[I started this post before we returned to Seattle to sell our house, but just didn’t get around to finishing it before we got to the business that brought us back. To keep things chronological, here are the notes on Portugal.]
Each time we traveled back to the United States, we have chosen a new place to stop over on our way. Two years ago it was Ireland (thank you again Cooleen and Padraig for your remarkable hospitality), last year it was Amsterdam (thank you, Rosita for the use of your apartment) and this year we chose Portugal (no one to thank there, we are on our own). We have had Portugal in our sites for a long time and its time had come.
We spent the first week in Lisbon, where we visited the seaside resort of Cascais and the rather mountainous town of Sintra with its former royal residence and an 11th century Moorish castle. We then moved our base to Porto and explored not only the city but some of the surrounding area. Both cities are located on rivers, Lisbon on the Tagus and Porto on the Douro, with the Atlantic Ocean not far away.
Lisbon
The capital city of Portugal is every bit as beautiful as we had heard. Everywhere in Portugal you will find fantastic tile work. From building facades, to sidewalks to murals, they produce some of the nicest tile work I have ever seen and it is a joy to turn the next corner to see what comes next.
For several centuries Portugal was one of the more powerful countries on earth. They were navigators (rumor has it that Columbus sailed out of Spain with purloined Portuguese maps) traders and explorers. In the middle of the 18th century, November 1, 1755 (All Saints Day) to be exact, an earthquake hit Lisbon with an estimated magnitude of 8.5 to 9.0. It was centered just off the coast and destroyed 85% of the buildings in the city. Between the earthquake, tsunamis and fires the death toll reached into the tens of thousands, including many outside of Lisbon, and brought not only the city but the entire Portuguese empire to its knees. Even Morocco experienced thousands of casualties. Walking around this beautiful city today it is hard to imagine the devastation or how they managed to recover from it.
Cascais
This is a small resort city on the Atlantic Ocean just past the mouth of the Tagus River. It was an easy train ride from Lisbon and well worth the trip. We only stayed for lunch and a little exploring. This is absolutely a place that could occupy more time than we allotted it. As in the rest of Portugal, the tiled, patterned walkways are lovely.
Sintra
Again a short train ride from Lisbon, Sintra sits in the mountains and sports a former royal residence in its center and an old Moorish castle on the hill above. We enjoyed breathtaking views from the castle and were able to watch a storm roll in. We had to hurry down and duck into some nooks and crannies to avoid getting totally soaked.
Porto
We have been asked several times which city we liked better, Lisbon or Porto, and all I can say is that is an impossible question to answer. We loved both cities and found them similar in several ways. First, they both speak Spanish but with a thick Russian accent. Well okay, they call it Portuguese, but it sounds like Spanish with a Russian accent to me. They are both port cities located on a river several miles from the Atlantic Ocean with more hills than my old knees really wanted to walk up and down. And they are both extremely beautiful and charming places to visit. Most people also spoke enough English for us to get by. Our Italian helped a little, but not much.
The tiled train station, the iconic dual-level, Eiffel company designed bridge over the Douro River and the classic art nouveau Cafè Majestic are just a few of the delights we encountered in Porto.
We even got to attend our first major league soccer game in Europe when we braved a rain storm (got completely soaked) to see the home team, Porto, beat Aves 2-0.
Povoa de Varzim
Like Lisbon, if you travel a few miles west, you come to the Atlantic Ocean. Povoa de Varzim is easily reachable by public transportation and is a summer resort town with beautiful beaches that were almost deserted in mid-April when we visited. There was a bit of a wind the day we went and the waves produced some great spray.
One of the interesting things there was a small history of the town in blue and white tile. From a woman waiting for her fisherman to return, to the saving of the fishing fleet during a storm, to the rescue of survivors of a ship caught on a reef just off the coast, it told a great story of the high points of this one-time-fishing-village-turned-resort.
Sale of the house in Seattle and our move to Padova will be next.