Portugal

Well we have to say we saved one of the best for last.  Portugal is a beautiful country with scenic rolling hills, friendly laid back people, charming towns, soft sunshine and some of the very best meals we've had on our trip!  

We flew into Lisbon, rented a car, and drove west about thirty minutes to Sintra - a small historic town close to the coast.    

Dinner our first night outside of Sintra.  A small family run restaurant where you cook steaks on a hot stone at the table. Delicious!

Our first morning checking out the map of town.  Sintra is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is known for numerous 19th century Roman sites and monuments.  The central historic district is built up a steep hillside and the narrow streets wind upward.  The downside of all of this historic charm is the loads of tour buses rolling into town from Lisbon every day.  The evenings are fortunately much quieter.

An almost two hour lunch at this downtown restaurant - on the way out we told the waiter that Allison wanted to get some ice cream at the shop next door, and he said "oh, that is why you are in such a rush".  And he was serious.  I guess two hour lunches are considered "rushed" here in Portugal!

Scenes from around Sintra.

Even the facade of the laundromat is charming.  I did our laundry here one morning and the change machine kept my 10 Euro note without any tokens returned.  I went upstairs to the small hotel to ask if they ran the laundromat. The hotel manager told me that they didn't run the laundromat, but he didn't like the laundromat owner, and he would help me get my money back. He roamed the neighborhood on my behalf looking for the owner. He checked back with me three or four times while I was there wondering if the laundromat owner had returned. When I was finished with our laundry, he didn't want me to leave until we tracked down the owner and my money. I had to explain to him, that it was more important for me to get on my way and back to my family, rather than wait any longer for my 10 Euros! 

Another leisurely Sintra lunch - lots of tapas!

On another afternoon, we drove along some very narrow country roads arriving at the west coast of Portugal and some breezy beaches.

Hiking back from the coast.

On another day, we visited the Quinta da Regaleira on the hillside above Sintra. The site consists of a palace, chapel and a luxurious park that features waterfalls, grottoes, caves, wells, fountains and gardens.  We enjoyed exploring the grottoes under the grounds - long dark tunnels with virtually no natural light. We used our iPhone flashlights to find our way through!  The palace is also known as "The Palace of Monteiro the Millionaire" - the nickname of the best known former owner, António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro.  Today it is all owned by the local government.

After four days in Sintra, we were off to the southern coast of Portugal, the area known as the Algarve, and the small town of Tavira.

Our hotel in Tavira - a former convent renovated into a very comfortable small inn.  We loved this place!

The hotel intended to build an indoor pool - they began to excavate and dug up Roman ruins which are now preserved and open to view in the hotel basement:

Note the stone wall around the pool.  This is the original stone wall surrounding the historic downtown of the city - much of this dates back to Roman times.

Allison checking the pool temperature.  

The Rio Giláo river runs through the center of town and flows into the Atlantic just a few minutes downstream.  

Below are scenes from around Tavira. This is what we had hoped to find in Portugal.  Very quiet, not too many tourists, delicious restaurants, a sunny beach.  Life is good here.

The beach just outside of town - on the southern coast.  Beautiful sand stretching for miles and miles.   The water is still a bit cold for swimming although there were some brave souls out in the waves - we assumed they were from Sweden.

Beachside lunch - courses of clams, shrimp (the size of lobsters), and boiling monkfish stew.  Oh, and a glass of white wine is 2 euro.  One of the very best meals of the trip!

Late that afternoon we enjoyed a performance of Fado Music. Fado is a historical genre of Portuguese music - often mournful and full of longing.  It is believed to have been inspired by the women left behind in Lisbon while the men were out to sea exploring for new passages, lands and riches.

Our last full day in Portugal we woke to numerous chiming bells from some of the surrounding twenty one churches in Tavira.  (And a few minutes later the sound of a roaring lawn mower but I digress.)  The perfect blue skies today are reminding us of home.

We spent the morning touring a few more sites in the city.  First stop was the cámara obscura located in a converted water tower next to our hotel. We climbed up into the water tower. On top were mounted two lenses and a mirror, inside of a rotating casing. The casing and lenses could be rotated 360 degrees and they projected the captured image onto a screen that could best be described as a satellite dish. We were able to see people walking, birds flying and cars going by in real time. It was a fun and interesting way to learn more about the city and a bit of science too.

View of the city from the cámara obscura on the screen.

Later we climbed the stairs of the old historic city wall built during the Roman times.  The interior courtyard of the walled area is now a colorful shaded garden.  

Our last lunch.

The weather was perfect for an afternoon swim. We spent some of it poolside at our hotel, trying to take a bit more in before packing up.  

Over the past twenty weeks we have visited 16 countries; flown on 31 plane flights;  stayed in 35 hotels/apartments; rode in hundreds of trains, boats, ferrys, subways, buses, taxis, cable cars, funiculars,  pedicabs, and even a helicopter.  We started planning the trip about 15 months before we left and I would guess Carol spent as many as a 1,000 hours planning every detail.  As we moved along from city to town, she continued to refine, change, and book apartments, flights and activities. And every bit of the planning was near perfect. Flawless really. We never missed a flight, never missed a connection, never had a hotel lose a reservation. She has led us all bravely around the world. I don't know how she did it all. But I do know that myself and the kids are forever grateful for everything she has done for all of us.

John doesn't give himself enough credit for his part in planning and executing our trip. In truth, without his adventurous spirit and willingness to dive in, this never would have happened. I would have ended my days thinking that I really should have traveled around the world. So when I said one day that we should do it before Cameron started high school, John said we should set a date. And if you know John, you know that once the goal is there it's as good as done. From that moment, it was steady progress all the way: many planning sessions together and thousands of ducks put in rows to make sure everything at home would be okay without us. I never would have hoped for a trip like this and Cameron, Allison and I are so very grateful to John for making it happen.

Cameron and Allison have shown a lot of grit these past months.  Living out of a 20" inch suitcase, packing up and moving to strange new places every few days, eating in over 300 foreign restaurants, can wear you out.  They have handled it (mostly:)) with a smile and a desire to keep exploring. We're hoping they are inspired to be curious about the world and all of its diversity, to remain open minded to other cultures, and to continue traveling and exploring throughout their lives.

To everyone who has read our blog as we have moved along, thanks for being interested in our adventure and thinking of us while we've been away. We'll see you all soon.