Lisbon: A Second Day

My parents spent a rewarding Palm Sunday in Lisbon.

They had an early breakfast at their hotel, and at 8:30 a.m. they set out for their final day of sightseeing in Portugal.

My parents had hired a driver for the day, as they had four stops on their schedule, none close together, and they wanted to travel between stops quickly, dependably and comfortably, free from worry and stress. The driver was arranged through an agency. He spoke English, and he was very courteous and very reliable.

The first stop was a return to the Alfama Quarter, where my parents visited two important houses of worship.

The first was The Church Of Saint Anthony Of Lisbon (“Igreja De Santo Antonio De Lisboa”), a church dedicated to Saint Anthony Of Padua (1195-1231), who was born and raised in Lisbon and who is known in Portugal—but nowhere else—as Saint Anthony Of Lisbon. (Saint Anthony never left Portugal until he was 25 years old; he first traveled to Italy in 1220 or 1221, and spent the last decade of his short life in and around Padua.)

The Church Of Saint Anthony is sited upon ground that formerly was occupied by the house in which Saint Anthony was born. A church dedicated to Saint Anthony has occupied the site for over five hundred years. The current structure, of Baroque design, is the fourth church building on the site. It post-dates the 1755 earthquake.


Next to The Church Of Saint Anthony is the Lisbon Cathedral (“Se Patriarchal De Lisboa”), which my parents also visited.

The current Cathedral structure has been in place since 1150, but numerous and substantial changes to the Cathedral have been imposed over the centuries. One hundred years ago, the Cathedral was simplified in an attempt to return the Cathedral’s architecture to its original Romanesque form. Renaissance and Baroque embellishments were removed, inside and out, and original Romanesque features were emphasized. The Cathedral is now believed to resemble the original structure, more or less.

It is a very severe building, lacking grace and beauty, and exudes a fortress-like harshness. It is surely one of the least imposing and least admirable cathedral buildings in Europe.


The interior of the Cathedral is very spare. It is also very gloomy, as there are so few sources of light (the Cathedral lacks windows).

The Cathedral is home to numerous tombs of historic persons. It is also the repository of the baptismal fount of Saint Anthony, perhaps the Cathedral’s most cherished artifact.

My parents found the Cathedral to be very unimpressive, almost displeasing, and they did not make a long visit.

From the Alfama Quarter, my parents were driven to the English Cemetery. In the center of the English Cemetery is an Anglican church, Saint George’s Church, at which my parents attended Palm Sunday Service.

There has been a large English contingent in Lisbon for centuries owing to longstanding trade ties between Britain and Portugal. As a result, Anglican worship has been offered in Lisbon for almost 400 years.

There are currently at least four English-language churches in Lisbon—one Anglican, one Baptist, one Scottish Presbyterian and one non-denominational—and additional others in nearby Estoril and Cascais. (For centuries, there has also been a Portuguese-language Roman Catholic church in London.)

The current Saint George’s structure was consecrated in 1889 and is of typical late-Victorian ecclesiastical design. It has a splendid organ.


After Palm Sunday Service, my parents were driven to Portugal’s largest and finest art museum, The National Museum Of Ancient Art (“Museu Nacional De Arte Antiga”).

The National Museum Of Ancient Art is a comprehensive museum, holding paintings, works on paper, sculpture, antiquities and decorative arts. My parents, owing to time constraints, only viewed Old Master paintings from the 15th to the 19th Centuries, which were of very high quality.

After two hours at The National Museum Of Ancient Art, my parents were driven to The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (“Museu Calouste Gulbenkian”), established by the estate of oil magnate Calouste Gulbenkian and home to Gulbenkian’s fabulous personal art collection.

Gulbenkian’s great art collection resides in Portugal because, during World War II, Gulbenkian settled in Portugal to wait out the war. He liked Portugal so much that he remained in the country until his death in 1955 and, further, left the bulk of his estate to a foundation that promotes various cultural activities in Portugal.

The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, like The National Museum Of Ancient Art, holds a full array of art objects—paintings, works on paper, sculpture, antiquities, decorative arts—but, once again owing to time constraints, my parents concentrated on Old Master paintings.

Gulbenkian, following Andrew Mellon’s lead, acquired many of his paintings from The Hermitage in Leningrad during the 1930’s, buying them from a Soviet government desperate for foreign currency. Many of the most-renowned paintings in the Gulbenkian collection were formerly owned by The Hermitage (and had been acquired for The Hermitage by Catherine The Great during the 18th Century).

It was very late afternoon by the time my parents completed their museum visits and were driven back to their hotel for the evening. They had dinner in the hotel dining room and prepared their things for tomorrow’s flight home.

My parents had a very nice visit to Portugal. Despite a few not-very-interesting activities called for by the tour itinerary, my parents visited many historic and beautiful places, experienced magnificent scenery, and met some very nice travelers (most persons on the tour were from the U.S., but a few were from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain). The food and accommodation were of a high standard, the guides excellent, the itinerary varied, the pace of the tour active but not frenetic. They were able to enjoy a wonderful vacation without doing any work, having left all advance plans and preparations to professionals. It worked out perfectly for them: ten days of relaxation and stimulation in a beautiful country totally unknown to them.

Portugal must have reliable mail service. On Saturday, Joshua and I received a postcard that had been mailed from Estoril on Monday, March 30.

However, no postcards have arrived in Minneapolis yet. The postcards will probably arrive tomorrow, along with my parents.

Lisbon

This morning my parents’ tour group departed The Algarve and proceeded to Lisbon.

The tour group arrived in Lisbon in late morning and for the rest of the day the participants in the tour were shown a handful of the highlights of Lisbon.

To see everything in Lisbon worth seeing, and to do so at a leisurely pace, would require two weeks. However, as my parents’ guided tour had only one half-day in Lisbon at its disposal, the focus was on a couple of “must-see” Lisbon attractions.

First stop was the Alfama Quarter, one of Lisbon’s oldest neighborhoods. A maze of narrow medieval streets and ancient buildings, the Alfama Quarter was the only section of Lisbon that survived the 1755 earthquake (because it was the only section of the city built on bedrock).

Tour participants were granted two hours in which to explore the Alfama Quarter and have lunch. By design, my parents used the allotted time to take Tram 28 to the top of the Alfama Quarter’s steep hill. From the top of the hill, they walked back down through a series of side streets, picking up a sandwich along the way. En route, they located Lisbon’s Cathedral and the Church Of San Antonio, both of which they plan to visit tomorrow morning, Palm Sunday.


The Alfama Quarter is very charming. It is a mixture of shops, cafes, homes and stately public buildings. Some of the houses are in various states of dilapidation, while others have been restored in recent years as the quarter has undergone gentrification. It is perhaps Lisbon’s most frequently-visited quarter.

From the Alfama Quarter, the tour group proceeded to Lisbon’s entrance harbor to undertake a guided visit of Jeronimos Monastery (“Mosteiro Dos Jeronimos”), Portugal’s single greatest ecclesiastical structure. The mammoth Jeronimos Monastery is situated in Belem, the seaport near the gates of Lisbon.


Jeronimos Monastery parallels The Mafra National Palace in that both giant complexes—one ecclesiastical, one ecclesiastical and secular—were funded with the fabulous wealth pouring into Portugal during The Age Of Discovery.

The monastery was built specifically to commemorate Vasco Da Gama’s successful voyage to India in 1497. The monastery was begun in 1502, and mostly completed by 1550, although interior and exterior decorations were refined for another half-century.

Jeronimos Monastery is considered to be the world’s finest example of Manueline architecture. Manueline architecture is a unique Portuguese mixture of flamboyant Gothic, Moorish and early-Renaissance architecture, named after Manuel I (“The Fortunate”), the Portuguese monarch that commissioned the monastery. The monastery complex is a riot of intricate stonework, inside and out.


The monastery complex is enormous. In addition to a massive church, the complex houses a refectory, chapter house and cloister. Indeed, the complex is so large that it now houses two major secular museums, Portugal’s invaluable National Maritime Museum and a somewhat less important National Archeological Museum (neither of which was part of the guided visit).

The church at the monastery serves as one of Lisbon’s two Pantheons: notable figures from Portuguese history, such as Vasco Da Gama, are buried in the church, as is one complete line of Portugal’s Royal Family.

From Jeronimos Monastery, the tour group visited nearby Belem Tower and Monument To The Discoveries, both of which are also situated at the seaport near the gates of Lisbon.

Belem Tower was another commission of Manuel I. Belem Tower, too, was built to commemorate Vasco Da Gama’s successful voyage to India. Another notable example of Manueline architecture, it was constructed between 1515 and 1521, contemporaneous with the construction of nearby Jeronimos Monastery.


Belem Tower serves both as a ceremonial gateway to the city of Lisbon and as part of the city’s ancient array of coastal defenses. It provides the most famous image of Lisbon, known worldwide, and has served as the symbol of the city for five centuries.

Monument To The Discoveries is a modern tribute to Portugal’s most glorious era. Completed in 1960, the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry The Navigator, Monument To The Discoveries portrays 33 figures from The Age Of Discovery, including Henry himself, who stands atop the monument and looks out upon the water.


The 1960 Monument To The Discoveries was a recreation of a smaller, temporary monument that had been created for the ill-fated 1940 Lisbon World’s Fair. As most of Europe was at war from September 1939, the 1940 Lisbon World’s Fair turned out to be a purely local affair and is largely forgotten today.

Once the tour group completed its visit to the three key attractions at the Lisbon entrance harbor, the group proceeded to its Lisbon hotel, a high-rise Marriott in the modern section of Lisbon, home of Lisbon’s business and financial districts. My parents said that the views of Lisbon from their hotel windows were marvelous.

After a couple of hours settling into the hotel, the tour group was taken to a restaurant for what was called a “farewell” dinner. Tonight’s dinner marked the final event of the eight-day guided tour. The tour will conclude tomorrow morning by transporting tour participants to the airport.

Tomorrow my parents will remain in Lisbon, spending the day on their own. They plan to visit two churches in the early morning, attend Palm Sunday service, and visit Lisbon’s two main art museums in the middle of the day and in the afternoon.

On Monday, they will fly back to Minneapolis.

Lagos, Sagres, Cape Of Saint Vincente And Silves

Today was a long day in The Algarve for my parents, as they were escorted around the Southwestern-most point of the European Continent from morning until night.

Happily, this area is very compact, and the places the tour group visited—Lagos, Sagres, The Cape Of Saint Vincente and Silves—were all within a few kilometers of each other as well as within a few kilometers of my parents’ hotel in Alvor.

This area of Portugal was central territory in The Age Of Discovery. Ships by the hundred set forth from Lagos and Sagres to explore the globe, and most of the voyages of exploration originating in Lagos and Sagres were inspired by Henry The Navigator, the princely seafarer who lived and worked in Lagos and Sagres and planned his (and others’) voyages from his famed School Of Navigation in Sagres.

Portugal was one of the world’s wealthiest nations at the time of the onset of The Age Of Discovery, and The Age Of Discovery substantially enhanced Portugal’s wealth—the inflow of gold and foreign treasure first from Africa and later from The New World made the nation’s coffers overflow for more than two centuries.

The 1755 earthquake changed everything. The earthquake destroyed virtually all of Portugal instantly. To this day, much of Portugal has never been rebuilt. Starkly put, the nation never recovered from the scale of the 1755 disaster—Portugal went from a great power to an irrelevant country literally in six minutes. Only in the last decade, with massive amounts of aid from the European Union, has Portugal’s living standard once again begun to approximate the living standard enjoyed in the rest of Western Europe.

In the last half-millennium, there is only one other instance in which a wealthy country lost its wealth and position so rapidly: Belgium in 1914. On August 4, 1914, neutral Belgium possessed the world’s sixth-largest economy. By August 16, 1914, Belgium’s national wealth had been erased and its economy decimated, victim of Imperial Germany’s aggression. Belgium was forever rendered irrelevant by World War I, just as Portugal was forever rendered irrelevant by the 1755 earthquake. Neither nation was to emerge from its tragedy anything like its former self.

The day began for my parents in Lagos, the city in which Henry The Navigator built his personal palace. The palace was destroyed by the earthquake; only remnants of the foundation remain.

My parents said that Lagos was a lovely town, a town of cobblestone streets, beautiful trees and flowers lining the streets and squares, and distinguished old buildings. They said that Lagos warranted a visit lasting a couple of days, not a couple of hours.

The most prominent structure in Lagos is the fort that protects the harbor (“Forte Da Ponta Da Bandeira”).


The tour group received a guided tour of the fort and was allowed to walk the walls of the enormous structure. My parents said that the fort was fascinating, and the views from the ramparts gorgeous.


The fort contains a naval museum, which the tour group did not visit.

The Lagos fort remained in use until recent decades, as this part of the Atlantic Ocean carries a long and distinguished history of trade and naval warfare. It was not uncommon, 300 years ago, to see 400 ships in the Lagos harbor. Two great naval engagements occurred off the coast of Lagos, both involving the British and the French. In 1693, the French prevailed; in 1759, the British won a decisive victory.

For over two centuries, Lagos was a more important center of trade than London or Amsterdam, a more important locus of scientific discovery and technological innovation than Paris or Vienna, and a more important seat of political and military power than Venice or Madrid. Today Lagos is nothing more than a resort town, offering little discernible evidence that the town was once one of the most important places on the globe.

From Lagos, the tour group traveled to Sagres, home of Henry The Navigator’s School Of Navigation and the Compass Rose.

Sagres, too, hosts a fort, which is the only interesting feature of the town. The Sagres fort is situated on an unusual—and breathtaking—promontory in the Atlantic Ocean.


It was on the Sagres promontory that Henry The Navigator erected a fort and established his School Of Navigation, an institution responsible for many advances in mapping and navigational instruments. Ferdinand Magellan and Vasco Da Gama were prominent graduates of Henry’s School Of Navigation.

The School Of Navigation was home to the famed Compass Rose, 43 meters in diameter, made from pebbles. According to my parents, the Compass Rose was sort of impressive, and also sort of unimpressive, and I think I understand exactly what those inherently-contradictory statements mean.


After the visit to Sagres, the tour group was driven extensively around The Cape Of Saint Vincente, the Southwestern-most spot on the European Continent.

My parents said that the scenery along The Cape Of Saint Vincente was spectacular.

The multi-colored rock cliffs—red, white, yellow, brown—rising above the ocean are, on average, 200 feet high, providing some of the most dramatic views to be seen anywhere.


Three times the tour group stopped at overlooks to enjoy the uncommon and unforgettable views.


At a fourth stop, the tour group visited the lighthouse on the Cape, erected on the site of a centuries-old convent. It is one of the largest lighthouses in the world and has one of the most powerful sets of lights in the world.


The lighthouse on The Cape Of Saint Vincente provides a vital service. The Cape Of Saint Vincente is one of the world’s most heavily-trafficked shipping lanes, the waters of the Cape are among the world’s most treacherous, and the countless rock outcroppings on the Cape are lethal to ships. This portion of the Atlantic Ocean has been one of the world’s great graveyards for vessels for centuries.

After the tour group had had sufficient time to enjoy The Cape Of Saint Vincente, the group proceeded to Silves, an inland town due North of Lagos.

Silves has numerous attractions—ancient churches, convents, and castles—but the tour group did not have time to see, let alone visit, any of the town’s attractions. Instead, the sole purpose of the tour group’s visit to Silves was to tour a cork factory and to tour a marzipan factory, both on the outskirts of town.

Silves was once the worldwide center for cork-making, but the decline in global cork demand forced most of the town’s cork-makers to close their factories decades ago. Apparently only one Silves cork factory remains in business, and that was the factory visited by the tour group.

My parents said that the cork factory visit was not particularly interesting—and, in the requisite visit to the cork factory gift shop at tour’s end, no one from the tour group bought a single item insofar as my parents could ascertain.

From the cork factory, the tour group proceeded to a nearby marzipan factory for another factory tour.

My parents said that the marzipan factory was much more interesting than the cork factory.

Southern Portugal has for centuries been an important center for marzipan-making. Its prominence in this field is due to the enormous groves of almond trees that have graced the Southern Portuguese countryside for millennia.

Portuguese marzipan is unique—it uses higher almond content and unique sweeteners, variants that make Portuguese marzipan different from all other marzipan—and highly-prized throughout the world.

My parents said that watching the marzipan-making process was rather intriguing. Highly-skilled artisans are needed to fashion the delicacies, since Portuguese marzipan is incessantly colorful and sculpted into all sorts of complicated shapes and figures.

Apparently the most popular shapes for Portuguese marzipan are fruits. Marzipan is most often crafted to look like oranges, lemons, tangerines, limes, apples, pears, peaches, plums, grapes, bananas, pineapples, mangos and other fruits. An experienced and skilled artisan is able to make the appearance of his marzipan fruit creation indistinguishable from the real thing.

To the best of my knowledge and belief, no one in my family has a taste for marzipan, but at the marzipan factory gift shop my parents nonetheless bought two boxes of marzipan. Each box contains a full array of different fruits. I have no idea whom my parents plan to favor with gifts of marzipan. Gift-wise, marzipan is like fruitcake: most persons are happier to give than to receive. I believe my parents, in buying marzipan, may have experienced a momentary lack of lucidity.

From the marzipan factory, the tour group made its final stop of the day: an abandoned cork factory turned into upscale restaurant. The tour group dined at the restaurant on an assortment of Portuguese delicacies.

Given that tourism is now The Algarve’s top industry, most abandoned cork factories have been turned into eating establishments or shopping outlets, primed to capture the tourist trade.

My parents said that it was a very fine restaurant, and that the dinner was excellent.

Tomorrow morning, the tour group goes to Lisbon for the final day and night of the tour.

My parents will remain in Lisbon for an extra day at the conclusion of the tour in order to visit Lisbon’s two internationally-renowned art museums.

The Algarve

Today was a free day for my parents in The Algarve.

They are staying in a resort hotel right outside the town of Alvor, and they managed to make the most of their day.

Alvor is a very small town. First settled by the Carthaginians, Alvor was nothing more than a small fishing village for centuries. Its most notable claims to fame are a ruined castle outside the town (destroyed in the 1755 earthquake) and the fact that Portugal’s greatest king, Dom Joao II, died suddenly in Alvor in 1495.

The Algarve first became a tourist destination in the 1960’s. Tourist development over the last forty years has driven away the old fishing industry and replaced it with a ring of fashionable resorts that surround the town. The town itself, however, remains much as it was ever since the post-1755 reconstruction.


Genuinely, Alvor is a village that serves tourism. It is a maze of narrow, winding streets filled with cafes, small shops and houses. Most of the town’s inhabitants work at one of the nearby resorts.

My parents and the couple from Rochester spent the morning and early afternoon walking around the town. The most notable building in Alvor is the town’s only church, Igreja Matriz, the only Alvor building that survived the 1755 disaster.


They visited the church, and walked all around the town, and strolled the beach, and found a place to enjoy a seafood lunch.

In the early afternoon, they all went back to the hotel to relax for a couple of hours, after which they embarked on an excursion—primarily because it seemed to be the most interesting thing to do.

The went on a sailing expedition on a two-masted ship, which sailed around The Algarve Coast, passing fishing villages and medieval fortresses and amazing coastal rock formations. The sailing expedition included a visit to the famous Algarve Caves. At the entrance to the caves, the ship launched small boats to take passengers inside the caves, which apparently are very similar to the caves on the island of Capri off the coast of Naples.

The sailing expedition concluded with dinner at a classic Portuguese restaurant in the town of Portimao, a somewhat larger version of Alvor just up the coast.

After dinner in Portimao, my parents and the couple from Rochester were transported back to the hotel.

My parents said they loved the excursion. It made the day worthwhile.

Evora And The Algarve

This morning my parents ended their four-day stay in Estoril and proceeded to The Algarve via Evora.

Evora is one of Portugal’s most interesting cities—it is the only city in Portugal that survived the horrific 1755 earthquake more or less intact—and my parents had several hours at their disposal, in the middle of the day, to enjoy the city.

Evora has a long and distinguished history. Evora was an important city as far back as The Roman Era. Evora was seat of The Portuguese Court until the end of the 16th Century. For centuries the city was home to Portugal’s finest university. An anti-clerical epoch forced the university’s closure in the 18th Century; the university was not to reopen until 1973.

Evora is most famous for its so-called Temple Of Diana, the most important Roman-Era temple on The Iberian Peninsula. The temple was actually erected to Caesar Augustus, not the Roman goddess Diana. Fourteen of its twenty original columns still stand.


Evora has many historic churches. My parents visited Evora Cathedral and they visited the most important of the many churches in the center of town.

Evora Cathedral, the largest cathedral in Portugal, is a giant Romanesque structure erected in the 12th and 13th Centuries. It was restored in the 15th Century, and the restoration imposed a Gothic overlay upon the original Romanesque structure, consistent with the practice then prevalent throughout Europe.


Among the finest features of the Cathedral are the 12 Apostles that line the main portal. The statues of the Apostles are considered to be the finest Portuguese sculptures from The Gothic Period.

One of the Cathedral’s towers contains the Cathedral treasury. The treasury’s most valuable relic is a piece of The True Cross. My parents did not have an opportunity to visit the treasury.

A Gothic cloister is attached to the Cathedral.

The church my parents visited was The Royal Church Of San Francisco (“Igreja Real Do Sao Francisco”).


A large Gothic church from the 15th and 16th Centuries, the church is most famous for its fifteen chapels, including the Chapel Of Bones (“Capela Dos Ossos”), the walls and pillars of which are lined with human bones and skulls embedded in cement. Over the chapel door is painted “The bones here await yours”, a very cheery sentiment indeed. In addition to the bones, two complete corpses hang from the chapel walls.

The center of Evora is very compact. My parents had plenty of time to see the essential sights as well as have a nice lunch.

My parents explored the main square.


They also walked around the old university and visited its beautiful central courtyard.


All of these sights were within a ten-minute walk of Evora Cathedral.

From Evora, the tour group proceeded to The Algarve.

The tour group will stay in the small town of Alvor for the next three nights. The hotel, a gated private resort with its own beach, golf course and full amenities, is right on the Atlantic Ocean.

Fatima, Nazare And Obidos

This morning my parents’ tour group traveled to Fatima in order to visit The Basilica And Shrine Of Our Lady Of Fatima.


The Basilica And Shrine Of Our Lady Of Fatima was erected on the site upon which The Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children on six occasions between May and October 1917. It is one of the world’s most sacred spots, and one of the most-visited places of pilgrimage anywhere. My family is not Roman Catholic, and yet my parents found visiting The Basilica And Shrine to be among the most deeply-moving experiences of their lives.

The 1917 events at Fatima are inexplicable, and not amenable to scientific explanation.

For me, the most chilling aspect of the events is that The Virgin Mary, on her second visit, foretold the deaths of two of the children, including even the hour and cause of death. Because the shepherd children immediately told their parents what they had learned from The Virgin Mary—as well as schoolteachers, priests, government officials and even journalists—this information was all documented long in advance of their actual deaths.

For The Virgin Mary’s sixth and final appearance to the three shepherd children, at least 70,000 persons witnessed The Solar Miracle Of Fatima that attended The Apparition Of The Virgin. It was perhaps the most miraculous event of the 20th Century, witnessed by persons forty miles from Fatima.

The square in front of The Basilica And Shrine Of Our Lady Of Fatima is larger than the square in front of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. On significant Holy Days, the entire square at Fatima is filled with pilgrims.

The interior of the structure is very restrained. It lends itself to contemplation and solace. Fatima is a place in which visitors find peace.

The nave is known as The Basilica Of The Rosary.


My parents toured The Basilica And Shrine for two hours. It was a wondrous experience. They said that Fatima has been the highlight of their trip thus far.

Fatima attracts large numbers of visitors from all over the world, especially in the summer months, but this morning’s crowd was not large. It will be another month or so before the daily number of visitors swells to peak-season levels.

From Fatima, the tour group proceeded to Nazare, an ancient fishing village on the Atlantic Ocean.

Hoards of persons visit Nazare each year—it is by far Portugal’s most famous and most popular fishing village—but my parents were unable to ascertain the source of Nazare’s attraction. To them, Nazare simply looked like any other Portuguese coastal town.

Fishermen in Nazare still dry their catch in the sun, and they use special drying nets for this purpose. Drying nets lined the beach at Nazare, monitored by old women.


My parents walked the beach, and explored the core of the old town, filled with small shops and seafood restaurants.


My parents had lunch at a seafood restaurant. After lunch, they walked through a residential area adjacent to the town center. They said it looked exactly like any other residential area to be seen in small towns throughout Spain and Italy.

My parents did not take the funicular up to Sitio and observe Nazare from above—they preferred instead to spend the allotted time in Nazare walking the beach and enjoying a fresh seafood lunch.

From Nazare, the tour group proceeded to Obidos, one of Portugal’s most enchanting towns.

Obidos is a medieval town still surrounded by high stone ramparts to protect the town from invaders. There is a large and impressive castle—now a hotel—and many interesting historic churches. The town has always been preserved in its medieval state because, for centuries, the town was the property of The Queen Of Portugal and, as such, was protected from development. My father said that the town reminded him of a miniature version of Spain’s Toledo.


It takes a full day to see everything in Obidos, but my parents had only two hours at their disposal—one of the tiresome disadvantages of a guided tour—and they used the time to walk through as many of the ancient streets as possible. Given the time constraints, they did not attempt even to visit any of the historic churches—they simply wanted to cover as much ground as possible.

Spring flowers were blooming in Obidos, and my mother said that she had never seen so many geraniums in her life. Geraniums were everywhere—in flowerboxes, on lawns, in gardens, in pots—and the geraniums added to the beauty of the ancient buildings and streets.


My parents said that they wished the time spent in Nazare had been devoted to Obidos instead.

On a particularly lovely street, my parents came upon a delightful café with a delightful view. My parents went inside and ordered coffee and pastry.

While my parents were in the café, the café proprietor gave my father a small sample of Ginginha, a sweet brandy liqueur made from local cherries. The proprietor told my father that, if my father liked the liqueur, the proprietor could recommend a shop that sold the finest Ginginha in Portugal and that the shop would gladly ship product to the States. He said that his brother owned the shop in question, and he told my father that his brother’s shop was a very reputable establishment and that the shop took Diner’s Club and that liqueur prices were fixed and government-imposed, and posted in the shop, and that the lowest per-liter price was by the case.

The café proprietor gave my father his brother’s business card, and he drew a simple map to the liqueur shop, which was only three blocks from the café.

My father thanked him and, when they were done with their coffee and pastry, my parents walked over to the liqueur shop. As soon as they stepped inside the shop door, my parents identified the proprietor, whom they instantly observed to be a twin of the café proprietor (but not an identical twin).

And, while in the shop, my father indeed ordered a case of Ginginha to be shipped home.

I suspect my father will use the case of Ginginha as a source of gifts.

Obidos was the final excursion of the day for the guided tour.

For the final night in Estoril, most members of the tour group visited the Estoril casino, the largest casino in Europe (and featured in a James Bond film).

My parents had no interest in the casino, so they had dinner in the hotel and turned in early for the night.

Tomorrow my parents will travel to Evora, and from Evora on to The Algarve, where they will spend the next three nights.

Azeitao

Today my parents spent most of the day in Azeitao, a very small agricultural village about an hour from Estoril.

Azeitao is known, to the extent it is known at all, as the home of Azeitao Cheese, a very rich, very sweet and very expensive dessert cheese made from goat’s milk, and Moscatel, a sweet, fortified dessert wine.

The day began, for tour participants, with an hour-long Portuguese language lesson. The ostensible purpose of this exercise was to assist tour participants in dealing with merchants in Azeitao. Myself, I think that the language lesson was intended to let tour participants know that they were expected to buy things.

In Azeitao, the first stop was a visit to a Portuguese tile factory. Visitors were escorted through the factory and shown how Portuguese tile is made. At the conclusion of the tour, visitors were escorted to a showroom, where many different types of Portuguese tile were on display, all available for sale.

My mother said that most of the stuff was wretched. However, my mother said that one tile stood out for its beauty and quality: a large single-panel tile with a hand-painted bouquet of flowers in blue and white, resembling a blue etching against a white background. My mother bought it for my sister-in-law—my mother says it will be perfect for my sister-in-law’s new kitchen.

I know the tile must be beautiful, because my mother has exquisite taste. I also know she would never fall for someone’s salesmanship.

After the tile factory, tour participants had a couple of hours to wander the streets of Azeitao and have lunch. Azeitao only has a population of 2000 persons, so there were not many streets to wander. My father said that the town looked like a discarded movie set from an old Western.


My parents found a place to have lunch—there truly were not many choices—and after lunch the tour proceeded to an old winery, one of the oldest and most distinguished in Portugal. Tour members were escorted through the entire winemaking operation, which was sort of impressive, or so my parents said. At the conclusion of the tour, visitors were escorted to a showroom, where different wines were on display, all available for sale. Many members of the tour purchased wines; my parents did not.

The tour arrived back in Estoril in the middle of the afternoon, with the rest of the day free.

My parents marveled anew at the views from their balcony, and took a long nap. In the evening, they went to dinner with six other members of the tour group, including the couple from Rochester.

Mafra, Sintra And Cascais

This morning my parents toured The Mafra National Palace in Mafra, Portugal.

The Mafra National Palace is more than a palace—the complex also houses a monastery and a Basilica. The Mafra National Palace is Portugal’s answer to Spain’s Escorial (although The Mafra National Palace is supposed to be larger than The Escorial).


The Mafra National Palace is an 18th-Century Baroque monstrosity. Its construction required only thirteen years, but the short construction period was due solely to the fact that the bulk of Portugal’s national wealth was devoted to the project for over a decade (another parallel with The Escorial) and because up to 45,000 laborers were hard at work each day on the building (while 7,000 soldiers kept watch over them).

The Palace has 1200 rooms; 1383 workers died creating them.

Once completed, The Mafra National Palace was little-used by Portugal’s Kings and Queens, most of whom disliked the place. During The Peninsular Wars, the Palace served as headquarters first for Marshall Junot and later for Wellington. (The Portuguese Royal Family had escaped to Brazil shortly after France invaded Iberia.)

Most of the Palace’s original furnishings and artworks have been lost over the years. Only the Basilica and the library are intact, remaining more or less as they were in the 18th Century.

My parents said that the Basilica was magnificent.


However, they said that the great library was the most glorious part of the Palace.


My parents were informed that bats are kept in the library in order to devour insects that otherwise would constitute a threat to the library’s 40,000 rare books.

From Mafra, the tour group proceeded to Sintra, one of Portugal’s most charming towns.

Sintra lies on steep granite hills. The town is filled with palaces, castle ruins, churches, monasteries, convents and other historic structures. It would take visitors a week to explore fully the town’s many attractions, but the guided tour’s visit to Sintra was limited to two hours and thirty minutes. There was a short orientation tour of the old quarter, after which tour participants were allotted two hours to explore Sintra as they wished.

There was not enough time for my parents to explore one of Sintra’s many palaces—and The Mafra National Palace had already provided them with more than enough palace exposure for one day—so my parents took the tour guide’s advice and hired a horse-drawn carriage to transport them up and down Sintra’s steep, ancient streets and to show them the key sights of the town. My parents shared the carriage with a retired couple from Rochester, New York, whom my parents had befriended over breakfast and during the morning visit to The Mafra National Palace.

The carriage took them around Sintra for an hour, and proceeded past two of the key royal palaces.

One royal palace, Palacio De Vila, also known as The Sintra National Palace, is in the center of town. Palacio De Vila was formerly the summer home of The Portuguese Royal Family.


The other royal palace, Palacio De Pena, sits atop one of the hills. Palacio De Pena is largely an artificial 19th-Century fantasy and conceit, much like Neuschwanstein in Bavaria.


After the carriage ride, my parents and the couple from Rochester had lunch at a café in the center of the old quarter of Sintra.

From Sintra, the guided tour drove along the Portuguese Coast for half an hour, ending in Cascais, another resort town on the Atlantic Ocean. Cascais adjoins Estoril. Cascais and Estoril are basically indistinguishable; one cannot tell where one town ends and where the other town begins.

Members of the tour group were allotted two hours in Cascais to do whatever they wished. My parents and the couple from Rochester first walked around the center of Cascais for an hour.


There is not much to see or do in Cascais—the beach is the primary attraction—but the town has a modest Latin charm.


The center of Cascais has an unusual asphalt pattern.


After an hour exploring the town, my parents and the couple from Rochester went to a café overlooking the ocean, and enjoyed coffees and cappuccinos—and exchanged stories about children and grandchildren!

After the visit to Cascais concluded, the tour group was transported back to the hotel in Estoril—but only for an hour, as there was an evening activity on the schedule.

The evening activity was a trip into Lisbon for dinner and Fado music at one of Lisbon’s most renowned Fado venues, Adega Machado.

My parents almost skipped the Fado evening—they feared it might go on too late into the evening—but they decided to participate once the tour guide PROMISED that the Fado evening would end no later than 11:00 p.m. and that everyone would be back at the hotel in Estoril no later than midnight.

According to my parents, Adega Machado appeared to be an establishment that caters mostly to tourists. There was no walk-in traffic at all. Instead, patrons arrived in groups between 7:30 p.m. and 8:00 pm., were served dinner, and at 9:15 p.m. the lights went down and the Fado musicians began their presentation. According to my father, it was “the sort of thing that appeals to people who like that sort of thing”.

However, my parents survived the evening—and tomorrow they will be taken to a small village out in the middle of nowhere to visit Portuguese tile-makers and wine-makers and cheese-makers and such.

It sounds awful.

I hope they don’t buy anything.

Estoril

When Joshua and I returned to our hotel tonight, we retrieved an email message from my parents, who had arrived in Portugal very early this morning.

My parents will send an email message every night while they are away, letting everyone know they made it through the day safely.

Since Portugal is six hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time and seven hours ahead of Central Daylight Time, we will all receive the daily email message no later than late afternoon our time.

My parents’ plane landed in Lisbon just after 7:00 a.m. local time this morning. They proceeded through customs in no time at all, retrieved their luggage, were picked up and transported to Estoril, and were checked into their hotel and settled into their room, all by 9:15 a.m.

My parents are very pleased with the hotel. It is a modern high-rise hotel situated on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Their room has a balcony, and the views are marvelous.

This view is to the left.


And this view is to the right.


There are no views like those in Minneapolis!

My parents loved the views so much that they stayed in their room until Noon, enjoying the sublime panorama, ordering breakfast, freshening up and taking a catnap.

They walked around Estoril all afternoon, as today was a free day for all participants in the guided tour.

Estoril is primarily a resort town. Its beaches and golf courses and tennis courts are the primary attractions for tourists. Estoril’s chief claim to fame is that the town was once home to numerous members of royalty—titled nobles from all over Europe came to Estoril to sit out World War II in neutral Portugal.

There is very little to see and very little to do in Estoril, but we all had researched the town in advance, selecting a few interesting features of the town and mapping out a route for my parents to take as they wandered through the various parts of the town.

They walked a good portion of the beach.


They walked around the town, seeing what appeared to be an old castle but which in fact is a 19th-Century recreation.


They saw some interesting villas.


And they encountered other interesting buildings, too.


One of the interesting buildings was the Estoril Post Office, erected in 1942. It is the earliest significant example of modernist architecture in Portugal.


They visited two small churches, neither remarkable, which are supposed to be the only notable churches in Estoril and the adjacent town of Oeiras.

One was The Church Of Saint Anthony Of Estoril (“Igreja Santo Antonio Do Estoril”).


The other was The Parish Church Of Oeiras (“Igreja Matriz”).


They visited the gardens of The Palace Of The Marquis Of Pombal, but they did not take the guided tour of the palace’s interior.


After exploring Estoril all afternoon, they returned to the hotel in time for a group dinner for all persons participating in the guided tour. After dinner, they turned in early.

Tomorrow the guided tour will begin in earnest. Tour participants will visit Sintra and Cascais, and undertake an escorted visit to The Mafra National Palace.

Southern Portugal By Chain Gang

My parents have decided to take a guided tour of Southern Portugal.

All winter, they’ve been talking about going somewhere for a short trip—someplace warm—and they found a guided tour that appealed to them, and they booked the trip.

They will leave in late March and return shortly before Easter.

The guided tour they selected is a little unusual—it spends four days and four nights in Estoril, three days and three nights in The Algarve, and one day and one night in Lisbon—but it appealed to them for several reasons.

First, they wanted a short trip, and the length of the guided tour—eight days and eight nights—was exactly what they wanted, although they will spend one extra day and one extra night in Lisbon at the conclusion of the guided tour.

Second, they wanted to take a trip that required no planning and no preparation, and a guided tour relieved them of any planning-and-preparation requirements.

Third, they wanted to go somewhere sunny and warm, and Southern Portugal should be sunny and warm in late March and early April.

Fourth, they wanted a slow-paced vacation, without a lot of moving around, and the guided tour of Southern Portugal is built around two different resort towns, both of great natural beauty and both offering a wide variety of daytime excursions to nearby places of interest.

Fifth, they wanted to go somewhere completely new to them, and Portugal will be uncharted territory for them.

Sixth, since no one could accompany them, they did not want to take a trip that would appeal to anybody else in the family, and I can safely say that the particular guided tour they booked has absolutely no appeal to any of us. My brothers and I are teasing my parents mercilessly about the trip—it is filled with cooking classes, Portuguese language lessons, visits to wineries, a marzipan demonstration, a Portuguese tile demonstration, a fishnet mending demonstration, a visit to a cork factory, an evening of Fado music and such, with everything proceeding precisely according to the tour operator’s daily schedule—and we have taken to calling it “Southern Portugal By Chain Gang”.

To be truthful, I think my parents will have a marvelous time. From Estoril, they will have a chance to explore some of Portugal’s most important sites. The Algarve is supposed to be an area of the most extravagant beauty. They will spend one day in Lisbon being escorted around to all the highlights, and a second day in Lisbon on their own visiting a museum or two. It should be a wonderful trip for them.

There are no nonstop flights between Minneapolis and Lisbon, but my parents will have only one stop on each leg of their journey. Outbound, my parents will fly Continental all the way, Minneapolis to Newark, and Newark to Lisbon. Returning, my parents will fly the Portuguese national carrier from Lisbon to Paris, and Northwest from Paris to Minneapolis. The outbound journey will take eleven hours and fifty-five minutes, but the return journey will take fourteen hours and fifteen minutes. The difference is all in the headwinds, because layover time is exactly the same in both directions: two hours and fifteen minutes.

I suspect they’ll have a most enjoyable visit to Portugal.