Thursday March 20
We were up at 6am as usual, and on the coach around 9am. The storm Martinho did a lot of damage. We saw trees down in many places, and one car was totally crushed by a tree trunk. After seeing the effects in Lisboa, we hit the highway for our first stop, Cascais. This is pronounced “Cash-Kysh”, since in Portugal the letter s seems to always be “sh” when you say it. Our guide joked that the Portuguese don’t speak, they sshhpeak. Cascais became popular in the 1870s when King Luis I made it his favorite spot. He was not supposed to be King, and was more interested in sailing, but when his older brother died he became the heir apparent. The town is your basic coastal community with a yacht club, but it has a natural attraction they call the mouth of hell, where the surf crashes in. It was once a cave, but the roof collapsed. Then we went next door to Estoril, home to a famous Casino. The story is that the World War II spy Dusko Popov was staying at the hotel and gambling at the Casino, and Ian Fleming was also there, and took inspiration from Popov to create James Bond, and made the Casino the setting for Casino Royale, and both Cascais and Estoril were settings for some scenes in the film. The garden in front of the casino had a lot of damage to the trees from the storm the previous day.
We stopped for a quick lunch on the road where I had some vegetable soup which was very nice, then we headed to Coimbra. This is home to a university which was part of the inspiration for J.K. Rowling when she wrote Harry Potter. We saw students there in black uniforms and capes that were very suggestive of the Hogwarts students, and there was some hazing of the first year students while we were there. After visiting the University we moved down to the town where I grabbed a quick hamburger since it was my normal dinner time, and we were still some 2 hours from Porto. Back on the coach, we completed our journey to the hotel and got settled in by around 6:30pm. I only walked some 9,000 steps this day, but I was still tired. Tomorrow we may have rain again, but so far we have been lucky. We saw rain every day in the forecast before we left Michigan, but most of the time it has been either no rain, or light sprinkles of rain. We’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.
Friday March 21
We were up at 6am, and had breakfast at 7. We sat with Lorrie and Mike from San Mateo and swapped stories about traveling. They have traveled a lot and recommended TravelZoo, so that is something to check out. After a leisurely breakfast, we got on the coach with our local guide Rui, and it did turn out to be a rainy day, so we prepared by putting “booties” of rubber over our shoes as well as wearing raincoats, and we were really pretty dry.
We started by driving the coach around Porto and Gaia, which are on opposite sides of the Douro River, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. The old part of Porto is the Ribiera section down by the river, which we drove through, then we went up the coast just a bit to Matosinhos, just outside of Porto, which had an actual beach instead of a rocky coast. The day was still very windy, and the ocean was rough looking from the storm. Then it was back into Porto, and we got off the bus for a bit of a walking tour. We again saw many examples of the tiles that people use to decorate their buildings, and stopped into the train station, which also had tiles on the walls inside. Then it was up the hill again to see the views from the top. Both Porto and Gaia are high up on hills overlooking the river, so you are constantly climbing, which was taking a toll on my knee.
Porto is on the pilgrimage route up the coast to Santiago de Compostela, and we saw some pilgrims who were pointed out to us, and there were signs with arrows and a symbol of a clam shell, the symbol for Saint James (Santiago). These were to help guide the pilgrims. We also stopped outside a bookstore where J.K. Rowling began writing Harry Potter. She lived in Porto for a few years teaching English at a school. Then we went up to the Cathedral for the views, though we didn’t go into the Cathedral itself.
Then it was off to the winery, the Real Companhia Velha, to learn about how Port wine is made. It is an appellation product, meaning that like Champagne they can define what it means to be Port, and other products cannot call themselves port wine. Of course, this is not the only company in the region, but it is the oldest. The vineyards where the grapes are grown are all further up the Douro valley, but the wine itself is made, aged, and sold from Porto. They have different Oak casks for different types of Port, and the fermentation period is actually very short because they want to stop while it is still sweet, so they add alcohol after a few days to kill the yeast. But then it matures in the oak barrels for some years before it is sold. We saw a storeroom that had old bottles, some as old as the 18th century. Finally there was a tasting, which of course Cheryl and I passed on.
From there it was back to the hotel for some shopping and a little rest before dinner.
Saturday March 22
We had an earlier departure today, at 8am, as we left Portugal for our last day in Spain. We were scheduled to make a stop in Salamanca before heading to Avila, but while we were heading east Rikardo got word that Avila was flooded, which posed problems. So he called his company, and he had us contact Great Value Vacations, and between the various entreaties we got a substitute hotel in Madrid for the night. We missed the visit to Avila, but gained some closeness to the airport which meant we didn’t have to get up so early. We all agreed it was a good trade. The rain continued almost all of the day, except for when we drove by Avila, oddly enough, when the sun came out for a few minutes.
Salamanca is an old University town with a lot of Medieval/Renaissance architecture. We walked around the town, coming to the Plaza Major, which is a large square with an arcade on all four sides, where we had a lunch break, so we found a restaurant and I had a stew of Cod, Chick Peas, and Spinach, which was delicious. Then we went back to touring the town. But there was a cold rain and a biting wind the whole time, which made it a lot less pleasant. All in all, though, we did well this trip. Before we left home the forecast we saw was for rain every day, but in fact we had some very nice days. But I think this one day could have been skipped to general approval. By the time we all got back on the coach, people were cold, wet, and tired. But from there we headed straight for the hotel in Madrid.
At the hotel, the company paid for dinner for everyone, which had been the plan all along. But instead of doing it in Avila, we did it in Madrid. It was nice to join everyone once again. Rikardo asked which stop had been the standout one for people, and the consensus was Sevilla, which Cheryl and I agreed with. After dinner, everyone had to go to bed to prepare for an early departure to the airport.
Sunday March 23
We were up at 4:30, and had a pickup at 5:30 for a ride to the airport. After clearing security I found some decent food (cut up fruit and yogurt), and then we were on the plane. It was a nine hour flight to Miami. We had to clear customs here, and got diverted because Cheryl had brought an orange with her from Spain. This was a small delay, but we had a long layover so it was no problem. And of course our flight from Miami to Detroit was delayed some 20 minutes, but we were mostly relaxed at this point. We got into Detroit near midnight, picked up the car, and went home.
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