Portugal - Final Impressions

 Sebastian Will Come - In 1578, age 24, Sebastian, king of Portugal, led a military campaign into north Africa. The Portuguese troops were soundly defeated, and Sebastian was never seen again. This led to a crisis in the monarchy as he had no heirs. Unfortunately, the next in line for the throne was the king of Spain (because of alliances through marriages). Portugal was under Spanish rule for the next 60 years. Sebastian's disappearance, but not confirmed death, left hope when life was particularly bad under the Spanish. Sebastian will one day appear and save the people. "Sebastian will come again." It is still a hope that someone will one day make a better life for the people 

King Sebastian 

Wine - The Portuguese drink more wine per capital than any other nation, and the wine is very good. Portuguese wines are a blend of grapes from individual regions, so the wines are identified by region, not by grape. Because the wines are so good, it's typical to order the house wine at restaurants. Most wines are also very affordable.

Water - Water is never provided free. Water at restaurants comes in bottles, still or sparkling. We were even charged separately for the scotch and the water (don't judge) at a bar. In our hotels, we drank tap water although bottle water was offered.

Pastries/Bread - The Portuguese love their baked goods. They have a wide variety of styles, all very tasty, and we enjoyed a good many of them. Pastel de nata is a small custard tart which seemed to be made everywhere, and there is an ongoing competition to determine who makes the best one.

Olives - Olives are grown through the country and are offered at every lunch and dinner. Laurel also are olive bread at breakfast. While you wouldn't call an olive "fresh" they are not canned. You buy them loose in the brine, not in a jar.

Streets - The streets in the older parts of the cities are extremely narrow, usually made of cobblestones in various states of disrepair, and often very steep. Several times our drivers had to "thread the needle" to get through, with the modern electronics in the vehicles warning of impending scrapes with the walls. While walking, we occasionally had to move into a recessed doorway to let a car pass. So glad we were not driving.

People - It seemed like all of the people were very friendly, natives and tourists alike. We had virtually no language barriers, as almost everyone was quite fluent in English.

Our Trip - We were very glad to have two days in Èvora between Lisbon and Porto, just to have a break from the crowds. We were not there during the high season, but we often felt overwhelmed by the number of tourists in Lisbon, Sintra and Porto. 

The trains are fantastic. Several of the tourists we met rented cars to travel between cities, but we found the trains comfortable, on time and stress free. Trains seem the better way to get between cities for us.

There are regions of Portugal that we couldn't fit in this trip and would like to explore. Next time...

Day 7 - Porto

 Our day in Porto began with a walk across the Douro River on the "iron" bridge to Gaia.

Bridge Connecting Porto and Gaia

The top level of the bridge is for Metro and pedestrians, the lower level for cars, bicycles and pedestrians. We walked along the top level. We took a funicular to get up to the level of the bridge, although stairs were available.

Easier than Stairs

In the afternoon we had a three hour walking tour of Porto. We're a little hazy on the historical timeline. Some of the highlights were the many cathedrals, shopping districts, small connecting alleyways, and always always hill, hills, hills. 

Old Church, New Tiles

Restored and Protected Tiles at the Train Station 

Great Tapas Restaurant, Narrow Streets 

Porto has a signature sandwich which is known throughout the country, francesinha. Greg, feeling bold, ordered a half a francesinha, and was unable to finish it due to its size.

Recipe

Francesinha

Porto at Night

Porto 

Train back to a Lisbon tomorrow to catch a flight home the following morning.

Day 6 - Douro River Valley

The Douro River valley is where Port wine is made. It has a unique microclimate that is critical for the wine and is the only place in the world "port" can be produced. In fact, in 1776, it became the first region in the world to have a wine demarcation. Champagne did not receive demarcation until 1908.

The valley has steep hillsides down to the Douro River. In the summer it is blazing hot, which grape love. Last year the valley reached 125°F. The winters are cold and icy. There is no irrigation for the vines, only those with the deepest roots survive. It's actually a lot more complicated than that. Ask me if you are interested. It's too complex to go into here.

Pinhão River flows into the Douro River

Grape Vines

Zone A, closest to the river

On our tour of the Douro Valley we had port tastings at two quintas (estates), a three course lunch and tours of the wine making process. That's a lot of fortified wine. Greg's favorite type of port was the white, the driest, and Laurel's the tawny. Neither of us cared for the newest type, the rosé which has been developed specifically to introduce younger people to port.

Our tour group of 8 was international, representing Australia, England, and Italy in addition to us Yankees. The Douro Valley was roughly a 90 minute drive away, so we had some interesting conversations. Sylvia, from Venice, was celebrating her birthday. She is a tour guide and sommelier, and was the life of the group.

The wine cannot be aged in the Douro Valley, it's too hot in summer. So it is transported to Gaia, just across the Douro River from Porto, to be aged. It is not transported in these huge barrels, but siphoned onto smaller oak barrels for transport and aging.

Days 4 & 5 - Évora

Évora is a walled city. The Romans built the oldest walls in the 3rd century, enclosing the highest part of the city. The Visigoths and Arabs in succession, maintained the Roman walls and added their own defenses. By the 16th century, the city had expanded beyond the old walls so an outer wall was built to protect the population.

Roman Ruins in Évora

Roman Baths

After the Romans came the Visigoths, then Arabs, then Christians, although it wasn't a straight line, with much intermixing for centuries. Eventually, in 1139, the first king of Portugal, Alfonso Henriques, declared a unified church and state under Christianity.

Skipping the history of the Inquisition on Évora, this brings us to the two cathedrals. 

The Évora Cathedral sits on the highest ground in the city, inside the original Roman walls. It was built between 1186 and 1250, then later improved during the 15th and 16th centuries.

The Cloister

The Évora Cathedral is impressive, but to us, the more interesting cathedral in Évora is the Church and Monastery of St. Francis. It consists of the cathedral, the Chapel of the Bones, and a convent (convent or monastery were used interchangeably and did not conotate sex). First the cathedral. It is beautiful inside, but it is here three unprecedented items set it apart.

The artist charged with painting one of the frescos was given too much leeway. Instead of painting John baptizing Jesus, he painted Jesus baptized

 Mary Magdalene. There is nothing Biblical about

 this, Jesus never baptized anyone in the Bible.

 When the patron saw the painting, he ordered it

 changed. The paint had already dried in the plaster, there was no undoing, so the painter added a beard and mustache to Mary Magdalene and was done with it.

John Baptizing Jesus or
Jesus Baptizing Mary Magdalene 
You Decide

The cathedral also has two statues of a visibly pregnant Mary. During the Inquisition, this was unacceptable. Someone with foresight hid the two statues. They remained hidden/lost for 200 years.

A convent is associated with and attached to cathedral. In the 17th century, three friars from the convent wanted to convey a message on the temporary nature of life. To do so, they built a chapel of human bones. This is not as macabre as it might sound. To begin with, at the time there were mass graves surrounding the cathedral, people who were not important enough to be buried inside the church, but wanted to be as close to holy ground as possible. Digging up the bones and bringing them into the chapel was not seen as a desecration or even disrespectful.

We Bones That Are Here, We Await You

Bones from approximately 5000 people were used to create the chapel.

Fountains and Squares

Within the walls, Évora is a series of streets radiating from city squares. Fountains in the squares supplied water to both people and beasts of burden.

Solid Marble Fountain Dating from 1556
The upper pool is for people and the lower one for animals.

The fountain in the main square is also made of a single piece of solid marble. Unfortunately, when the builder got the marble to the city, it was too large to fit through any of the city gates. To solve the problem, they demolished the gate and part of the wall.

Évora was a wonderful place to visit between the big cities if Lisbon and Porto. With mostly unstructured time and a very walkable city we were glad to relax and explore on our own.

General Impressions So Far

We traveled by train from Lisbon to Évora.

Successfully managed to get on the correct train on time.

Évora is inland, and much warmer than Lisbon. No longer near the sea, the cuisine has changed to meat. This laid back day has given us time to reflect on what we have seen and learned, so sharing.

 Cod - Bacalhau (dried salted cod) is the unofficial national dish of Portugal. There are wonderful local fresh fish and shellfish here that are highlighted

on menus and prepared fabulously, yet cod is always on every menu and in family celebrations. All cod is imported, dried and salted. We've had cod cakes for snacks and cod as a main course. No matter how much the Portuguese celebrate this dish, we are not on board.

Dried Cod

Pastries and Bread - Portuguese eat 5 meals a day, breakfast, coffee and pastry around 11 am (aka the Hobbit's elevenses), lunch 1-2pm, savory pastry or small snacks and wine 5 pm, dinner 8 pm. They are VERY good at making pastries and bread. Pastelarias are every where, and many cities have a signature pastry.

The Bread Basket at our Table each Morning

A Pastelaria Window

Cork - Portugal is the world's largest producer and exporter of cork. Cork trees live 200-300 years. Cork is the bark of the tree. They strip the first bark off the tree when it is 20-30 years old. Bark can be stripped every 9 years. The first two times the cork is stripped it is no good and has no value. Therefore it takes a minimum of 38 years from the time the tree is planted to see a profit. It is illegal in Portugal to cut a cork tree down. 

There are no screw tops or plastic " corks" on wine bottles in Portugal. No self respecting person would be caught dead serving wine that didn't have a real cork.

Cork Bark

Cork Trees

The Oldest Continuously Operating Bookstore in the World - According to the Guinness World Record that bookstore is Bertrand Bookshop, in Lisbon, which began in 1732 and has been in operation ever since.

Of course we had to stop in. There is a small English language section. All the books in that section relate to Portugal in some way.

 

We are loving our many experiences on this

trip and will continue sharing tomorrow.