Season of Light?

 

Bright morning moon in a lavender sky hangs westward of me.  Red rippled clouds stretch out across the eastern horizon. Take heed ye mariners.  Such is the canopy I walk under taking an empty and rinsed milk jug out to the morning’s recycling.  An amazing firmament for five days before Christmas.  The spectacle my eyes see as I look up makes me think this is truly the season of light. In a mere second the thought is gone for this is no real season of light as darkness encroaches us on so many sides.

 

Why is this not the season of light?  

 

Well, in that this is the New Plague Journal let us start with Covid.  I think the following quote sums it up quite nicely.  "We're all anticipating with Delta, with all the travel that we're doing and all these holiday get-togethers, the beginnings of Omicron and its spread as well as ... influenza also making its appearance, we could be in for an ominous winter season and a kind of grim beginning of the new year," Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine A grim start to the new year, eh? The recommendations remain the same.  Wear a mask.  Get vaccinated.  Distance oneself appropriately.  But do we listen?  In a word no.  We as a people are fast to claim our freedoms but slow to take up the burdens of good citizenship. As a result, we face not hope but rather a real grim start to 2022.

 

On another front over the past ten days, we “the people” have been given warnings by a retiring newsperson Brian Williams and also by Chief Justice John Roberts.  Both have offered in their way takes on where our current entrenched tribalism is leading us.  

 

The newsperson Mr. Williams said our country has become "unrecognizable" and that powerful politicians have "decided to join the mob" and "burn it all down with us inside." He was referring to the insurrection at the Capitol and so much more. January 6^th once the mob entered the United States Capitol by means of violence and mayhem demanded it be investigated down to its core.  Protest on the mall? Fine.  Circling the U.S. Capitol and chanting with bull horns and waving flags? Also, fine.  But once the mob decided to enter the building by force and impede the required Constitutional functions of the members of the House of Representatives causing loss of life it became an existential threat to our fragile democracy and needs to be investigated and prosecuted vigorously. In our system of government such attempts of coercion are wrong; might does not ever equate to right. We are so close to the fire that destroys democracy you can feel the heat in every home in America.

 

Justice Roberts pled for his fellow justices rebuff efforts by right-wing lawmakers to get around court decisions they disdain by making it virtually impossible for the aggrieved to sue the state enacting problematic laws. This was tied to the Texas legislature’s attack on Roe. Texas S.B. 8 made it virtually impossible for an abortion provider to sue the State of Texas. Roberts’ plea appears to be going unheeded. What a hellatious state of this union.

 

Roberts opined, “If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the Constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery,” Roberts was quoting U.S. v. Peters case, and its finding that state legislatures can't overrule federal courts. “The nature of the federal right infringed does not matter; it is the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system that is at stake.” We exist as a nation of unified laws with one final arbiter of the legality of those laws for good or ill. If that becomes in doubt our existence as free democracy comes into doubt.

 

I am a Christian with Buddhist predilections toward meditation. Others have travelled this path before me, I take my inspiration from them.  My faith is based on compassion and love, on mercy and charity, and on hope and forgiveness. Each year for decades I have looked forward toward Advent, the season of light.  But with physical and social diseases ravaging the land of my birth this year it is hard to fix my eye on these things. As Christmas nears, I don’t want others trying to dazzle me with their conceptions of heaven.  What I want is for people to show mercy and love. What I want is just for this short week for us to let it all be and to be at peace.

 

Perhaps my faith is misplaced and there is no savior, no heaven, no hell.  But there is a right now and we can take simple acts to make this moment bearable.  We can acknowledge that while differences exist in our moral and political philosophies our humanity demands we respect other people lives. I hope that as people we would listen to the recommendations of medical professionals and do those things needed to protect ourselves and others.  I hope that we as citizens consider what it means to live in a nation of laws and govern ourselves accordingly.  I would hope that we could focus on light for a moment.

The picture above is from an area called the Foz in Porto, Portugal.  

 

What We Did on the Sunday Before All Saints Day

This is a recap of yesterday’s activity. 

 

Down near the subway stop called Rossio there is a large public square.  My son and I found our way there last night after a long walk.  It was a serendipitous moment.

 

Yesterday was the third day of rain here in Lisboa.  The rain has just been kind of miserable.  The water falling from the sky has not been coming down as a downpour so staying in the apartment all day on a Sunday was not an option. Still, the sidewalks were slick making walking treacherous for old geezers like me.  Also, it rains just enough so that traveling to an outdoor venue like a park or an overlook of the city makes no sense. 

 

Sunday’s weather being what it was we made the decision to take the metro up to Colombo, a mall that bills itself as the largest on the Iberian Peninsula. Having been to a number of malls here in Portugal for various things I was prepared to be underwhelmed.  Truly this time I was surprised.  Going into Colombo was like walking into the heyday of American malls in the late 80s/early 90s.  This place was huge. Colombo was packed.

 

Colombo physically was set up with three separate shopping areas connected by a center court. Kind of looks like a spaceship form a Star Trek movie. Inside the place was all done up in a tasty dark green and taupe color scheme.  The Colombo name was tied to the man we know as Christopher Columbus. On the floor were tiled maps of the world as Columbus saw it with sea monsters and all.  A huge hanging piece in an atrium depicted a 15^th century sailing vessel.

 

The place was packed with stores and the stores were packed with people.  There were no empty store fronts or rows of oriental nail salons. There were no museums of firefighting in Sloughfoot County with a donation jar prominent at the front. 

 

About slightly more than half of the stores were the same ones you would find in American malls. There were more computer and phone stores including brands like Samsung and Huawei.  Most surprising to me were two stores.  There were both a Disney store and a Toys R’ Us just like the ones that used to be total kid magnets in America.  I walked in to Toys R’ Us just to see if it was one of the pop off knock offs that arise in the US around Christmas time.  Nope. It was just like it used to be.  So was Disney.

 

In the end a mall is just a mall.  After a short trip to the food court which was quite huge, we bailed and headed to greener pastures.  Primus and I went exploring while Francie and Loren headed back to the apartment.  

 

Rode the subway to a stop called Interdente and got off.  Walked downhill in the direction of downtown toward a square called Martim Moniz.  At Martim Moniz there is kind of a food court of Asian food, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese.  All the food is fast, hot and relatively inexpensive, but we weren’t hungry and the walking by itself was our destination.

 

As we walked down the main street between these two locations we passed a number of Chinese, Indian and Pakistani stores, shops, restaurant and bodegas.  Old men sat at tables under awnings drinking coffee, talking loudly and laughing.  At this point there really was no rain anymore but it was beginning to get dark.  We decided to head across the downtown to another subway stop and then home.  

 

As we travelled, we began to get the scent of food in the air.  This area is packed with restaurants just north and just south of where we were. But this smell was different, it smelled like food cooked outside.  And then there we were in the square near Rossio subway and there was an outdoor market going.  Beer, wines (including several Sangria stations) crafts, t-shirts and plates of sausage, bread and cheese were all being sold in little tents clustered around a covered seating area.  The smell of the food plates was intoxicating.

 

Beer was purchased, mom was texted and she said she would join us, and we poked around.  When Francie got there, we got a plate of prosciutto, grilled sausages, bread and local cheese.  Mmm, mmm, good.  We drank artisanal beers.  People tried to lure us into buying candied almonds with “free” samples. And then we wandered around downtown for a bit before returning home.  Only saw one witch despite it being Halloween.  She was waiting for an Uber and talking on the phone, probably explaining why she was late to the gathering,

 

Got to say this, sometimes serendipity saves the day.

Sometimes Time Doesn’t Matter

 31 October 2021  

So as to yesterday and the whole art and the mall thing, well stuff went sideways, sort of. By that I mean nothing negative happened but it just didn’t work out as planned. So, it goes.  The traveler’s mantra has to be something like, “Be flexible and remember acceptance is the key.” 

 

First there was the serendipity of cascading moments which occurred.  In trying to get to the National Museum of Ancient Art Google Maps showed us that there was a bus that ran from just about directly outside our front door to the museum’s front door. Cool.  When we got to the bus stop the bus in question, (the 727 and yes, I chuckled at a bus numbered after a fast jet airliner), pulled in.  Thirteen minutes later we were at the museum.  

 

Given the time, pushing 14:00 as they say here (2 PM) we decided to grab some food in the Greek tavern across from the edifice.  The food was excellent, hot and hearty, just what was needed for a day that was turning wet with a twist of chill. I had a lamb meatball dish served over rice with a wonderful sauce.  Stoked up with filling food we were off into the art.

 

When we got to the desk, we had IDs out. There were driver’s licenses to prove ages 65 and under 26 together with a European Youth Card for the 26-30.  All the searching wallets was pointless because the clerk politely informed us the ticketing computer was down and thus the museum was free for the day. A third flash of serendipity who would have thought it? But it was not over.

 

The Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga as it is properly known is not one of those highlighted in the tourist guides. I mean it does get a mention here or there but it is really not emphasized.  As we entered the first exhibit was on liturgical vestments. While interesting this did not in my mind bode well for what the museum might hold.  The vestments was ornate with woven gold fibers but were faded and dimly lit.  I was worried.

But then I stepped into the room housing various nativity scenes from convents and churches and I grew amazed.  These depictions of the Christ child’s birth were over the top.  They were huge and they were intricate. One of them using my keen powers of guess-timation was eight or nine feet wide and six feet tall. You know that huge small town HO railroad towns your uncle had when you were a kid?  We these were that intricate on steroids. Just breathtaking.

 When you followed the stairs at the edge of this room down, they ended in as ornate a chapel as anything I had seen in my travels so far this fall. The room in all its gold glory just takes you back to a time of imperial splendor. Portugal was on top of the world once.

 

When you have finished visiting the chapel and start into the painting collections you suddenly discover there are works by Hieronymus Bosch, Raphael, Hans Holbein the Elder, Francisco de Zurbarán, Albrecht Dürer, Domingos Sequeira, and Giambattista Tiepolo. This palace of art is full of wonderful surprises.  I just loved the black and white paintings on the backs of the triptychs.  Truth be told I just got lost in the details of painting after painting and hours slipped away. 

 

The trip back to our base Airbnb here in Lisboa was a little different.  Francie and Loren took the 727 back.  (I make a whooshing sound here imitating what I think a jet sounds like) Their travel cards had expired and so Primus and I swapped with them.  My oldest son said the station is straight down this road, we can recharge the subway/bus cards there.  Truth is he just wanted to walk in the rain, for a mile plus.  GRRR.  I was drenched by the time we reached the station. Drenched I say.  Drenched I tell you.  And chilled.  But the young man was as happy as a clam and he was wearing shorts and carrying a flimsy umbrella.

 

By the time we got back and met up with our other two it was about 5:15 PM.  A quick look at the mall’s calendar revealed that it is not open past seven on the weekends tied most likely to Covid-19.  So, it goes. I spent a rainy day chasing eternal art instead of crass consumerisms.  Probably for the best.

 

Now I could have cut and pasted the details about the art museum, about the Greek taverna and the mall and made this way more specific and informative but would that have made it any better?  I don’t think so.  This is me, warmer and dryer now, just riffing on what the day was like.

 

 

Halloween, an Art Museum and the Mall

 

Rainy day here in Lisboa.  We are in for a stretch of about 4 ½ rainy days.  I have been slow this morning.  Did little things like emptying the dishwasher, making coffee and eating my oatmeal.  Took some time to read through e-mail.  Haven’t got to Facebook yet.  Will do that next.

 

Spent some amount of time yesterday with a banker.  Trying to pick up our debit card.  We were told it would be in Thursday, but like many things here it is late or delayed.  While talking to the banker we found out that Monday is a national holiday, All Saints Day, and the banks are closed.  It is also the anniversary of the destruction of Lisboa in 1755.

 

Halloween is not celebrated here really, not with candy and costumes.  Apparently, such festivities happen in some expat communities but that is about it.  There are references to a tradition where children demanded bread.  According to the blog All Things Algarve it goes by, “different names such as ‘Dia do Bolinho’, ‘santorinho’, ‘bolinho’, or ‘fiéis de Deus’. As well as sweets, children can expect to receive cakes, chestnuts and fruit biscuits. “The most clearly Halloween things I have seen are flyers for two EDM concerts with Halloween themes.

 

All Saints’ Day is a different matter. Quoting from the same blog, 

 

“All Saints Day and Halloween are celebrated on entirely different scales, simply because All Saint’s Day is an opportunity to clean relatives’ cemetery graves and plots. It’s an extremely important day in the Portuguese calendar where cemeteries will be filled with local residents who aim to make their relatives’ resting places look squeaky clean. They use bleach in order to make the resting places spotless and the smell can be noticed from quite a distance away.

 

During the cleanup, it’s popular to find flower vendors selling flower heads for anyone looking to refresh the plants for the graves. They also offer traditional Portuguese snacks for the volunteers who are present at the cemetery. This is all happening whilst some services are taking place around the graveyards.”

 

Like most things in the modern world there is no clear agreement on such facts.  Some articles say that Halloween as celebrated in North America is being fully embraced here.  I don’t see the evidence of that being true.  There was one store in a mall with an inordinate amount of candy corn and plastic spiders.  There was another with cheesy costumes but mostly for adults.  It is not everywhere.  In actuality there are more Christmas decorations up than Halloween decorations.  But the cemeteries are already being cleaned and fresh flowers are everywhere around the graves.

 

To make the most of today we are going off to an art museum.  The facility has a triptych by Bosch. Doesn’t get more Halloween scary than that does it?  Also plan to hit another mall which claims to be the “largest on the Iberian Peninsula”.  Trust I am sure we will work some other things in.

An On the Road Meme

 

As I was scanning the FB feeds this morning, I came across a meme one a friend had posted about wanting to go on a road trip.  The kind of road trip described or implied was not the manic road trip of Neal, Jack and the boys.  The road trip described was also not the kind of road trip you would have set out on with a couple of twenty-dollar bills and a couple of pairs of clean underwear, a toothbrush and toothpaste.  No, it was more the kind of road trip Joni Mitchell sang about in Refuge of the Roads.

 

Exploration, taking pictures, sunrises, feeling the wind in one’s hair; these are the kind of things you can do when you have a little money in your pocket. Don’t get me wrong I am fully in favor of this kind of road trip, duh.  But I want to add a footnote, a caveat of sorts.

 

DON’T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

SERIOUSLY, DON’T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!

 

When I was about twenty a couple of the people I worked with talked about hitching up to Montreal and grabbing a flight from there to London.  Then as now airfares out of Canada were much cheaper than they are in the US. As we stood around listening to David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, we planned dreams and dreamed plans.  Only one of us made the trip back then and it wasn’t me.

 

Like so many of my “plans” born of rock and roll and a couple of Rolling Rocks my folks put the kibosh on this idle vapor of thought.  The hammer of “Well, you can do that or we can help you with paying for college,” was wielded effectively.  Still, I have always regretted not heading off to the continent when I was young.

 

Oh, don’t get me wrong I taken more than a couple of road trips over the years.  One was made in a $50 car with a thirty-dollar Coleman stove and a pup tent.  From Michigan to Oregon and points in between.  From the wilds of Idaho to the Rolling Stones in Anaheim it was a legendary trip.  But it was not the road adventure I had longed for.

 

Over the years I have more or less circled the Great Lakes.  I have travelled from Canso, Nova Scotia to Sooke, British Columbia.  I went to the Olympics in Norway.  I spent time in Paris, London and Lisbon. Right now, I am dab smack in the middle of just under 90 days in Portugal.

 

But it is not the same.  I have kids.  I have a pill minder.  I have a knee brace.  I live by a concrete rule of no more than two low alcohol beers per day and that is bending my cardiologist’s guidance just a wee bit.

 

Don’t get me wrong, it you can travel with adaptations and rules like I do, and you can afford it, GO!!!!!  There is never a point where learning about other people, other cultures, other viewpoints and other ways of living is a bad thing. But if you can do it younger when you knees work, when your voice is strong, when you don’t mind the hangovers (or you can power through them) then do it.  Go threadbare and on the cheap. But GO!!!!

 

Waking up to a sky painted red and blue is wonderful.  Sitting around drinking espressos in little cafes is divine. Gazing at a woodcarving on an altar overlaid with gold gilt that most likely took two artisans in the time of an earlier plague 10 years to complete, well it moves something inside of you.

 

Excuse me while I finish my pastry.  I need to wander down to the harbor to watch the ships come and go.

About ½ Way Through This Initial Journey

 

Last night the plan had been to get takeaway.  When we went out for our midday walkies, we discovered the takeaway joint was at the edge of the regular restaurant district.  Scratched that idea.  If one is going to walk all the way down to the restaurants, one is going to eat at said dining establishments.

 

Instead, Francie walked down to the local Pingo Doce and got some clams, clams for a clam stew.  There was a salad with buffalo mozzarella, some chips and homemade salsa and some tinto.  The wine was from the Douro valley and was quite tasty. To finish all off a little while after the dishes were cleared, there was an 18-year-old scotch whiskey and some gelado. 

 

Our fellow travelers asked if we were ever going camping again.  I laughed and said, “This my friend is camping in my dotage.”  We are cooking new meals based on available ingredients.  We are hiking at least five miles a day. We are on the alert for wild animals (big assed dogs behind fences here as opposed to bears rooting through garbage bins in the northern woods). We are traveling in unknown terrain.  The beds might be a tad more comfortable than a bed roll, but we are essentially doing what we did camping. We are sharing each other’s company and discovering new things together.

 

Today is our 45^th day in Europe.  We are just a tad past the halfway point in this journey. I am dropping into the rhythms of this place, casual morning, long lunch, slow afternoon and joyous evenings.  I probably will have to immerse myself in football and pick a team to root for when I am in the bars. I really don’t want this to end.

Last Day in Olhao

 

Last night I tried a couple of times to record a video post showing myself and the almost full moon as I talked about how much I enjoyed Olhao.  Never really captured what I wanted to say or the look I was going for. So here goes as I try and put it into words.  My espresso at my left hand.

 

Olhao is mostly a working seaport with some gorgeous beaches attached. And yes, there is a row of restaurants that stretches on for more than a kilometer. But really it is nobody first choice for a waterfront holiday.  I mean there is the intense swamp/fish smell that comes from the fish processing plant every couple of days when the wind blows into town. Also, there are the coffee shops/bars filled with grizzled old men sipping Superbock beer, lingering for hours at a table set out in the middle of a sidewalk. And even the new condos have issues notably the stucco siding falling off into the street and onto the sidewalk below.  And there are the ruined buildings.

 

But…

 

I have lived in seaside towns before and the fish smell it kind of comes with the salt air and the sea view.  The old men are just that old men, strange only because I am a stranger in this town a place which has existed with grizzled old men for many, many centuries. While it might be easy to view my photos of old houses as disaster porn, the key thing is that they are old and they are still in use.  This place has cycles of life, cycles of use and reuse older than the nation from whence I have come.

 

And…

 

The pace of this town is a pace I like.  Morning is filled with activity.  Then comes a long lunch.  Then real life slows for a time only to awaken again in late afternoon and continuing on until 10 PM or so.

 

Olhao is working class.  I come from blue collar beginnings so the humble side of this town is not a shock or a deterrent. Olhao is on the water and I spent the most formative years of my life at the edge of the ocean. Ohlao has a good spirit of life and at this stage in my life I appreciate that life-force.

The Promised Dedicated Work Station

I have not created a blog post in a bit.  At current we are halfway through our Portuguese adventure. We have now arrived in Lagos, Portugal after leaving Olhao.  Train ride took about 2 ¾ hours.  Cab took about half an hour to get to the station and a half an hour to get to the place due to Google maps discombobulation.  Downhill the train station is about 20 minutes away.  Uphill, well I don’t even want to contemplate that.

 

Truth be told I really, really loved Olhao.  It was a working seaport with tourist beaches and restaurants appended to it. Must be my blue color upbringing, I don’t mind the smell of fish and brine.  I don’t mind old men in wife beater t-shirts drinking beer at noon.  And I do like unpretentious dives with good pastries.

 

But Lagos.  Wow.  The place we rented is very, very nice.  A pool.  A marble staircase.  Four bedrooms two with their own baths.  A veranda.  Loads of plants including lime trees and rosemary everywhere. When I got up this morning the sun was starting to explode across the eastern sky above the ocean.  The temperature today will reach 80F but this morning it is 60.  Slept with the windows open last night and slept well.

 

Right now, I believe I am working from the dedicated work space.  Uh, I think I could work from this dedicated work space from now until the cows come home. In a day or two some friends will join us to share the space. Hanging out in an alabaster neighborhood drinking gin and tonics will probably be as nice as nice can be. More soon.

 

On a Spring Day Long Ago/On a Fall Day in a Fallen Roman Province

Scrawny and lanky a young man sits in a bright cheerful classroom in the “New High School.”  He gazes out into the courtyard, a design element the teachers and administrators weren’t quite sure how to use yet. He daydreams but not for long for his harsh, scary old Latin teacher had only 13 students and he could be called to answer a question at any time.

 

Today Ms. Audrey Cooper was talking about the layout of the tradition Roman villa. These history bits were more interesting to him than the ablative and male versus female nouns. He disconnected from his fantasy of being a rock star swaggering like Roger Daltrey at Woodstock and focused on tile roofs, a fountain in the center of the atrium and the marvelous mosaics the artisans would set out on the floors of these patrician estates.

 

Ms. Audrey with her pasty white powdered face took a piece of chalk and in precise letters wrote the word “viae” on the chalkboard. Viae was the plural of via the Latin word for road. She talked about how good roads were important for commerce in the empire.  Good roads, and these were good roads elevated and with drainage ditches on the sides, could allow the Roman legions move quickly through the countryside. Her love of all things Roman was clear as she happily, almost giddily, told the class these roads were engineered to last and some were still visible today. Looking up and to the side gazing at a map of the Empire she intoned some are still in use in rural areas.

 

From rock star to Roman centurion, the young man’s fantasies shifted in a nanosecond.  Instead of being onstage in bell bottoms and sandals singing in a gravelly voice about stopping the war he was marching with troops in a leather skirt and sandals out into the hinterlands of great Roman empire at the behest of Octavius.  Now mind you both of these fantasies had similar components, semi-nude women, modern groupies or roman house keepers.  Hey at 15 years old what more could you expect from the mind of a male child of the seventies?

 

From April 1971 to September 2021 the fifty years flew by.  Ms. Cooper, God rest her soul (and I say that with sincerity), is long dead. The new high school is so very far from new.  The fifteen-year-old horndog with the attention span of a gnat is now a 65-year-old man, retired from a lifetime of work and afflicted with the maladies that come with advancing years. 

 

But here I stand on the grounds of a Roman villa with a docent explaining how when it was “discovered” in the 1700s this villa was large enough to be thought to be a whole village. One archeologist showed however that it was the home of very rich and very powerful patrician.  The temple to animalistic deities was build late in the site’s history because these were holdouts from the Roman empire’s conversion to Christianity.  The docent leads me into a sizeable house to show me how a 16^th farmer used the ruins as the foundation of his house burying the entryway into the Roman dwelling beneath the living quarters of his traditional Iberian Peninsula home.

 

And then after we leave the house and step outside on the path back to the interpretive center, he casually throws out that this was a Roman road that led about 15 km to Faro and then from Faro on the Portuguese coast up to Spain. I ask him if the stones are the original stones from the start of time in CE.  He tells me some but not all and he laughs saying if you look with even a little bit of care you can tell.  And I did.  And I could. And suddenly I was a centurion dressed in leather again heading out for a return to the seven hills of Rome.  I will not address the question of whether my imagination conjured up tanned women in various states of undress.  It is irrelevant.  But I can tell you every second I paid attention in Latin I, II & III came flooding back to me.

 

And God bless the memory of Audrey Cooper and the love of classical history she instilled those of us who dared take her classes. Without her I wouldn't have taken an Uber out to the countryside with my youngest son to gaze upon the wonders of a great fallen empire.

Plans Change, Plans Evolve

Having read all the guide books our plan had been to head to Tavira next week to wander around and explore that part of the Algarve.  In that we had some open time late last week we took the train to Tavira to check out the location of our Airbnb and the town in general.  Well, we were not impressed.

To begin with Tavira was packed, filled with tourists who just seem incapable of wearing masks.  We are not talking about under the noise misuse.  We are taking masks nowhere to be seen.  Second, the street of the town had people shoulder to shoulder, just totally packed with tourists.  In the older part of the town, the quaint narrow streets, the throngs were an oozing compressed mass akin to molasses flowing through a narrow funnel.  Having been in Olhao which is a beach town for a week, where people are widely dispersed, this congestion just felt damn uncomfortable.  Finally, there was the price factor.  Everywhere the markup was higher that Lisboa, Faro, and Olhao. If you go to a pastry shop here in Olhao or Lisboa, a pastry and an expresso are between a euro and a euro thirty.  In Tavira the base price was running about three euros. The mask-less, crowded price gouging proved too much.  We cancelled the Airbnb.

On Saturday we got on the train to Lagos.  While we were tempted to check out Albufeira we passed on stopping there because the Portuguese government reports have indicated it was the country’s Covid-19 hotspot.  The train which was supposed to take just under two hours died requiring a new train to come and pick us up.  Passage was thus three and a quarter hours with an hour to wander around an unmanned train station on a warm day.  

Lagos itself is large and developed.  It has everything from 80 different boat tours to a fun fair with a Ferris wheel. It has modern condos but also an old walled city of sorts with narrow uncrowded streets. Because it is the end of the season the crowds are just not there.  It was 80F during the day and the sky was clear.  Still, all the vendors were bemoaning the cooling weather and how all the fun was leaving town.  Hell, I am from Michigan by way of New Jersey, I decided I can handle being in a tourist ghost town for two weeks where the lowest daily temperature is going to be 79F and the lowest nightly temperature will be 62F.  

Took forever on the Airbnb site to find a spot in Lagos.  So many little nuances you have to be aware of like the use of the word cozy. Cozy is normally code for damn small.  I note a variation of this has begun to creep into the entries, cozy spacious.  Huh?  What the hell does that mean, you get a hand knitted afghan to use in your sleeping tube? You also have to beware of listing that don’t show an exterior view.  Those are the ones next to a tattoo parlor and above the methadone clinic. If there is the reference to “the full ambience of a seaside town” you can count on the smell of the fish processing plant being an ongoing part of your experience.  Five minutes from the city center must be researched carefully.  Is that by walking, by car or by jetpack?  

Anyway, I found a four bedroom place an easy walk from the city center.  It costs more than I wanted but it hit all the check boxes.  Close to town.  Modern appliances.  Good reviews.  I will keep you informed on how this goes.

Rain and More

14 September 2021

 

One month since this trip began.  Clearly, time does fly.  I am comfortable living the way we are bouncing from city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood.  Each locale is different and the patterns of the people in each place differ, but all in all they are good and genuine folks.  One could get used to this. Once you have arrived in a spot it takes a day or two to get the lay of the land.  But quickly the foreign becomes familiar as you learn where the bus stops and the metro stops are. And then you can set about to get to know the heart of the place.

 

At this point I know I like the suburbs of Porto.  However, Porto itself is not my kind of town except for maybe the Foz.  Too many hills, too old and too much focus on the tourist side of things.  I really liked Braga and Povoa do Vazim, the ancient city and the beach town. I think I could live in either one of them. I also right at this moment like Olhao.  The ocean beach vibe of this commercial fishing town just suits me, and I haven’t even been to the beaches yet.  With this weather that will not be today, see below.

 

Hell-atious

 

The Ministry of the Sea and the Air has afforded that the weather will be unsettled for the next couple of days and that “disruptions” may occur. At about 5 AM the wind kicked up and the sky let loose and the lightening put on a display that was spectacular.  The clouds were low, so individual strikes were not readily discernable.  However, with each blast of electricity the sky’s color went from pitch black to blindingly white.  And it happened again and again.  The weird part was that the strikes had to be at some great distance because there was nary a roll of thunder to be heard.

 

As I write this the weather has settled into a pattern of what I call beach rain.  This morning’s skies are behaving in a manner not that different from those I experienced on the Jersey shore.  One moment the clouds open up and a deluge fills the streets creating lakes in low spots on the road.  Fifteen minutes later the rain has stopped the water is disappeared from the byways and there are large swatches of blue with some occasional sun above.  Rinse and repeat. Today will not be a day of major exploring. Writing, plotting and planning will be one the agenda.

 

Beloved Dogs and Feral Cats

 

People in Portugal love their dogs.  I don’t know how to explain it.  The dogs go everywhere with their owners, restaurants, cafes, in the car or walking along the docks.  A man will be sipping an espresso at the café and a larger dog will be there spread across his feet. And nobody bats an eyelid.

 

Most of the dogs are relatively small.  But they are so well behaved.  They don’t run into the street.  They don’t bother other people.  I have seen a couple of larger dogs that I just loved.  The owners tell me that the big shaggy breed of off-white canines is a breed that comes in from the Azores.  I am not a dog person but I would consider owning one of these.

 

Cats on the other hand seem to be everywhere and they don’t seem to be owned by anyone.  Felines walk about the community with impunity.  As you might expect they are found in large numbers by the fish market and near the waste bins of grocery stores.  Some cats clearly are well cared for but given the numbers one sees the feral population must be quite high. Saw one cat with a collar all of yesterday.  He appeared to be a Manx Siamese mix. Stubby tail and Siamese points and soft, soft fur. 

 

Faro

 

Took the train to Faro yesterday.  Faro is the biggest town in the area.  It has regional bus service, a train station and an international airport.  Faro has been around for a long time, the Romans used to evaporate seawater there to collect the salt.  Faro also has a castle with a Moorish door from the 1100s.  We wandered the alleys inside of the castle.  However, one of us dropped his phone.  Frantic searching ensued.  To my surprise we found the phone.  All the credit cards and cash were still in the case.  After the fright of that potential loss, one which would have been disastrous, we needed to decompress.  

 

We went for a meal.  At the time it seemed kind of expensive.  However, the food, wine and gingina gelato all were wonderful. The meal struck the right balance between delight and comfort.  And best of all I had the credit card to pay for it.

Storks

 And did I mention the storks.  Two of them have a next out behind the apartment.  It is so very cool to watch them.  Their gigantic nests are just amazing.

 

 

 

 

Dead People, Trains and the Hat

 

So much of this country’s attractions are focused on dead people.  Yesterday I took a train up to Guimaraes and hit some of the important spots.  Guimaraes is constantly wrangling with Braga as to which should be considered the “birthplace” of Portugal.  Guimaraes is where the battle was, Braga is the city who provided the troops.  The two towns are about 10 miles apart. To our “modern” minds this distance is nothing.  To soldiers and knights from 1,000 years again, ten miles was a much, much longer trip.  The debate really sounds like a philosophical question to me, it is not totally removed from Theseus’s ship.

 

Two of the big attractions in Guimaraes are the castle and the ducal palace.  The palace is large and very Arthurian.  I am told Salazar the dictator expanded the palace and used it as a residence during his years in power.  The castle got tweaked and refurbished during that period but it did not get the expansion the palace did.  Walked through the palace.  Room after room of heavy dark furniture, fireplaces and what appear to be Flemish tapestries.  And Jesus did I mention the uphill climb to these places.  Ugh.  Fat American whine.

 

Anyway, both sites are impressive but located between them is a small chapel from the early 1200s.  It is here the first king of Portugal is said to have been baptized.  The building is empty save an altar and the tombs beneath the floor.  You are allowed to walk in to the church but you can only walk around the exterior wall the center being roped off.  Stone after stone is set in the floor’s middle marking the burial spot of important men.  Given the era, men and not women are interred here. Crosses are carved onto the stones.  Swords are too.  Latin inscriptions abound.

 

Looking down at the tombs I found myself humming a lyric by Van the (Foolish in Regards to Covid) Man.  It goes,

 

You can't stop us on the road to freedom

You can't keep us 'cause our eyes can see

Men with insight, men in granite

Knights in armor bent on chivalry

 

Tupelo Honey by Van Morrison

 

So much of what is an attraction is tied to the acts of great dead people.  The ducal palace was the home of powerful but now dead people.  Same with the castle.  In Porto proper there is a church with the heart of one of the kings of Portugal residing in it.  History defines so much of our character, so much of the place where we come from ethos. It is important to visit these sites with open eyes knowing that what you are seeing has been interpreted and reinterpreted so many times. No matter what the current interpretation is these places are touchmarks of a people’s history.

 

Okay the train part.  When you ride a train here you have to electronically validate your ticket before you get on.  I swear to God I did it before I got on the train back to Porto.  But it did not register on the conductor’s hand-held device.  Had to listen to a canned spiel about the Euro 150 fine and then got the dumb American shrug of I am not going to throw you off the train…. this time.  

 

Early on I bought a hat.  I have now abandoned it.  Nothing says I am a stupid gullible tourist more than the hat they sell at every stall in every market. Got to find a distressed ball cap.  Also got to lose the floral Hawaiian shirts. Need to pick up some football style shirts and horizontally stripped shirts. These will not make me look European but they will make me look less clearly and unequivocally American. If I lost 40 pounds (18 kg) that would help too.

Twilight on the Douro

At about 8:30 PM (20:30) I am sitting at a small table watching the sunlight fade over the Douro River. I am in an Airbnb that I initially thought I would hate.  Yes, it looks like the pictures but I had mistakenly believed it had air conditioning when it in fact does not.  Luckily the temperatures for the next week to ten days are supposed to top out at 73 F.  The night lows are in the high 50s.  And the view…

 

Sitting on this balcony if I look to the west, I see the Dom Luis bridge.  If I look to the east I see two other bridges, one old and one new.   More importantly I see the flotilla of Douro Valley day trippers returning from 6 or 8 hours on the river absorbed in the scenery of the terraced vineyards, coupled with a lunch/wine tasting at a quinta that produces port.  It really is quite beautiful out here.  I am on a cliff and there are several roads below me.  I can’t see the road but I can hear what is going on down there. A street sweeper just went by, it goes by every night at this time. 

 

The oranges and reds from the sunset are fast fading and the sky above me, what I can see of it through large fully canopied trees is dusty but growing dark blue with the minute. The day is done and what have I done with it. I didn’t “accomplish” much today.  There was a strategic strike to get some items at a grocery story.  There was a trip through a cathedral and the cloisters attached to it. Great beauty was seen and savored. Coffee was had twice and a great deal of time was spent savoring those moments.  I have come to appreciate coffee culture, at least as it is practiced here.

 

Seagulls are screaming over the river.  A feral cat, and there are thousands of them here, walks by on a wall and then jumps onto a red tile roof. A friend asked me if I was relaxing.  The answer is not all the time, but when I hit moments like this one as I sit and watch the river flow, well, this is as relaxed as I ever get.

The Hour of Transition

There is a moment in the day we have been experiencing on this journey that is quite special.  Somewhere around 5:30 (17:30) the whole ambience of this place changes. The sun drops low in the sky and the temperature falls accordingly.  It was in the high 80s when we were out and about earlier, but now the temperature is a very comfortable 76 F.  A breeze has come up.  The sky is clear, nary a cloud to be found.  This transition has been the norm over the past 8 days.  No matter how hot the day has been, the evening is cooler and quite enjoyable.  A light sweater or jacket is almost required. Sitting at an outdoor table drinking a beer on these evenings is almost a religious experience.  The calming effect of the shift in temperature is extremely relaxing. 

 

We tried to go to Miramar today.  It is a little town with a chapel that sits on a rock out in the ocean.  Problem is we tried to take the eleven o’clock train.  Oh, my goodness, the train was packed with only standing room available.  No matter how high the vaccination rate and it is in the mid 70%s in Portugal, I am not going to stand side by side with sweating, panting people, not with the Delta variant running amok.  Instead, we went back to the beach at Matosinhos via the Porto metro.  The metro was busy, but not insane.  The beach was fairly packed, as it should be on a warm day.

 

Tomorrow we move to an Airbnb midafternoon here.  I am looking forward to this was great anticipation.  I want to eat food that is not restaurant food.  Desperately.  Mind you I like restaurant food, but I want to control the size of my portions and I want to have a salad that conforms to my idea of what a salad should be.  We will see how it goes.  

 

I wanted to mention something I experienced having stayed in (Vila Nova de) Gaia for the last eight nights.  It is one thing to stop in to a hotel for a night or two and take the recommendations of the concierge as to where to eat and what to do.  It is another to walk about the neighborhood and discover it, and to discover the place’s rhythms. Over the past eight days we have tried out a number of pastry/coffee spots and come to have a favorite.  We have discovered a park that is calming and pretty. We have tried several restaurants, some of which are clearly 99% local frequented, and the ones at a distance from the hotel hit the mark for us. Having the time to get the feel of a place is a luxury I have never had before.  I think I will savor it.