distinct neighborhoods. The city was destroyed in a 9.2 earthquake in 1755. After the quake the Earth felt like keeping the party going so there was a tsunami.  80% of the city  was destroyed along with 25% of the population.  We heard a lot of interesting history of Lisbon along with some poetry from our guide.  The model was inspired by the setting and struck a pose.

After the stroll everyone went to dinner on Rick.  We sat with Gayla and Nancy.  They met on a previous tour and have traveled together ever since.   Gayla has been on 16 Rick Steve's tours.  Gayla really likes touring. Nancy's luggage got lost but we hope she gets it back by tomorrow before she starts to smell.

During our stroll we came upon a cork store.  Everything in the store is made of cork. Portugal grows cork trees everywhere.  Here  is  a picture of some raw cork that was just removed from a tree. I asked to buy it but the lady said that this whole tree was saved to make wine corks for someone named Jenny H.

More Lisbon in the A.M. and on our own in the afternoon.  Dinner tomorrow night includes a  Fado performance.

A Day Trip to Sintra

Our Rick Steve's tour doesn't start until Wednesday so we took a day trip to Sintra since the tour doesn't go there. Sintra is a mountain resort town about 30 miles from Lisbon along the Atlantic coast. The King Ferdinand decided to use Sintra as his summer home and built a palace there.  The rich guys came along with him and built a few palaces of their own. Sintra was the home of the palace el Pana built on the ruins of a Moorish palace.

After a couple of palace visits to see old furniture our guide Jaime took us to Quinta-Regaleirais the site of the 'Initiation Well', a site of cultist initiation events and mysticism from the Knights Templar. I won't say how much of a climb it was to get up  the the place but my Google Fit app thinks I'm Superman.

We said goodbye to Sintra and proceeded along the Atlantic coast to the what is the farthest West point of Europe according to Jaime.  We didn't tell him that Dingle in Ireland is really the farthest (but not on mainland Europe). It is usually very windy there but today was an exceptional day of wind as you can see.

Back to Lisbon in search of dinner we found a nice Tapas place. 

My model likes to take food  pictures.  I like to eat the food.

Gulbenkian Museum - Belem

 After two plane rides and a taxi we are in Lisbon.  Air Canada gets 4 stars. Excellent food and service.

Temp is around 19c (62 to you continentals), sun is  shining. Got a rapid Covid test from a temporary popup lab; 1 hr to results.  Could have been faster but the nurse had to go to lunch.  And free.

Spent some time in the Gulbenkian Museum near Belém. One of the best art museum collections we've seen anywhere.  Rich oil family had a good eye for art. The curators know  how to display it all. Everything from 4,000 year old Egyptian obsidian figures to wacky modern pieces all housed in a concrete building surrounded by a beautiful garden.  The garden is built with concrete pads at many levels, water features and grassy meadows.  The pads are a personal injury lawyer's dream.  Never happen at home. 

I only brought one model so she'll be in a lot of photos.

All Packed and Ready

All packed up and ready to go 

Well, almost.  Still plenty of time but that will go quickly.

It is strange preparing for this kind of trip after COVID and three years of staying home.  The only paper documents we took are our vaccination records. Everything is on our phones.

When I need stock photos like this I use a site called unsplash.com.  They have free pix and clips of whatever subject you need.  All you have to do is search for a subject.  I tried searching for 'Pack mule'.  This is what came up (scroll down a bit).