Blogs from Lisbon & Tagus Valley, Portugal, Europe - page 2

The Lisbon to Porto transfer was by motorcoach. We would board our Viking river vessel, Viking Torgil, in Porto. The standard transfer is via Coimbra with a stop to see the university. However, Susan and I opted for the transfer with stops at Fatima and the monastery at Batalha. This choice proved to be a fascinating journey into Portuguese history. The courier and guide who accompanied our coach group introduced himself as a professor of travel and tourism at a private Lisbon university. He was very knowledgeable bout Portuguese history and narrated most of our journey. His first topic concerned the forests we were traversing. I had taken note of the fact that they highway to Batalha was though a heavily forested landscape, not what I had expected to see. (I had expected farmland, or arid ... read more

Lisboa to Chumasca 108.50 km A pilgrimage or a bike ride? Today I had to focus on this question after seeing a lot of people walking with their backpacks along the way just as I did 10 years ago. We "flashed" them by on our fancy electric pedal-assisted bikes. Their effort seems much bigger than ours, although we started much further back and cover much more distance every day. I leave the answer to the question for the time being. I want to finish the trip and then, possibly come to a clearer vision on the subject. Our day covered a distance of some 108km, which, for me, was plenty. A good day as far as climate and road conditions are concerned, although biking these distances after a poor night's sleep results to be challenging. As ... read more

Day 4 started early with a rush to get everything packed and get downtown to the car rental office so we could get to Sintra and see the Castles. We got the car relatively smoothly and crammed our bags into the little car. Off we went! We got to Sintra later than we wanted and we had to drive around for awhile trying to figure out parking- was it free, did we have to pay, what spots were public parking, etc. Finally found a spot and got on a bus to the Pena Palace, which wasnt where we wanted to do first but it was the first bus to srrive and there were spots. In hindsight we should have stuck to the plan and waited as the palace was packed full of people since the castle ... read more

Day 3: started.off a bit slower, I think we are all a bit tired from walking around in the 30 degree heat all day. We woke up a bit later and to be honest we were struggling to figure out what to go and see. We went to the local LX market and finally found the library that looked so much cooler in pictures. We were desperate for a good coffee and found a cute chocolate cafe, sat for a coffee (which means espresso to Portugese) and Anne had an iced coffee. We set out to go to the Torre de Belem, which was the one thing we didn't make it to in the first night. The neighborhood around the tower was super impressive with large white washed houses owned by foreign embassies. It was interesting ... read more

After a couple of quick, one night stands in Salamanca and Porto, it’s time to relax for a couple of days in the capital city of Lisbon. But first, there are a couple of stops along the way. The first is the famous Catholic pilgrimage city of Fatima. The nuns at St-Margaret's would be proud that I remember most of the story of Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta, and the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1917. I remember as a child that the 2 places we should want to go, other than Rome and the Vatican of course, were Lourdes and Fatima, pilgrimage sites and modern miracles, with Fatima being the most recent. There were evidently 3 secrets of Fatima, not that I remembered the details, but I did remember it had something to do ... read more