We started our day today at the London Mithraeum Museum. While we waited for our entry time at the museum we had to dodge yet another marathon race. It appears like they run a lot in London. Back to the museum, the 2,000 year old temple of Mithra was found when they were digging the foundations for a major building in the middle of London. The museum displayed some of the artifacts they found as well as the foundations of the temple.

We then moved over to the Guildhall Gallery a few streets over. This brought us by the church we wanted to see yesterday. This time it was open. We stopped in to find a wind orchestra practicing. We listened a while and continued on our way.

The Guildhall has been part of London’s administrative centre for hundreds of years. The part we saw today was built in the late 1880’s. the original design for the building had to change when they found the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre under the planned site. The current building was redeveloped in the 1980’s as the original building was damaged in WWII. We took a guided toured of the art gallery before heading down to the amphitheatre.

The original amphitheatre was big enough to hold the same number of people as Roger’s Place in Edmonton (approx 16,000 people).

We headed back to our lodgings by tube and stopped for supper in Sloan Square. After a relaxing meal we wandered by St. Barnabus church, which was also open as a part of the Open London Festival. A lovely lady gave us a tour of the church.

We made it home before the rain started and made an early night watching TV. As we were relaxing, we noticed people climbing over a hedge and into the neighbour’s patio. After asking them what was up, we learned that their dog had gotten loose and was trapped on the patio. We had a good chat as they turned out to be neighbours and they gave us some good info on sites to see. Tomorrow we are off to the British Museum.

We set out this morning to check out some of the Open House London events. This annual event invites people to explore buildings that they might not otherwise see. We were on the hunt for St. Mary-le-Bow church. It is featured in the book I am currently reading. We walked around Buckingham Palace and on toward the parliament buildings. We walked (the wrong way) along the banks of the Thames before getting reoriented toward the west-end. Before we turned around however, we were struck by the memorial hearts painted on the wall beside the riverwalk. Each heart paid tribute to someone who died of COVID. It was a long wall.

The crowds were intense in Hyde Park as there was a day of kids running races around the park and things were getting set up for a nighttime marathon race. It was also a beautiful day for strolling.

We experienced a smattering of rain as we sat down for lunch but otherwise the weather was perfect. We walked by the London Eye, St. Paul’s Cathedral and finally stopped at St. Bride’s (aka St Bridgette) Church. It had been destroyed during the Fire of London in 1666, rebuilt and then destroyed again during a WWII bombing. It was rebuilt, but in the process they found remnants of buildings from Roman times to present. The display in the crypt showed remnants of all 2000 years of buildings on the site. We finally made it to our original goal only to find the church closed. We peaked inside anyway and went back to a nearby pub to quench our thirst. The pub was historic as well, having survived the fire and the war. The beer was good too.

We took the tube back to our suite and appreciated efficient public transport. No need to buy tickets. You tap your credit or debit card as you get on and off the train. Easy-peasy! Now to figure out where tomorrow’s expedition will take us…

We had a lovely trip across the pond and had no trouble navigating public transit to our residence in the Borough of Chelsea. we wandered along the bank of the Thames until we came to the Grosvenor Pub for our first pint. We were able to pick up some food at a local grocery store so we are all ready to set out for adventures tomorrow.

Our last adventure of this amazing holiday was a guided tour to Sintra. We were picked up by our guide, Rui Martin. We left our hotel early and we made the 45 minute drive to Sintra while Rui provided us with an orientation to Portugal and Lisbon as he drove us to Sintra and the Pena Palace. We approached the palace through the park created by King Fernando II surrounding the palace. This garden was a labour of love built with his own money. Fernando was the consort of Queen Maria II of Portugal. He was a wealthy German man and a friend of Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. He was 18 when he married the sixteen year old Queen. She died giving birth to her 11th child at the age of 34.

Fernando bought Sintra, a ruined monastery, and several of the surrounding properties, including the ruined Moorish castle on a nearby hillside. He then took to building a romantic garden. His vision was a response to the rationalism of the French enlightenment. What this meant was he created a garden that had none of the geometric lines of, for example, the French palace of Versailles or the other formal gardens of the previous era.  Fernando created a garden of organic shapes with beautiful follies that reflected aspects of the ruined monastery he set out to restore.

Maria died in 1853 at the age of 34 during the birth of their 11th child. Seven years later, Fernando fell in love with a British/Swiss opera singer. The Portuguese aristocracy were not happy that he was in a relationship with a commoner, so the king of Belgium made her a countess and they were married in 1869. Together they continued to develop the properties, including a private chalet outside the palace. All this development was paid for out of Fernando’s own funds.

The Pina Palace started life as a monastery founded by King Manuel I. Apparently Manuel was a monstrous king. He expelled the Moors and the Jews from Portugal and started the Portuguese inquisition.  Rui was happy to see that Fernando was able to transform Manuel’s monastery, where wayward monks were sent as punishment for acting out.  The yellow stuccoed buildings are Fernando’s, the red stucco is the original monastery.

The main entrance to the inner palace was my favourite part of the castle. It was protected by Poseidon, God of the Sea and was filled with beautiful ceramic tiles.

We appreciated learning the full story of the palace as we walked through the deliberately wild gardens. The calm of the gardens was a juxtaposition to the chaos of the crowds of the palace itself. Rui encouraged us to focus on the exterior and the story rather than the internal trappings of the Victorian era. The one interior we did explore was the chapel, original to Manuel’s time. It survived the earthquake of 1755 and remained as it was with the exception of the stained glass window. If you look closely at the chapel window in the pane with the king in front of the chapel , you will see the modern stained glass window in the chapel.

We loved the walk around the outer walls and the view out to the sea. We looked out over the thousand year old Moorish castle from the palace walls. Castelo dos Mouros was build in the 10th century when Portugal was under Islamic rule. The Moors lived in the castle until 1147 when Afonso, the first king of Portugal reclaimed Lisbon and surrounding area. The king gave the Knights Templar the charter to manage the area in 1154. We didn’t have time to look inside the castle, but it looked like a great place to explore next time we are near.

We then descended back into the lines of people, the chaos of cars and then back into the garden for a stroll back to the van. We had lunch in Sintra village before hitting the road to find the most westerly point of continental Europe. It was weird to look over the ocean and think that the next port is Washington DC. The seashore was windy but worth the need to hang onto our hats.

We drove back to Lisbon via  the Portuguese Riviera. It was lovely to see the Portuguese version of Banff. Salazar, the Portuguese dictator until 1974, kept Portugal neutral during WWII. This allowed him to curry favour  with both sides of the conflict. Portugal, and especially this seaside resort, became an ideal place for spies to gather. Ian Fleming is said to have been inspired to create James Bond from this activity in this community.

We spent our last evening at a local Portuguese restaurant across the street from our hotel. The host directed us to a reserved table as if he had been waiting for us. He spoke no English and, as we engaged in pointing and pantomime to express our choices, he was clear that we could only order the small sizes on the menu, no matter how hungry we felt. He was correct, the food was plentiful and authentically Portuguese. The wine was excellent as we happily brought our Portuguese adventure to an end.

We left our ship and were transported to the train station where we caught the train to Lisbon. The trip took approximately 3 hours. We caught glimpses of the ocean and sped through small villages. The countryside was pretty dry and fairly boring so, it was a good time for a bit of relaxation. We navigated the Lisbon train station easily and made good time getting to our hotel.

The Alegria is a lovely, century-old building (circa 1870’s) adjacent to a quiet park. It was a few steps from the main avenue, lined with every high end fashion outlet you could imagine. We strolled up and down the avenue  admiring the offerings of street vendors set up all down the mosaic tiled sidewalks.

Lisbon was destroyed in 1755, first by the earthquake and then by the subsequent tsunami. The rebuilding focused on moving into future rather than rebuilding the past. As a result, the city was rebuilt with wide avenues and large squares. The mosaic cobblestones are a distinctive part of the cityscape and added a lot to the ambiance of the city.

Lisbon is built over 7 hills, so walking always involves as much up as down. We took a hop-on-hop off tour of the city to get our bearings. We split up and while some of us went exploring shopping options, Dale and I took the funicular up to a promenade overlooking the city.

We then wandered back to our hotel only to encounter a swing jazz ensemble in the park outside the hotel. It was magical to sip cold beer, sit in the shade, avoid the 30 degree heat and listen to great live music on a Sunday afternoon. Dancers from a local dance school showed their moves despite the heat. It was a good day. We finished the day with a delicious meal of Indian food a few doors down from the park.

The last day of our cruise took us back into Porto. We were grateful for another day to explore this city. We spent the morning shopping and found ourselves in a delightful shop specializing in cork products.

After lunch we took the trolley out to the Atlantic Ocean. This delightful 20 minute long ride took us along the Douro river to the sea.

We enjoyed walking along the piers and watching the waves crash against the rocks.

We returned to the ship and they took us for a bit of a cruise before serving us our last dinner on board.

Lamego is a small town with a big shrine. There was a roman settlement here and an early adopter of Christianity (570AD). There is a castle and a cathedral but most people come to see the shrine and church of Our Lady of Remedies. The church was started in 1761 and finished in 1905. It is built on a hill high above the town.

There is a fountain outside that is said to have healing waters. People come from far around just to fill up bottles with this good-for-you stuff. We filled our water bottle and had a very healthy day.

The church was beautiful inside.

Despite the beauty of the church, most people are in awe of the 686 steps linking 9 terraces leading down to the town. The stairway is a setting for the stations of the cross and encourages pilgrims to reflect and meditate at each station. However, my hunch is that now there is less meditation and more of a focus on the physicality of making the trek either up or down the stairs.

We spent some time wandering this quaint village and explored the local farmer’s market. The focus was on the practical rather than the touristic. There were many stalls with vegetables and plants, as well as bunnies and a variety of chickens and other birds.

There was an option for people on the tour to skip the town and go visit the other important site at Lamego, the Mateus Palace. many of my generation will recall Mateus wine, a sweet concoction that convinced many of us in our youth, that wine was not a good binging beverage. The palace is still owned and occupied by the Mateus family. The prize our group won at the trivia night later on this day was a bottle of Mateus wine. It was much better than I remembered, but still I had no need to buy some to bring home.

The Coa Valley

Imagine if you will, a major dam project has been approved and the construction work is in full force when 20-30,000 year old rock carvings, dating back to the last ice age, are found. They dated the carvings by using a variety of techniques including one where they could measure the last time a soil layer has been exposed to sunlight. Work halted while archeologists explored the finds. Hundreds of carvings over the valley slated for flooding were found. Initially the dam construction continued but as word spread of the uniqueness of the carvings and their historical significance, the world responded. Local high school students protested the building of the dam and a new government stopped the project permanently in 1995. The valley was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1998. The valley is now a 50,000 acre archeological park where there are new finds discovered constantly. Our guide explained that the microclimate created by the valley geography made the area significantly warmer than the surrounding area during the last ice age, making it easier for upper palaeolithic people to live and survive.

There are two types of carving techniques seen on the rocks. Often the drawings are overlapping. The older carvings were created with fainter scratches done with flint. There are no flint sources for at least 400 km so it was clear that these nomadic people travelled and traded. The newer markings were done with quartz and are heavier, with the outlines of the animals easier to see. It wasn’t clear to our guide why the carvings were overlapping or why, with so much rock to choose from, the artists kept coming back to the same spots, sometimes over a 1000 year period. Some of the carvings were large enough (and originally likely painted) to be seen from afar, even from the other side of the river.

The river valley was steep and it was challenging walking on uneven ground to see these amazing artefacts of early human life, but well worth the effort. It is clear that art, and the representation of life has been, and continues to be, an important aspect of human existence. Our guide didn’t pretend to understand what message was being conveyed by the drawings. He noted that the same style of drawing has been found around the world. Typically, the drawings reflect the major animals of the area, in this case boar, goat, bovines and horses. We were sad that our tour made us choose between seeing the museum about the valley or the actual carvings. The whole site is fascinating.

The flora in Portugal has been interesting. In addition to olive and almond trees we came across both wild and cultivated pistachio trees next to each other.

We had a wonderful lunch back on the boat followed by a cocktail making workshop using port wine. I had never thought about mixing port but we have come to appreciate how refreshing they can be. For example, one cocktail included white port, passion fruit juice and Lime juice. another included pink port, lemon, ice and tonic water.

Our evening activity was a visit to a port wine cellar. We watched a group of men stomping grapes the old fashion way. They continue to stomp the grapes because attempts at mechanical methods tended to crush the grape seeds and this altered the taste of the wine. People from the community participate in the annual crushing process every year, primarily for extra money and the party. We had a delicious dinner in the wine cellar surrounded by huge barrels of aging wine. We bought one bottle of wine at the cellar but 2 bottles of olive oil. We checked and found that we can buy white, pink, ruby and tawny port in Alberta so we figured we’d avoid the overweight luggage charges and stock up in Edmonton.

We got up early and started the two hour journey to Salamanca, Spain. this city is a UNESCO world heritage site and is mostly known as a university city. 1 out of every 5 of the 150,000 inhabitants in town is a university student. The university was founded in 1218 and is one of the oldest universities in Europe in continuous operation. We started our visit to this town with a trip to the market and a tasting of the local ham and cheese.

We then visited the historic centre where there was a dress rehearsal happening in the town square for a ceremony honouring police. There were police from a variety of sectors all looking pretty ready for the rehearsal to end.

Salamanca is on the pilgrim’s route to Santiago de Compostela. There is a lovely building built in 1514, covered in shells, the symbol of Santiago. Initially, when I heard about the decorations, I envisioned tacky small shells covering the walls. The reality was much nicer. You can find shells imprinted into the sidewalks through many centres in Portugal, indicating to pilgrims that they are on the right road.

Salamanca has two adjoining cathedrals. We explored the new one first. It was started in 1513 and finished in 1733, a few years before the earthquake shook its foundations. You can still see the cracks. The new one was built due to the growth of the town and the university. A more recent restoration of the new cathedral’s front decoration had some modern additions. The restorer included an astronaut and a dragon holding an ice cream cone. Does it look like he is holding ice cream to you?

The old cathedral was started in the early 1100s and finished in the 1300s. The old cathedral was also the home of the early university. Students sat on the floor of the chapels to study. The poorer students tended to have the early classes in order to warm up the old stone chapels for the richer students.

University students have some unusual rituals. New students were encouraged to look for the frog on the Façade. It was hard to find but if you look closely you will see it is on one of the skulls midway up the frieze. Finding it was said to bring good luck. The frog is now something of a town mascot and cartoon frogs are sold everywhere. Another example, in earlier times PhD students would spend the night before their defence alone with their books and a candle in a chapel. The next morning they would have their exam. If they passed they left through the jubilation door and went on to celebrate with family and friends. If they failed they went out the back door and were pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables by those same people. Victorious students would also paint a victory sign along with their names on the walls of the university using a mixture of bulls blood, olive oil and paprika.

Students in medieval times (13th C) sometimes found it hard to afford their studies. The tradition of students performing folk music for food or money for housing began. the tradition continues, but now the Tuna bands play to raise funds for travel or partying. We had a great time being entertained by a Tuna of medical students in traditional costumes playing traditional instruments before heading back for a quiet evening on the boat.