About Portugal

We've been back in Texas a week now. Our bags are put away and our bodies have re-adjusted from Western European Summer Time to Central Daylight Time, but I'm still thinking about Portugal. In lieu of listing things to do and places to see, I'll pass along some random observations.

For someone like me who loves to ride trains and buses, Northern Portugal is a dream. Porto has a modern, efficient system of buses, trams, and subway. The metro system connects with the suburban commuter trains that go as far out as Braga and Guimarães, and those in turn connect with the larger national train network. Getting from place to place was a genuine pleasure.

Click on any image for a larger view and more details.

Traditional Portuguese cuisine has 1000 recipes. You can get beef, veal, pork, chicken, fish, sausage, and octopus. The other 993 recipes are different ways of preparing bacalhau, salted cod. It's everywhere, and it's good. In the supermarket, you can find the meat/fish counter by the smell and sight of a big stack of stiff, dried salted cod.

PUXE on an entry door does not mean 'push,' it means 'pull.' Push is EMPURRE.

Pastry shops are to Portugal what shoe stores are to Italy: there's at least two in every block. There are hundreds of different kinds of sweets, and I'm hoping to try them all before I die. So far, my favorites are pastel de nata (little tart made from filo dough with an egg custard filling), bolo de berlim (puffy doughnut thingie partially sliced open to contain a cream filling and dusted with sugar and cinnamon), and bolo de arroz (small rice flour muffin perfect to accompany morning coffee).

Portugal has the cleanest restrooms I've ever seen: in small hole-in-the-wall restaurants, train stations, museums, even the public restrooms in city squares. The cities are clean, too, with minimal litter and recycling bins everywhere.

Not only are the Portuguese clean, they're very nice. We were always able to find someone to explain away our confusion or point us in the right direction.

Over the years, I've looked at hundreds of photos of the picturesque terraced vineyards that produce Port wine but nothing prepared me for seeing them in person. Mile after mile of rocky, narrow shelves zigzagging up the steep hillsides on both sides of the winding river, each barely wide enough for one or two rows of vines. I took many photos but none could fully capture the awe and beauty of the Alto Douro.

I like firm mattresses but Portugal has the hardest beds I've ever slept on. Most places use only box springs with no mattress on top.

Yes, of course, we will go back. There's still much to do, much to see, and much to eat and drink.

Portugal is a wonderfully photogenic place. Terri and I took hundreds of snaps, and I've posted my favorite ones here:

Portugal in Spring, 2013

And of course there's a slideshow version.

On to Viana do Castelo

It's been a pleasantly hectic ten days on the move in northern Portugal. So hectic that I haven't posted reports about our trip. There's doing and writing about doing, and at the moment I don't have the time and energy to do both. We all know there's more important things in life than blogging.

We've spent five nights in Porto, three in Pinhão, and two in Guimarães. Today we're headed to Viana do Castelo, where we'll spend two nights, before finishing up with three nights in Braga.

I'll post more detailed reports after we get back, but for now I'll add a link to our snaps so far:

Portugal in Spring, 2013. And of course there's a slideshow version.

Random observation: Portugal has the cleanest restrooms and the hardest beds in the civilized world.

Portugal, Again

On Sunday we're flying back to Portugal, our fourth trip there in two years. This time we'll fly in and out of Porto to explore the northern part of the country, almost two and a half weeks traveling between Porto, Pinhão, Guimarães, Viana do Castelo, and Braga.

You've already read about the way we travel, and this trip will illustrate another of our quirks. We like to go beyond the usual destinations commonly published in guidebooks and explore lesser-known locales. For example, every guide to Italy mentions Rome, Florence, and Venice, but most of our travel there has been to what I call The Other Italy, wonderful cities with enticing food, art, culture, and history and very few tourists.

So it will be on this trip. There's lots of information about Lisbon and quite a bit about Porto, but Braga? Viana do Castelo? Not so much. We've done a fair amount of research but much of our adventure will be spontaneous and unexpected -- Serendipity is a good friend of ours.

We considered renting a car. (The last time I drove in Europe was in 2002 when we wandered around Italy's Le Marche region for a couple of weeks.) Checking on rates and regulations showed that things had gotten more expensive and more complicated: the rental itself was reasonable, but then there's several layers of insurance that cost far more than the rental itself, and even then it didn't cover glass, tires, or undercarriage. Look out for potholes! Renting a toll tag is extra. Gas is around $8 a gallon and Portugal has the worst accident rate in Western Europe. When I found out that I'd have to pay yet another fee and find a local AAA office to get the recommended international driving permit, it all got to be too much. I chickened out. We'll miss visiting some out of the way quintas and I dearly wanted to visit Almendra, the family home of our friend Ana, but in the end I opted for less stressful train travel.

Laptop and cameras are packed -- stand by for updates.

The Way We Travel

Terri thought it might be interesting to tell others the how and why of our traveling, since we seem to approach things a little differently. So, this blog post is mostly Terri with a little bit of me.

It occurred to me, while relaxing in our Lisbon apartment on a rainy afternoon, that the way we travel may seem quite odd to most people.

After checking out every travel book available at the library for a particular destination, and making a rough list of things to do, the goal is not scratching those 'must-see' tourist attractions off the bucket list. Many times, the most important and famous monuments, like the Rialto Bridge in Venice, the Leaning Tower in Pisa, and the Trevi Fountain in Rome, for example, wind up being the least memorable experiences. They are crowded with tourists and kitschy souvenir kiosks. They aren't real. Walking around Venice at night is real -- you have this quiet magical place to yourself after all the day-trippers have left.

It's important to stay long enough to get a sense of place, to know a city and figure out how to get around via public transportation. (Deciphering bus and subway and tram schedules and fares and how they interconnect is far from easy, but being able to use the public transportation system is essential for understanding a city.) We aren't early risers, so we take our time and usually head out to explore around 11 a.m. With a detailed map and usually the Rick Steves and Eyewitness travel books, we start out on foot and walk around and take in the sights. Then stop somewhere for lunch, depending on where we end up. Then head in a different direction, exploring a different neighborhood, and so on. The next day, figure out how to ride the bus/subway, go a little further and get home in time for dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. Then another neighborhood, church, museum. And so on. There's no time for day trips to nearby cities -- that comes later, once you have a sense of place. What's left undone on your list becomes the starting point for the next trip. By the third trip, we know the city pretty well and venture out even further, with day trips to nearby places.

I realize that our independent style of traveling is quite different -- by being perfectly content walking around the neighborhood, eating lunch at the restaurant across the street, going to the grocery store, buying pastries at the bakery, buying a bus pass from the amiable guy in the shop next door, and sitting at scenic overlooks and taking in the view. And when it starts raining, going back to the apartment to listen to fado and to plan the next day, and maybe even the next trip to a new city.

I'll add a few things. We've traveled a lot but haven't been to that many places: UK, only London, once; France, only Paris, twice; Spain, only Madrid twice and Barcelona once; but Italy nine times, month-long escapes to Buenos Aires six times, and Portugal three times and planning more. We always go in the off-season. We don't buy travel books, we borrow them from the library. We plan ahead but often make last minute changes depending on weather, our mood, and new information. We go back to places we like but try to add at least one new destination every year. We prefer apartments to hotel rooms. We can't hide the fact that we're tourists but we work very hard to be as unobtrusive as possible.

And that's the way we travel.

Mostly by Bus

Our trip so far has been going to different parts of Lisbon and exploring. To get around, we've gone on some very long bus rides. I love very long bus rides, especially if I am lucky enough to get a seat. Figuring out stops and transfers can be challenging, but fortunately I am married to someone highly skilled in deciphering bus maps and routes. We always end up some place interesting.

We've eaten frango assado (roasted chicken) two days in a row and had at least one pastel de nata per day.

Today will be like the other days, I think, except we may not have frango assado. While we're out and about, here's some snaps to look at: Terri and Mike in Lisbon, 2013 edition. For your convenience, Flickr makes it easy to watch a slideshow of our trip so far.

March means Lisbon

A few weeks ago, I flippantly suggested that we go to Lisbon for lunch. We laughed at my silliness but then looked at each other and asked, why not? After all, as I've written before, lunch in Portugal is a wonderful thing. The silly idea became a serious plan and within a few days we had reserved air tickets and wired a deposit on an apartment in Largo da Graça.

So, tomorrow we're off, DFW to Madrid, then Madrid to Lisbon. By late Tuesday afternoon we should be walking to the Pingo Doce supermarket to pick up a few necessities after which will come the difficult task of deciding where to eat.

This will be the third March in a row we've visited Lisbon. Of course we'll eat lunch and I'll have a custard or three, and we hope to see our dear friends Ana and Manny. And we have a long list of things to do and places to see.

Until we have a chance to settle in and post some snaps, here's a photo from our 2011 trip, a view from the miradouro (scenic overlook) around the corner from our apartment.

Couples Weekend

Everyone has told us we shouldn't even consider moving to Seattle until we've been there in the winter. Of course we took this as a challenge and decided to visit Seattle in the winter.

There was a bit of rain when we arrived on Thursday but by Friday the sun was shining and Mt. Rainier was out in its glory. Our hotel's in Capitol Hill so we spent the morning walking around the neighborhood, visiting the Sorrento Hotel and the Frye Museum before grabbing a burger for lunch at Dick's Drive-In and recovering by sitting in Cal Anderson Park. Later in the day we walked downtown to Pike Market and along the waterfront, stopping for a chowder taste-testing at Ivar's. Our hotel was uphill from there so we wandered over to Pioneer Square to wait for the hotel van to pick us up.

On Saturday the fun really began. Terri had gotten in touch with Gwen, an old friend from their days working for the Texas Legislature, who has moved on to much bigger and better things and now lives in Seattle. She and her boyfriend Kerry picked us up at the hotel for a whirlwind day of eating, driving, and walking. We had lunch at Plum's, took a drive through Madison Park and Queen Anne, enjoyed incredible views from Kerry's beautiful condo in Belltown, walked leisurely down and back up 1st Street, ate a light dinner of Vietnamese crêpes at Long's, and finished with a nighttime drive out to the suburbs across the lake. It was one of those perfect travel days, hosted by a lovely couple we hope to see again soon.

On Sunday the fun continued. While the rest of the world gathered to watch some sort of sporting event, a super something or other, we enjoyed the quiet streets and headed to the Seattle Museum of Art. Afterwards, we went to the top of the Smith Tower to enjoy the views. In the evening we walked up Broadway to the heart of the Capitol District and the home of our friends George and Ward. George and I have 'known' each other for years via Flickr and lately on Facebook, but this was our first chance to meet in person. He prepared a wonderful dinner (shellfish and pasta!) and I finally got the hear the story of how a kid from Minneapolis went to Manhattan, Hawaii, and now Seattle with stops in India and Paris, but still wants to go back to Venice. Ward and George are the poster children for Family Values: they've been together for 56 years.

Today is our final full day in Seattle and we're still figuring out what to do. Terri is checking the ferry schedules so I suspect we may get out on the Sound.

I am still going through the snaps from the trip; this is what I have so far: my camera's view of Seattle.