PORTUGAL - TRIPPING THROUGH TROPICAL EUROPE

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Spark Notes - Our Polarsteps Journey

Unfortunately, flying home for the holidays wasn't in the cards. Already having gone home during the summer helped make that issue a little better, but it was definitely a bummer not being able to be with the family over the holidays.

But, dear reader, Fear Not! Despite being stuck in Europe, I was going to have a special visitor. My man Mr. Herhold made plans and jumped on a plane to make his way over to Europe and say hi! The plan, hang out in Karlsruhe for a bit and then jump in the car and head down to a little sunshine and red wine in Portugal! After being hampered by Covid for a couple years now, this Well Oiled Machine © was underway. Great to get the adventure train rolling again.

The Herhold Train Rolls In

After being completely done with work for the year, on my first free day I had to wait until mid-afternoon for Zack to be coming into town. I knew when his plane landed, and he planned on going solo from Frankfurt down to my place to start the trip. That gave me a laid-back morning to pack and get things ready for the journey.

I went grocery shopping for some road snacks, got some things packed, and ended up having a date over lunch. Unfortunately, I ended up cutting it a bit short. Why? Why would I cut a good date short? Well, Zack was without a phone on his trip down from the airport, and I didn't want to not be home when he hit the klingel at my apartment.

But the rush was a bit for naught. Zack got caught up in the airport (as I found out when he got in), but I headed home and played some video games until the loud "DING DONG" arrived. Zack, welcome to my apartment!

Weirdly enough, Zack's the first person from my life in the US to visit me and my life here in Germany. Totally makes sense - Covid has shit on all of our lives - but the ability to finally host someone so important in my life was such a treat!

Once he got in, we hung around my place for a hot second, but then were off and riding around town. We only had an afternoon in town, so I went through my very short list and we jumped on our bikes to hit the town. The first stop was something I see every time I ride my bike to work, and knew he would get a kick out of the very communist-like figures outside of a random apartment building.

We rode out to the statues, and on our ride back home we stopped off to get our Covid tests done before we hit the road the next day. Luckily enough, there was a test station on the way back that had nobody waiting, so we signed up, got our noses swabbed, and were on our way.

With the bikes dropped back off at home, we walked toward the town center to get a taste of the town on foot. First stop was some Glühwein. Although the christmas markets were closed, no way we could pass up that tradition while he was in town.

We walked through BasisLager (sporting goods store), and walked down the main drag and past the remnants of the christmas market before jumping into Marktlücke for some dinner. Good grub and decent beers, then we walked home. After a few drinks at home to catch up and lounge around it was time for bed to get ready to roll!

Day 1 - Off and Running

After a quick night's sleep, it was time to go! We woke up, got cleaned up, made sure all our bags were packed and ready, and headed down to Rupert to get ready for the trip. We made quick work of getting situated and ready to go, and before we knew it, we were all packed and ready! But before we headed out, we walked over to the bakery for a croissant and some coffee. A little bit of energy and bread before we hit the road!

To start, things were pretty easy sailing. Heading south towards and past Freiburg, it was a bit rainy, but not too bad, as we then entered into France. At some point I questioned why we were on all these small roads. Well, I somehow left the option to avoid toll roads still clicked on from my trip through Scotland, and that had us on a scenic stroll through the countryside of France. I ticked that option off, we rerouted and cut two hours off the planned travel time. Sahweet. Cruising, cruising, cruising, and 6 hours later, we ended up in Vichy!

Right back to the many benefits of having a history buff along for the ride, Zack did some scouting of good places we could stop at, and the town of Vichy was right on the way. The former capitol of the non-occupied region of France from WWII, that name popped up to Zack, and as he did some research, we learned that it is also a spa town! Why not get in a little soak and some mineral water along the way!?

We rolled in, parked, and the spa building was just around the corner. Zack was all stoked about filling up on some mineral water to heal all of his worries. But, as luck would have it, the building with the water sources was closed. Annual cleaning during Christmas Eve. Damnit...

Our spirits a little dampened, we started strolling around town to keep our legs active and start the first opportunity for some wandering and exploring of the trip. A little hungry, I snagged a deeeeelicious cookie, and then we headed towards the big main park.

After walking through the park we ended up in a small plaza on the far side. Looked left, and there was a big 'ole WWII memorial. Zack was (as always) a great person to have along for this, because he informed me of the interesting nuance here. We were wary of how much reverence in the engravings and markings would hint towards the history of the nazi-sympathizers. Although we google-translated one of the signs (and things looked to be allied, not fascist), the skepticism still remained.

From the park we wandered around and explored some of the tiny sidewalks (seriously, barely wide enough for one person), the cute alleyways, and old buildings of the town before turning back around for the main drag. Now we were on the hunt for a little snackage, and luckily stumbled upon a pretty good looking bagel sandwich shop. With our grub in hand, we wandered once again back to the park and plopped down on a great bench to enjoy our snacks and do some people watching in the brisk afternoon.

Rested, walked, and grubbed up, we were back on the road with Zack at the helm. It's always weird being a passenger in your own car, but the chance to sit back for a bit was a great change. But, that was slightly short-lived, as the jet-lag came up and bit Zack in the ass. So, after yet another toll gate we stopped and swapped out.

Now I did not go in and confirm this with my own eyes (I was and still kinda am in complete disbelief), but Zack went into the bathroom at that stop and came out with quite the shock. Apparently, this pit stop had a squatty potty / asian toilet.

My first thought - no fucking way. Squatty pottys are found in Asia, not in Europe. I was in such disbelief, that I made Zack recount his weird experience and even draw a picture of the toilet he was describing:

No matter how little sense it made and how much disbelief I had, there was a squatty potty at a tiny rest stop toilet in the middle of France. That made and still makes no sense to me, but it's legit. What the fuck. And, after further research, it seems it's not just a one-off thing, which makes it even weirder.

On the road though, the miles went by pretty fast, and soon enough we made it to Bordeaux for the night. Had to kinda weave through town in the newly set darkness, but we made our way to the hostel, got checked in and squared away at the fairly swanky but pretty inexpensive spot, and then headed off for a little walkabout.

First goal - dinner. Unfortunately, we were faced pretty quickly with the realization that it was Christmas Eve and a lot of things were closed. Wouldn't be the only time during the trip. The first couple places we googled were black and shuttered for the holiday, so we ended up walking up and down the little harbor area near our hostel. Our only option was the boat restaurant, so we headed back for that.

Luckily enough they had space, so we got in and sat for a delightful Christmas Eve dinner. The language barrier made things pretty interesting, but we got things squared-enough away and waited for our vittles. This was my first foray into beef tartar, and it was an interesting choice, definitely not my favorite. Despite that, the wine was delicious, their definition of a salad was weird, but it was a nice little dinner.

Once we paid, we were back off and walking, headed to something Zack spied on his quick research of town. I don't remember the full back story of why it's there, but in Bordeaux, where the little harbor area near our hostel was built, is a former U-Boat bunker. An absolutely MONSTROUS hunk of concrete, just right in the middle of a fairly large modern city. Of course, WWII history comes right to the top, so we made our way over.

Unfortunately, it's closed to the public, but it is an absolutely MASSIVE structure. Seriously, just massive. Essentially a garage but for submarines, this thing had 11 bays for subs to pull into. Subs are no small vehicles, so just envision how immense this place is.

Trying to take advantage of the night time and a cool subject, I whipped out my tripod to get some night photography practice in. Well, my camera is old and I'm a mediocre photographer, so things didn't turn out very well. I struggled to find a focus point and most of the pictures I took turned out poorly (unfortunately not just that night, but for most of the whole trip :-( ). Zack was super patient with me (as he always is!) as I fuddled around with my hunk of junk before I packed it in and cut my losses.

After some time capturing and admiring the size and brutality of the concrete behemoth, we wandered around the side to see if we could find a way in. Unfortunately no luck with that. It was sealed up pretty tight. But, as we read on a random sign on the wall, there was some kind of art exposition/marketplace that usually was on the complete other side of the building that opened up during the day. Just something we'd have to dream about as we were only there for the night.

Lucky and pumped we got to see that giant concrete block, but a bit bummed we couldn't spelunk around inside it, we slowly wandered back towards the hostel. Once there, we grabbed a couple beers, played some backgammon, then turned down for bed.

Day 2 - Portugal or Bust

Merry Christmas from Bordeaux! We decided to get up fairly early-ish to hit the road in the hopes of seeing some of Portugal in the daylight. After getting showered and ready to go, we got totally stiffed on the parking. The guy at the counter had no idea what we were talking about (supposed to get ~50% off at the parking garage for staying at the hostel), so we were screwed on that front. How the fuck does that aspect of important things about that job get skipped over?

Quite peeved, we payed the ticket to get out of the garage, packed back into Rupert, and got back on the road. But, before leaving the street, we remembered to go fill up our water bottles. So I stopped and ran back in, and by that time another gal was there who said we could get our parking discount now. Well that's too fucking late... Seems like an intentional scam, jerks. But she did give us some pity coffee along with filling up our water bottles. Doesn't quite make up for it, but it was a nice gesture of understanding.

Now, water in hand, we were back on the road. Breakfast was the absolute best breakfast one could ask for on a Christmas on the road. I'm not sure how I restrained myself, but I kept a whole bag of my Mommy's Nieman Marcus cookies saved just for this trip. Now, with a damn good reason to crack them open, we snacked on some delicious oatey-chocolateyness to get our day started off right. Then, to go with the sweets, Zack threw on Shadow Divers, a true story about the discovery of a German U-Boat sunk off the New Jersey coast. If you haven't read it, it's quite the enthralling book, and we made some really good headway on that throughout the day.

Cruising, cruising, cruising, and soon enough we'd made it to Spain! This was my first time in Spain, and I was really surprised and enjoying the beautiful landscapes of the Western Pyrenees. We hit the road before sunrise, and around the time the sun was coming up was when we crossed into Spain and got to see some gorgeous stuff. Ther was one spot where there was some snow higher up, but the rest of the landscape was just a high-desert alpine. Really unique and beautiful.

Slowly, the further south and west we got, the alpine aspects morphed to purely desert and things got pretty barren. Not completely barren, there was still some sparse foliage, but you could tell things were a bit different. The route we took was generally through really empty land, few towns and not a ton going on. But slowly the mountainous influence came in and out of presence as we continued on.

Somewhere in BFE Western Spain we stopped. It was quite the interesting spot. Zack went in to get something, and after I gassed up I went into pay. Well, he got completely overlooked with a family trying to buy a Sim card, and as I came in I got ushered right up to the counter. Kinda weird and interesting considering he stood there for a good while ready to check out while the check-out lady just focused on the other family. Different country, different tendencies I guess.

Continuing to progress through Western Spain, we slowly got back into another mountain range, and this was the one that meant we were getting close to the border! I was pretty shocked by the type and setup of these mountains, and was really enjoying the views along the drive. We kept creeping closer and closer to the Portuguese border, and eventually we had to jump off the highway for the last stretch. Typical to now-annoying google form, the map took us along the literally quickest/shortest possible route, which meant driving through people's driveways, some interesting and really tight/thin roadways, and just getting the feeling google maps doesn't understand what it's supposed to do. It was along this stretch though that we got our first realization of just how tight buildings can be built next to each other and still somehow fit a road in between them...

We had to kinda dodge and weave our way through some neighborhoods and things, but eventually we whiddled our way back to some semblance of an actual highway. That was a nice change. Along that highway, we mirrored a pretty incredibly dry reservoir that was looking pretty drastic. We stopped to check that out for a bit.

Back in the car, we kept chugging along, and soon enough we'd reached the first 'official' step of our trip - we made it to Portugal!!! The border wasn't quite indescript but not all that extravagant, but the distaste between Spain and Portugal was very clear, with a distinct delineation of where the border lays along the bridge. Love a little rivalry in broad daylight. But yeah, we were now in Portugal! Woohoo!!!

After a few shots and celebrating reaching our destination country, we continued a little further on down the road to make it to the village of Lindoso. In researching for this trip I found a list of some cool random off-the-beaten-track things to see in the country, and this village was one of them. The thing this place was known for were it's raised stone granaries riddling the town. From the pictures they looked pretty cool, so I was intrigued to see what they looked like in real life.

We rolled into the super quiet town and parked near the castle. After a short walk up, we strolled right into a 13th Century Castle with a 17th Century Fortress built around it. Pretty damn cool bits of history. Zack tried to be sneaky and head in first to conquer the place, but the gloves he threw on me (which he borrowed from me) didn't quite have the same effect of keeping me out of the place like burning oil or a cannonball would have. Nice try buddy...

The castle interior was closed, but the grounds were open, so we did some 'splorin around the old ramparts. It was a fairly simple and straightforward fort/castle, but pretty cool to check out and walk around. Up on the walls we had some decent views of the town and valley despite the mist and clouds, so a good little romp around in the light rain was had.

Then it was off the castle and down to the granaries. The description was quite fitting, as we waltzed up to about 50+ of them sprinkled throughout the hillside. It was honestly a very unique setup, and after the driving around later, seemed to be a pretty prevalent setup throughout the area.

All of them a good bit elevated (between 2-4ft off the ground), and all with slightly varying lengths, they were all made from very precisely cut stonework. To allow for aeration, the sides were made from columns with small gaps in between the columns to allow for ventilation (some out of stone, some out of wood), and it looked like the floors were some slatted wood (maybe, wouldn't make sense but that's kinda what it looked like).

Zack and I meandered between a good few of them, admiring the stonework and seeing the unique structures up close. Our meandering had us meet up, continue strolling along, and then after another loop through the field with the granaries, we ended up down on the village road and waltzed back to Rupert. A cool little village tucked in the mountains, and it ended up being a really nice quick break in the misty mountain air.

Back in the car, we flipped around and headed back the way we came for a bit. Why? Well on the map there was the appearance of a really straight valley with a scenic little road going through it, so I figured that could be a fun drive to take us on our way to Porto. Although the valley looked like someone took a smooth line of frosting off the top of a cake, the road was anything but straight.

The curves started early on and didn't slow down the whole way. But, shortly after the valley started there was a massive waterfall over on the other side, so we found a turnout and pulled off to enjoy it. Kinda felt like as soon as we got out of the car, we got approached by this really boisterous Portuguese dude (who lives in Zurich), asking one of us to take his picture. He threw out some really unique poses and shared his really unique, bubbly, and interesting character with us. He was nice enough to return the favor for Zack and I, and after he zoomed off in his Audi, we hung out a bit to take in the valley and waterfall before continuing on.

The windy road continued and made its way up the valley, until eventually, at the crest of the pass, we re-entered Portugal to really dive into our Portuguese adventure. As the road made its way downhill, we ended up stopping a couple times to take in whatever views were there with the sunlight fading, clouds and fog setting in, and the day trying to come to a close.

At the first of such spots, where all the cars were parked totally cattywhompus, we met our crazy Portuguese buddy again who was doing a whirlwind of a run to just snap pictures and continue on. Had a quick chat with him before he screamed on further along on his adventure, and Zack and I both got some laughs at his fun banter and interesting way about him.

Once we came down from the higher elevations and entered a few towns, I really got some vibes of previous travels. The first one was Northern Italy, as we passed through a tiny group of towns huddled around a big lake in the mountains, reminded me a good bit of my hike above Lago do Logano in Italy. Bit tropical and warm, reddish/greenish hues all over, mountains, lakes, tiny little towns tucked along the lake, and a generally nice little spot.

Then, in later spots, Nepal was blasting through my head (as it has a lot lately). There were a number of spots with some small villages tucked up high on the hillside, way above the road and other towns. Those kinds of villages were everywhere along the Annapurna Circuit, so that reminder and comparison was really cool to see.

The road kept winding forwards as it worked its way down the mountain valley. Zack was pretty K.O. from the jet lag and feeling a bit under the weather, so I had a relaxing drive with a napping co-pilot down the valley in the darkness. The road eventually opened up to a large valley as we descended in towards Porto, and the drive was absolutely beautiful, despite the nickling and diming of the toll roads. The roadways and overall infrastructure got pretty chaotic as we got closer and closer, but eventually we made it into town and headed towards a hostel.

After rolling up, the first hostel we stopped at wasn't accepting guests for the night. That was pretty weird (it was Christmas though...), so a little dejected, we posted up on the sidewalk and did some research. After finding a spot, we headed over, and were greeted to a place that didn't give two shits about COVID. Despite that surprise, we got in and were greeted by the super friendly staff to get us checked in.

With our beds all set, parking was the next thing to figure out. Luckily enough there was a parking garage nearby, so we headed over there to give Rupert a nice place to sleep for a couple days. In the chaos of getting our bags out I couldn't find the car key for the life of me. Ended up being on the roof of the car. You know, where normal people put the damn keys...

But with our stuff in hand, we headed back to the hostel. We were both pretty tired, so after getting our beds all situated, we headed to the common area and just hung out and chatted over our lovely Christmas Dinner.

We weren't up for too long. But, after two days of driving, we were finally in Porto and Portugal and ready to start our adventure. Off to bed we went, ready to get underway in the morning.

Day 3 - Rainy Day Discoveries

It was a lazy wake up that day as the light rain pattered the walkways outside the window. It was nice to roll around for a while, take it easy, and slowly ease into the day. But before long it was up and at 'em with a shower and getting ready to go. Breakfast was had at our wonderful hostel for a dirt cheap 3.50€, and after the friendly folks handed us our grub and we polished it off, we were off and running for the first walkabout of the trip.

Before leaving, I jumped back to the room to spur-of-the-moment change my socks to something a little thicker and some warmer clothes, turned out to be a really good and important call. Once we were out on the streets, we jumped right into that lightly pattering rain to start our adventuring. It wasn't coming down too hard as we took a stroll through one of the main plazas and zig-zagged our way across town to our first stop.

Although it was a quiet and rainy day after Christmas, we got to Livraria Lello and there was already a line crossing the street of people waiting to get in. What's more, this place charged entrance to get in! I'd never seen that from a bookstore before, so it must be a big deal then. But, since this apparently looked pretty cool (and we didn't have too many other things on our mental map of things to do in the rain), we hunkered down and waited our turn.

Turns out it was maybe not a big deal, but a really cool deal. Livraria Lello is an old, small, quaint, colorful, and beautiful book store. I'm too lazy to google it, but I think it was also an inspiration for a few things Harry Potter-related (JK Rowling lived in Portugal for a while), and was full of super ornate wood carvings and plaster stuff made to look like wood. That with the red carpet, the muted lighting, incredible artwork on the cieling, this was definitely a cool place to check out.

On the top floor there were a couple installations that were really quite interesting. The first, and one I got more interested in, was a dedication to José Saramago. Portugal is a fairly small country, but José made this country proud, becoming the only Portuguese-language Literary Nobel-Laureate. As you can imagine, that's a big deal, and they had a whole room dedicated to him and his work. I read up on a bit of what he was known for, his background and life, and after a little spur of the moment, got one of the few english translations available for Death at Intervals. I'm almost done with it (at the time of writing), and it's quite the interesting and unique book.

The other section on the top floor was all about the Nobel Prize in general. On one side of the room they had those who had actually won the prize. And on the other side, were those that could have won it, were candidates, or who were snubbed. Through all of the information and a lot of Zack's help, I learned how much controversy revolves around the Nobel Prize, and the fact that there's an alternative prize that has been growing in notoriety to combat the prejuidices and controversy behind the original nobel. One cool thing about this was seeing probably my favorite author, Haruki Murakami, present on the wall! He's been speculated to have been nominated for a nobel prize and it was awesome to see some connection with him and some well-deserved recognition!

We both did a good bit of perusing and enjoying the little store, tons of books to look at and gain some insight into. But, as always, it was eventually time to move on. That meant back out onto the wet streets of town. Despite the pretty consistent rain, we implemented one of our travel modes, Strategic Wandering, and were off and running. Cool statues, beautiful buildings, tons of UNESCO heritage plaques, gorgeous small alleyways (those are EVERYWHERE in Portugal), and lots of history.

Our wandering eventually had us stumbling upon a wonderful little overlook, which gave us our first views of this cool, quaint, and beautiful little city. Despite the rain, the big bridge(s), big river, buildings on cliffs, and hills and terrain next to the mighty River Duoro were all really cool to look out over and explore. We took our time enjoying the views, seeing the city from above, and then were back off and wandering.

Now that we had a general idea of what the city looked like and where some things were, we set out with the intention of heading over to the top deck of the big bridge. Well, we ended up slowly working our way down the hill, through some small alleys, past a statue or two, and then soon enough we popped down out next to the waterfront. Every alley and road we were on seemed to be not only old, but in some way historic; it was a beautiful place to stroll around.

I noticed this awesome dude up by the overlook, and ended up finding a good few of him painted up around town!

By that time things had gotten pretty wet. The rain had picked up a little bit, we were both pretty drenched, and to make matters worse, my camera was no longer turning on. Fuck, that had me worried.

The walk along the waterfront (despite the rain) was really gorgeous, but we both agreed we needed to find a place to take a load off for a bit. The hunt for a café landed us at this one place and the lady was super nice, but the first question was if we wanted food. We were unsure, and then she said she didn't open for another 40min. Coffee was the main thing on our mind, so we kept wandering along.

Our wandering took us under the big 'ole bridge and along a row of houses/buildings, but there was nothing café-like there. That was a bit of a surprise and bummer, so we backtracked, and on the way stumbled upon a funicular traincar that headed up the hillside. In the interest of finding somewhere quick, we opted to jump in and head up to a different part of town. This was quite the cool setup, and headed up much further on the hill than I anticipated.

Quick Thought - The giant bridge connecting the two sides of Porto is a stunning visual landmark and piece of architecture. Through the plaques and info that we found of it though, there was a little shade thrown on the designer that we couldn't stop laughing about. In a few places, the bridge was credited by being designed by "a student of Gustav Eiffel". Although the bridge is an incredible work of engineering and art, the guy who did all the work is completly overshadowed by his teacher. What a poor chap...

Just to our luck, the end of the funicular put us in a proverbial café dead zone. Not ideal, as we were getting wetter by the minute. I whipped out the googlez and found a group of cafes, so we started heading that direction, which ended up being right next to the main station. Our route had us coming down hill, and all of a sudden there were a bunch of tunnels heading into the hillside and the train platforms right next to them. Quite a interesting spot to put in a train station, but with the amount of hills and water and elevation change, they did a pretty ingenious job of it.

Train stations mean main squares, main squares mean lots of people, and lots of people usually mean restaurants and cafes and such. Luckily enough, that held true here. Zack stopped into the tourist office to snag a map, then we picked out a delicious looking bakery to dive into some coffee and the renowned world of Portuguese bakeries.

Needless to say, it was delicious. Being out of the rain definitely helped, but the coffee was warm and the goodies we got were scrumptious. They had an entire wall of sweets and baked goods in view, and it was hard to pick. The chocolatey-mousse muffin type thing I got though was spot on, and Zack got something great too. Hard to have to choose when everything looks so good. And no joke, I think Portugal blows German bakeries out of the water.

While out of the cold and the rain, we took the time with our coffee and sweets to ideate of what we wanted to do next. The rain was really raining on our parade, so the idea was to find stuff to do out of the weather. Zack looked up some museums and figured out where they were. A couple were on the other side of the river, and because of the rain, he didn't want to get stuck over there. But, for a few reasons, we ended up deciding to head over and see what we could find.

Coming out of the cafe, the rain had decided to double down and come down harder and harder. That definitely wasn't the desired result, but Mother Nature is like the Honey Badger - she doesn't give a shit. Rather than sticking with the plan of walking over and getting soaked, we lucked out with a train stop right next to the cafe, so we jumped in to at least save a few feet of walking.

Now Zack and I are pretty hearty, seasoned, and experienced travelers. I'm not sure how this came to be, but we got totally turned around by the Porto Metro ticket machine. We tried to figure out how many zones we wanted to travel, what the cost would be, but their setup was nothing but gibberish for a good 5 minutes. Despite the initial confusion, we slowly pieced together what we thought we needed, then got our tickets and were on our way.

The cool part about opting for the train was that the route took us right over that giant bridge. Even through the clouds and rain we got some great views down the river and over town. But right after crossing the bridge, we were off the train and back out in the rain. Although it said it was going to be a short-ish walk to the museums, the rain was absolutely unforgiving. Off we trudged.

Small alleys, staircases, having to look at the map a couple times, and more rain, but we kept our heads down and hoods up as we plodded on. Despite the weather, the route we took was quite pretty. No lie (this feeling would hold true throughout the country), the amount of small alleyways is insane. And the crazy part, they're all picturesque and pretty in their own right. So even though we were soaked, it was a delightful (in hindsight) walk over. Eventually, we made it to the World of Wine complex, and had a good half a second to dry off before getting our vaccination status checked.

Luckily enough, we'd stumbled upon quite the complex. As we'd learn, World of Wine is part of one of the big Port Wine conglomerates in Porto, and they put this incredible complex together to celebrate (and monetize) all things wine. Our first wonderful stop in this little heaven out of the rain - The Cork Museum!

I had a decent precursory knowledge of cork before this, but Planet Cork really blew me away. I can't fully recall all of the cool facts I learned about this incredible material, but here are a few: when compressed it returns to its orignal shape, it's hypoallergenic, impermeable to liquids and gases (hence used as a wine cork!), fire retardant, and so much more!

The first section was all about sharing the gospel, properties, background, and general information about the cork tree. Again, really an impressive material and plant! Then, as you moved along, it transferred to more information about the growth and harvest of the tree, then moved into the processing, production, and usage of cork in general. Cool fun quick facts: it's only after about 43 years that the cork tree's harvest reaches wine-cork level quality, and cork is used for pretty much everything. They had a display of cork used in an engine block, but I'm calling bullshit on that...

In all, a REALLY cool museum, and as maybe weird as it sounds, I gained a clear new respect and awe for this pretty incredible material.

Whoever designed the layout did it pretty well, as the route ended up in the gift shop. Right beforehand, Zack had a cheeky grin on his face, and ended up surprising me with my own cork! There was a little machine somewhere along the way, and he got my name lasered onto one. What a dude! Well we perused through the gift shop, got a couple things, then were off and back to the main complex to head to the next museum.

It took us a weird while to find it, but we eventually rolled up to The Bridge Collection. A bit of a non-descript name, but it's essentially a museum of drinking vessels. They claim to have something ~9000 years old, so we were intrigued to see what was inside.

Right at the beginning of the progression was the oldest vessel. And right next to that was a special display where some prominent dude (I couldn't decide if he was the benefactor (aka Bridge) or just some historian of sorts), but he was highlighting the piece of the month. Well, we kinda came to the conclusion that he's essentially a private collector/benefactor, and must be one rich son of a gun.

I was a little bit museum'd out by that point, so the reading became less prevalent and just became more of a stroll looking at a ton of glasses, cups, chalices, vessels, and more. A few of the highlights were a cup potentially used by Alexander the Great, a Das Boot, a cool Rams Head cup, and a good number of other things. Tons of cool items to take a look at, and we slowly strolled on through and eventually headed out.

Once we were done and out of the Bridge Collection, we wandered out and found a pretty big inside courtyard with a few tables. Perfect spot for a little break. Both of us hit the loo and then we took some time to gather our thoughts, take a break, and set our sights on food and wine. We were ready for a little fill up, and that plan was going to take us towards the waterfront to see what we could find.

After our relaxing little break and some high quality break time, we were back on our feet and headed off. Right as we got out of the buidling and were coming down the stairs back to the alley-level, we were struck by some loud music, and stumbled upon a pop-up brass band playing outside of the chocolate shop! Hot damn! I love me some good music.

As soon as we dove into the tiny alley, the band was on the move and gave us a little musical wave. But we continued our way down another picturesque tiny street, enjoyed the stonework, and eventually made our way down to the waterfront.

We were now faced with a plethora of eatery options. But as luck would have it, we walked right by a little Mercado and opted to pop in. Definitely the right choice. Mercados are such an awesome and enjoyable concept. Think of it as in a closed food truck court, with the same idea - tons of eateries with lots of variety, but this place had alcohol and tons of delicious options. Honestly, too many.

After perusing all of the options, I settled on some seafood and rice and some wine. My mind was set on seafood for the whole trip, and this was the starting block. Wanna know what's awesome? A full glass of wine only cost 2€, and that was some damn good wine. Man I love this place. The seafood mix was delicious, the wine was rich, and it was a great spot to food up and wine up. Well. Oiled. Machine.

With our vittles all polished off, we were back out on the waterfront. It was a nice stroll with the new subdued rain, and there was a lot to peruse and watch as we walked along. At some point we encountered a pretty ornate looking building with some organ music emanating out, so we decided to jump in.

Well, turned out to be a pretty clear tourist trap, but I didn't realize that until I'd ordered a snack. Despite the trap feeling, their schtick was deep-fried cod fish bakes, and hot damn they were pretty yummy. I got sucked into "The Portugal Experience", but the combo of some white port wine and the little codfish bake was actually quite delicious. With that in hand, Zack and I found a spot to sit on the top veranda to people watch, chat, snack, and keep an eye on the organ player who really didn't want to be there.

Once the snacking was done, we moved back out to the waterfront and continued our stroll back towards the big bridge. Since we were in Porto, the topic of Port Wine was pretty consistently on our minds. Thinking back to our overlook from the early morning, we saw a number of clear names on some rows of buildings, and we accurately predicted that those were Port Wine Cellars. Well, since we were still meandering and now a little thirsty, we set our minds on seeing if we could snag a tour through one of the cellars.

We were near the end of the waterfront drag, and Cálem Cellars was right there, so we popped in. Well would you believe our luck. We asked if they had a tour available, and we were immediately ushered to the english-speaking tour that started not 5 minutes ago. Hot damn! We paid and got settled up and were escorted to the group to join in on the tour.

The further the tour went along, the more and more I felt the similarities between a Port Wine Cellar and Whiskey Distillery tour, and similar in terms of process, setup, and such. But we were led through the process by our frank and funny guide Leonardo and learned a lot of how this all goes down.

The river Duoro, the one that goes right through Porto, is home to a large swath of renowned wine production. Not in town, but if you go up river a hundred miles or so, the rolling hills and plains are world renowned as a fertile and high-quality region for grape growing. Those grapes are turned into wine, and some of that wine is then used to make Port wine!

Rather than a comprehensive dialogue, here are some of the notes that I took from our tour at Cálem:

• Just like whiskey, Port must be aged a minimum of 3 years
• There's a similar setup/offering to cask strength, but for Port it's called Vintage. As luck would have it, 1990 was a good year for Vintage. I know ;-)
• The aging of Port is only counted when its in a barrel, vats don't count towards the years of aging
• Color change during maturation is also similar to whiskey - white wines gain a redder color from the barrels, and red wines lose color to the barrels
• Most Port that you find is a blend
• Blends don't age once they're in the bottle - a 10yr blend will stay 10yr regardless of when you end up popping it. And, those bottles can stay open for a long while without going bad
• Vintages, on the other hand, are alive, in a way. Once Vintage Ports are bottled, they will still age and mature in the bottle, and need to be stored sideways. Once they're opened, they need to be filtered (or decanted, we got conflicting info on that point) and drank within a few days

Leonardo ended up being a really unique and snarky tour guide in pretty fun way. He cracked a bunch of jokes, seemed a bit hands-off/sour towards the company ("This is a triangle hierarcy, and I'm not even on it"), and didn't seem to like port wine all that much, but provided a bunch of good insight and a very interesting personality. He walked us through the intro at the process clarification with a bunch of background information, then to the maturation warehouse (those are some HUGE vats), and then eventually up to the tasting.

The tasting consisted of a White, a Tawny, and a Vintage. Leonardo walked us through the tastes, we had a couple good laughs, got to know the folks sitting next to us, and enjoyed the sips. I wasn't a huge fan of the white, but the vintage and tawny ended up being pretty good. Eventually Leo left us, and we were left to finish our tastings to our own devices. Once we were all done with our glasses, it was back out and into the world. For me, a really cool and interesting first exposure to the world and taste of Port wine!

From Cálem we kinda rushed out of there as we had a scheduled event to make - a Zoom Call with the CBYX crew! Since we were still on the other side of town, we had to make our way along the waterfront, up a labyrinth of sidewalks and staircases and tiny roads to get back up to the train stop, and from there were able to head back to the hotel. We made somewhat light work of the walk up the hill in the misty rain, and before you knew it, we were back at the hostel.

Although we were super stoked to chat with our CBYX crew, being in a hostel made that a little bit weird, and frustratingly difficult. To start, there was someone in our room, so we couldn't do it in there. Next, the wifi was super spotty, then the common room was packed, so we were kinda relegated to the stairwell. Then, there was a lady yelling at the top of the staircase and things were a bit chaotic. Despite all that, what a pleasure it was to see and 'talk' with everyone! No joke, we are so lucky to have such a great group of people that has stayed in contact since the program ended, and I'm pretty lucky to have all of them still in my life.

I've kinda become used to it, but it's still a bummer every time. The entirety of the chat, it felt like we were on a 10-20 second lag from the rest of the conversation. I know it's nuts to be able to talk with people halfway across the world, but the choppiness and delay really makes it hard, and makes the distance that much more difficult to deal with.

After we wrapped up the laughs and reunion with the CBYX gang, it was back out on the town for a night cap (and maybe some food). We had no goals or targets in our sights, just some mild wandering to see what would come up, a strategy that's proven successful for us in the past. After a quick peek for a general direction and randomly walking down a dead-end of an alley, we motored on and stubmled into what looked like a pretty trendy spot, and had one thing on our mind - Porto Tonics. (think Gin & Tonic but with port wine)

Turns out we nailed it. This place was deeeeeelicious. First up were our Porto Tonics, and that is quite the ingenious creation. White Port with Tonic and an Orange in it, those were extremely refreshing and delicious. Then came the cheese board. Faaaaantastic. We had quite the time at that little trendy bar with our great food, drink and conversation, and then once we polished off our second Porto Tonics, we were back out and wandering.

The wandering continued until Zack saw something he couldn't pass up just by the name alone. So we popped into Bonaparte and he was automatically in proverbial heaven. A low-lighted bar with tons of shit on the walls, it ended up being a pretty chill place to hang out and have a drink. Zack was honestly in hog heaven. He spent a good portion of the time talking about how he wanted to try and sneak a trinket or relic on the wall without anyone noticing. Then, coming back years later, it'd still be on the wall. That'd honestly be a pretty cool achievement.

Amidst the good conversation and good vibes, we got in a couple rounds of backgammon with our drinks. During our segments of people watching, it looked like it was all dudes on dates in the place, but whatever, it was Sunday night in a pretty cool spot. Kinda par for the course. After we finished our second drink, we were unsure what to do, but after taking a look on the map, I convinced Zack to tag along for one last drink to end the night.

The brewery I'd seen on the map nearby was the target, but as we walked up it was very evident that it was closed. What the hell. Thankfully, and weirdly, enough, the comic shop next to it was open and looked to be a pretty decent night owl bar. It was a really unique setup, but we snagged our beers and then a table out on the sidewalk. Good chats about finance, family, politics, the world, and more followed.

Once we finished that beer up, Zack was dead set on the cups we had, and somehow a few hours later they were sitting in his bags. Funny how that happens. But we were up and at 'em and headed back to the hostel. Along the way we stumbled upon a WWI memorial. The Iron Cross at the top had us questioning where Portugal played in that chaos, but unfortunately we left without answers.

Right before we made it back to the hostel, we saw a recommendation that Leonardo had shared on the Cálem tour. We were luckily enough staying near to the supposedly most beautiful McDonalds in the world. Naturally, with that kind of hyperbole, we had to check it out. It was definitely an ornate interior, and I don't know if I can rate it as best in the world, but it was pretty. And sure enough, the double cheeseburger still tasted like McDonalds.

With our fast food fix and our great night of drinking, wandering, and chatting, we'd made it back to the hostel. After some note taking, it was time to hit the sack.

Day 4 - Self-Guided Porto Explorathon

Following the same routine as the day before, we got up and ready and were back out on the town. This time, the skies weren't full of water! Hot damn!!! And my camera was back in working order to boot! With that, we were off and walking, and opted on a self-guided tour through town to enjoy the various areas of town.

Our tour led us through the part we saw the day before, then a little further to a pretty non-toursity part. A fairly low-key amount of activity as people were out and about in their daily lives, and we got to walk and explore amongst it all. From those non-touristy areas we explored, a really interesting vibe came about. From my subjective perspective, Portugal is not a developing country, but not a fully developed one either. There was an interesting mix of run-down and abandoned stuff that kinda reminded me of exploring through Cuba, but then a mix of super modern and new stuff which makes you think of Western Europe.

The route we took weaved us through a shopping area that was just waking up, a couple residential streets, by a big hospital, and all around. We explored and enjoyed the various sights we saw going up and down the hills and through some gardens and tight alleyways and a bunch more.

Porto is an extremely hilly town, and we were able to experience that in full force not just in the morning, but throughout the full day. Eventually the ups and downs resulted in us being right next to the river, where we then turned back around and headed uphill to return back to the overlook from the day before. It took us a little bit of effort to head back up the hill, but we eventually made it back to the butcher man painted on the corner and the great sights over town.

We took our time to take in the sights now in the mist instead of the rain, and were again enjoying how diverse/variable Porto is. The next portion of our self-guided tour was to head not straight down to the waterfront, but to put together a nice weave through the many areas below the lookout and see what we stumble upon.

Once again the strategic wandering turned out to be a great idea. Yet more and more beautiful little alleyways (with a few close calls between us and faster-than-anticipated cars) and streets and squares. There were a number of UNESCO buildings and plaques we stumbled upon, so it was nice to read up on those as well while we were exploring. The wandering loop eventually plopped us back onto the square with the giant Henry the Navigator statue. We toyed with going into the castle/palace that was right on the square, but opted not to spend the high admission price, and just walked around the square for a bit admiring the statue and enjoying the nice colors on display.

After we made a lap around the statue and were wandering up to the big warehouse-looking building to see if it was another Mercado or something, we ran across the folks we met from the Cálem tour the day before. We had a quick chat about what we were all up to, and they suggested we head over to the big cathedral on the hill next. So, that's what we did.

The walk over to that was a good bit of uphill, but fairly enjoyable through more quaint and quite streets and alleys. Once we got a little closer, essentially right under the church retaining walls, it got a bit weird. There were some folks off on a corner of the staircase smoking something, but we did our best to pay no mind, head up the staircase, and get to where we were going.

The short hike up the stairs transported us to a much more lively, and much more scenic spot. The church had a pretty prominent spot up on the tallest hill of town overlooking the whole city. Amazing how religion had that much sway back in the day... But the plaza in front of the church was a gorgeous spot. We wandered around, got some pictures and sights of the town from that vantage point, then wandered over to the church itself.

We paid our entrance and then started our wandering. Right after the entrance, something reeked of rotten spaghetti, so that sped things up past that horrid stench. Once we got past that, we perused the halls for a bit, but then made our way to the tower.

It's always cool to see how worn-down stone can become after centuries of use, and we added to that usage as we wound our way up to the lookout on the tower. As we expected, we got some gorgeous views from the tower, even with the high winds blowing us around left and right. I took my time, got some time to enjoy the city on each side of the tower, and continued to grow my appreciation and interest in this cool city on the Duoro.

After a good bit of time up top, we wound our way back down the stairs and into the church courtyard. There were some beautiful walls of blue tile artwork on the upper courtyard to admire, and we did as such. Then, continuing on the designated route through the grounds, we ended up in the massive chapel. Once we'd checked that out though, we were all set and continued on. Sounds arrogant, but gigantic churchs, castles, etc. start to blend together after a while. Each is beautiful and masterful in their own right, but I'm not enthused enough by them for each one to draw my attention for too long.

Right about that time, our internal clocks were yelling for some coffee. Once again, we were in a bit of a dead zone, but after the ordeal from the day before, I had spotted a specialty coffee shop just down the hill from where we were at, so we headed that way.

It was a bit of a roundabout way down there, having to backtrack a bit then loop around, but the route gave us a chance to see some new things and more cool parts of town. Down near the river we got to walk through a long tunnel and saw some more of the millions of runners that inhabit Portugal. Then, finding the staircase that headed up to the cafe, we got some more views of the town, river, and the many colorful buildings all around.

Luckily enough, we got to the cafe just in time to snag the last table outside and had a good view of things to enjoy while we were hanging out. After some questioning where to order, we walked up to the counter of the one-man operation and put in our requests. After a hot second our stuff came out, and the delicious croissant with nutella, and weird coffe-like liquid were perfect bits to enjoy with the view. Sitting there, under the shaded sunlight, with plenty of people- and city-watching at hand, we enjoyed our quaint and relaxing little break to enjoy the city and recoup some energy.

We took our time with our food and coffee and let the morning roll by for a bit. But once we were set, we squared up with the coffee guy and headed up the staircase back towards town. This little stretch was a good example of it, but it was surprising to see how many places, buildings, and lots were either abandoned, empty, or under construction. Seemed to be a pretty common setup/issue, but a potential reason as to why was not blatantly clear. As soon as you got off the main tourist drag, this was pretty evident, and added to the vibe of Portugal kinda being a not-developed and not-developing country.

The walkway eventually got us up the hill and to where we wanted. Next stop - the top deck of the bridge! Holy wind, Batman. But at the same time, Holy Views as well!

The jaunt across the top deck of the Ponte Luis bridge was really gorgeous. The winds were blowing really strong, so it was honestly a little bit sketchy with the low railings and only bollards between the walkway and the train tracks. But veiled sunlight was coming in and out of view and having some clear views of the hilly, unique, and tiered town made me really happy.

Quick Thought: there's no way a bridge like this would be allowed in the US. For the trains, there'd be a required fence between the train tracks and the trains so people don't run across the tracks. Then, on the edges of the decks, the fences would be 10' high so people don't jump. No joke, it was nice having less restrictive and enclosed architecture to enjoy the freedom of movement and unosbstructed or blocked views. Go Europe.

High winds and sketchy railings be damned, Zack and I had a nice jaunt across the bridge and made it successfully to the other side. As soon as we crossed, we pulled off to the lookout above the river to enjoy the city again from that viewpoint (now with no rain!). Continuing on, we headed up the street a little bit to go check out the fortress above the roadway.

Heading towards the fortress, we were looking forward to some military history, some old stories of who sieged upon whom in Porto, and cool artefacts to get a feel of how Portugal has evolved militarily through the ages. Well, those hopes came crashing down pretty quickly. The road up to the fortress was fairly straight and singular, but then at the fortress, it was just an empty plaza in front of a big cylindrical tower, and that all was next to a very clearly zoned and fenced area with explicit signs to keep out of an active military area.

Needless to say, the lack of any kind of information (even to the point of why or how this place is considered a fortress), was a bit of a disappointment. Zack and I though, being seasoned professionals, didn't let this get to us too long, as there were still some beautiful views to enjoy from yet another overlook over the city. We hung around long enough to watch a couple trains cross the bridge, get another great pic of us, and enjoy some more sunlight. But from there, it was back to exploring.

From there, we needed to find a bathroom. Although it was still a walk away, Zack totally had his sights set on the pristine public toilets of the World of Wine complex. I was noncommittal and open to new public toilet experiences, but him, not so much. We had some funny banter over that and I learned about George's schtick on public toilets from Seinfeld (I should really watch that show sometime...), and eventually we were on our way back to WOW.

Goal in mind we were off and walking. This time though, we took a different route than the day before, and had some fun things to view and chat about along the way. Like what I mentioned before, there is such a random mixture of well-off and developed buildings next to drab, abandoned, or empty buildings. That juxtaposition is something really interesting to see, especially so frequently.

Quick Thought: one thing we saw all over the place, due to it being Christmas time, were Santa figurines hanging from windows and balconies and such. Initially it didn't make sense. But, after thinking about it, it totally does. Most apartments and buildings don't have chimneys, so how's Santa going to get in? Through the window or the balcony!!!

Cultural Comment: Zack made a really good observation and comparison of Portugal to East Germany developing after reunification. Portugal has been been a democracy since the mid-'70's, and it was pretty visible that some things were still being built up. It's a fully functional and successful country, but still in terms of development, the comparison seems to fit.

After weaving our way through some new, quiet, and pretty streets, we wound up back at the big complex for a potty break. I'll give it to Zack, it was a nice place to hit the loo and take a break. We spent a bit of time sitting at the tables inside to rest the legs for a hot minute, but then were back off and walking, now further down the hillside on that side of the river.

We had a general direction in mind, but found ourselves and extended/scenic route to enjoy it for a little longer. That route weaved us past the touristy/developed area (not before stopping in a couple stores), and through a pretty empty and undeveloped part of the cellar district. It wasn't run down, just not all glitzed and glamoured up. Pretty quiet, apparently pretty historic, and a low-key atmosphere for us to walk around and enjoy.

Having wandered a little farther than we thought, we took a right and started to head back down towards the waterfront. The journey was a little weird at parts, having to go through an abandoned parking lot, then through a really tight-knit group of homes with a couple dogs barking, but we made our way through and eventually stumbled upon the Ferreira gift shop. We walked in, perused the offerings, then asked the guy about a tour. Well, once again just our luck, the next English tour started in 6 minutes down at the visitors center! We thanked him profusely, got our hustle on, braved the super tight and small streets with cars right next to your hip, and made it down in time to start. What incredible and perfect timing to join in on another tour!

We only had a couple minutes to wander around the big room (where in-barrel maturation used to take place) before our tour guide rounded up her sheep and we got underway. A different vibe than the day before, our tour guide was super knowledgable, informative, and had a big crowd to work with as we wound our way through the giant complex that is Ferreira.

The Spark Notes of our awesome tour through Ferreira:

• Established in 1751 - that's pretty old
• Still Portuguese-owned, but now part of a small conglomerate of Portuguese-owned port makers
• A massive operation, vats and barrels were staged and in use everywhere
• No shade on Leo from Cálem, but our tour guide shared a ton of interesting info, direct, and covered all topics along the line from grape to bottle
• She provided a description of how the grapes and wine went from the harvest in the Duoro Valley (quite the action in and of itself), to being transported in barrels on tiny boats all the way to Porto
• Dona Antonia was the matriarch of the family business, who jumped in around the third generation to keep the whole thing afloat. She became quite the benefactor and is responsible for Ferreira still being around
• Ferreira slowly took over an entire area of the city where their cellar and maturation houses are. From one congregation spot, our guide stopped us and said the walkway we're going up next used to be an actual city road. But since the place grew so big, they gobbled up whole city blocks for their use
• A walk through the vintage hall showed the history of their product. The oldest vintage we saw was from 1815, and there were new vintages every few years since then

After the informative and windy tour through the cellars, we were popped back out onto the road and back into the gift shop from earlier. On to the tasting! Ferreira put on quite the good show with 5 different ports to try - white, ruby, tawny, and older tawny, then a vintage tawny. Zack and I got into an analytical mode to see which one we liked best. I can't remember specifically, but Zack wasn't a big fan of the tawnies - too different for him. For me, on the other hand, the tawnies were my favorites, I think the old tawny specifically. Overall, some really good ports (as far as my taste-bud knowledge of ports goes).

For those in the know will notice something weird about this picture. Zack tried to use it as a loophole of getting around the penalty. I was nice enough to not call him out on it (the whole trip), but as you can see, he was not abiding by the rules of spirit of the game. Booo Zack, Boooooooo.

Through the great tastings and good discussions, we even had some brief mini-conversations with the Dutch couple sitting next to us. They were nice and friendly, but interactions were brief as we worked our way through the liquid tour. After we finished our glasses, gave a final decision of what our favorites were, we were back off and running. Thanks to Ferreira for a great little tour!

Weaving back down the narrowing street, we worked our way down towards the waterfront. The natural decision would've been to turn right, but I was not feeling ready to dive back into the world yet, and pushed to turn left. Zack played along so we headed away from the main part of town and out along the road following the river. Zack got the bonus of seeing his beloved home town('s name) plastered on a new building, and we both got to enjoy a low-key boat yard and a little bit of activity in the mid-afternoon.

Rather than making a big loop of it (that would've taken forever), we stumbled upon a bit of a landing and just plopped down on the overhang. Not gonna lie, might've been my favorite part of Porto. We were outside of the normal hubub, but could see it all right out in front of us. The little patio was right over the river, and right at a bend, so we could see the majority of Porto straight ahead.

It was calm, quiet, relaxing, and a great place to stop off. We were sitting there, chatting and taking in the city, and all of a sudden cute little stray dog came along. Full of trepid energy but a beaming smile, I gave him a nice pet before he was on his way. Although I'm always one to sit and enjoy spots like that forever, eventually it was back up and off to the races.

Back on our legs we took the short stroll back over to the waterfront area. By that time, we were getting a little snacky, and conveniently enough, we knew there was a fantastic Mercado nearby. Easy solution if you ask me. I was in a good little snacky mood and took a while to decide what I wanted. But Zack and I both got some vittles and then sat down with our delicious, cheap wine and did a little work.

On the back of a receipt we sat down and mapped out the rest of the trip. We knew we had an end-point (Zack flying out of Madrid), so we started there and worked back to see what all we wanted to do and when to do it so we weren't left confused and speeding to Madrid so he wouldn't miss his flight. As always, this Well Oiled Machine ® put together a great plan. We were digging the goodies, so we snagged another bruschette plate from the cute gal at that counter, then another glass of wine, and hot damn we were sitting pretty.

By the time we were fueled up and moving again, dusk was upon us. We took a nice stroll down the waterfront walkway, peeked into a couple shops and saw some oddities, and slowly got to the Bridge made by the guy who learned from Gustav Eiffel. At that point, we were a bit split on the next step. Zack was itching for a Porto Tonic, and I was looking for food. The search begain.

As we walked, crossed the bridge, then meandered on the other side of the bridge, we stumbled upon a few places but none of them fit the bill. After a while, we eventually ended up back at the hostel. Worked out to let me drop my pack, and we regrouped as we figured out a plan for the night. Wasn't too long before we plopped back out on the street and were on the hunt for food. Our research put us onto a place name Chama and we headed that way to see what was possible.

The walk over was pretty quick, and we rolled up as a couple was already waiting outside. Then, shortly thereafter, about 10 couples were waiting out on the street to see what was going on. There was some heated discussion in the restaurant, but it was still a few minutes til they opened, so we waited.

Despite that tension inside, at some point one of the folks came out and was super cheery. He explained that Chama was a pretty sweet restaurant, fresh ingredients every day and the menu is never the same over the 12-course meal. But, they were all booked out. All the way past New Years. So that wasn't happening - Damn.

Hunger still not abated, we were back off and walking and hoped to stumble upon something awesome and delicious. That didn't happen, and we ended up back at Bonaparte.

My Mental Maze: I struggle with saying no or approaching a potential conflict. I wasn't really up for going back to Bonaparte (we were in a new city, there was bound to be something different, and we'd already been there), but Zack was pretty set on that. Then before, we were trying to figure out the next step, I didn't want to say I was up for food when he was up for a drink. (This struggle will come up later...)

Turns out Bonaparte is an awesome bar, but not the greatest place for food, and definitely not the veggie-friendliest place ever. Zack asked what veggie options they had, and they either didn't understand the question, or just didn't want to give him a disappointing answer, but the response was pretty bleak. Either way, we found something to chow on and settled in.

At some point we struck up a conversation with the couple next to us. Pretty sure it was something to do with America, because we met Daniel from San Diego and Anja from Portugal. Super friendly folks. Great to have some conversation and we were able to ask Anja some burning questions about Portugal, especially about how everyone and their mother are runners in this country.

They hung around for a bit before they were off to a movie or something, and by that time, Zack and I finished our stuff and were back out, off, and walking. More nighttime strolling and eventually we wandered over to a pretty schnazzy looking corner bar. Beers acquired and we headed out to the patio to chat and drink. While chatting we cleared the air about my conflict-aversion and how it can lead to frustration on both ends. Definitely something I need to work on. That and I ruined a few selfies Zack was trying to take. Success.

Quick beers there, then we wandered off and were looking for one more place to call it a night. It wasn't the most typical place we found, but we wandered into what seemed to be a local cafeteria with flood lighting and an interesting vibe. We plopped down at the bar, had a couple whiskies on their way, and were feeling pretty good. I don't think we were super loud, boisterious, or rambunctious, but we were definitely enjoying the evening and time.

Those drinks put us over the edge, an unexpected move for sure. But, fear not dear readers, the night ended wonderfully as we had another relaxed and slightly wandery stroll back to the hostel to hit the sack.

Day 5 - Driving the Duoro

Up and at 'em, another nice hostel breakfast, and then we were repacked and headed back to Rupert. Thankfully, he had a nice comfy nap for the previous couple days, and was ready to guide us along whatever way came up next. Getting out of town was honestly quite the damn maze. Thankfully, google maps didn't lead us too far astray, but what a Kabelsalat (Cable Salad in German, aka Rat's Nest) of streets criss-crossing and circling back and winding around and whuh...

The route put us on a number of the streets we'd wandered around the days before, and even had us on some of the really tight alleyways we were commenting on for being way too small for cars. No problem for Rupert though. Once we'd worked our way roughly down to the river level, went back through that Tunnel with the funky horn sign, we were off and running.

What was our plan for the day? Well, after having learned about how plentiful and gorgeous the Duoro River Valley is for wine production and in general, we figured a scenic drive up the valley would be just the right thing to do. Rupert, Zack, and I were buckled in, finally down to the highway mirroring the river, and ready for a nice, relaxing, and gorgeous little drive.

Slowly the road got more and more out of town and more headed in the directions of the mountains up the valley. The road started out pretty low through a bunch of small towns, but slowly the road started to incline and work its way up and down the valley. Towns became more sparse and bends in the road became the only constant.

As the highway crossed the Duoro so we could get to the scenic route, Zack spotted a really stark statue on the side of the river, so we snap audibled and pulled off and down to go check it out. Once we got there, we couldn't find a single sign, bit of writing, or any kind of information about what it was or what it meant. That was a little confusing, but it was a really cool, unique statue in a beautiful point overlooking the river with a few bridges.

After some googling, it's a monument dedicated to the victims of a bridge collapse from 2001. A total of 59 people lost their lives when the old bridge at that spot collapsed. Due to high currents, rescue wasn't possible. A terrible tragedy.

Pushing on from the memorial, we motored onto N222. Which, after Zack did a little reasearch and reading, has been labeled by some as the "Most Beautiful Drive in the World". It is called the Romanic Route, after all (Rota do Românico).

The road was a constant series of winds and bends and curves and ups and downs and beautiful sights all around. Followed the curves as it took us further up the valley, and right through an increasingly gorgeous day. At some point we hit a junction, saw a grocery store, and decided to pop in. As we were parking we had a snap idea - time for a picnic! After another one of my mom's world-renowned Nieman Marcus cookies, we dove in.

Cheese and bread (and some chorizo for me, can't pass that up), and stocking up on a couple wines for me and Peewee. Gotta check out the wine when in wine country, especially with the damn good variety and cheap prices. Can't beat that! We got our stuff and then headed down the road just a bit to an overlook I found on the map. A little put-put slowed us down, but we got there in no time.

Yet again, Google was providing some false information, as the overlook wasn't an overlook, but someone's driveway. It did, however, have a great view over the valley, so we plopped down on the retaining wall and got to snacking. Deeeelicious cheese, warm bread, and some really chunky chorizo, what an absolutely killer combo!

While we were snacking, another couple travelers stopped and enjoyed the view for a hot minute before they were gone in a flash. We kept chomping down and enjoying the view right above a river fork. There was plenty to observe from the viewpoint, including a cool train bridge, a train that must be one beautiful ride up the valley, a tiny little village at the river junction, and a beautiful day to bundle it all up together.

Moving on from the delicious lunch, we were maybe a little more than half way through the valley section we had in mind for the day, and things just kept getting more scenic. There were incredible views around every turn and a beautiful range of colors with the fall colors of the trees and greens and some bright homes. The further we moved up the valley, the more the number of vineyards on the hillsides we saw, which meant we just kept getting closer to the wine country. The terrain was full of tons of layers of hills, and the curvy road added to the fun and beauty of the ride.

The further we drove, the more the hillsides on both sides of the river were covered with vineyards. All up and down the hillsides, and most with some pretty scenic and incredible homes and villas to accent the vines. What a great spot. We stopped a couple of times to snap some pictures, enjoy the fresh country air, and take in the scenery.

From the last lookout, the road took its final route up, over, and out of the Duoro Valley. It was one helluva steep road (glad there wasn't any rain or anything), but Rupert's a beast and he powered through and got us up the hill. Towards the top, we had one last chance to look further down the valley, and again, beautiful views.

Peanut Gallery Thought: What a beautiful, relaxing, and gorgeous area. I wouldn't name it the most beautiful drive in the world, not by a long shot. Maybe we didnt see the best part. But regardless, there were some incredible views on some really fun roads and a perfect way to get a taste of the renowned Duoro Valley. Next time we'll continue where we left off.

Up and over the ridge, the road continued winding around along some more tight roads next to beautiful homes and vineyards. Once the road started going down, we set our sights on the next stop - Legamo. Not too much later and we were rolling into the tightly-packed town to find a spot to park before wandering around.

Our trip Historian Mr. Herhold did a little digging along the way in his 1997 Travel Guide of Portugal (no joke, was from his family's trip to Portugal back in '98) and found that Lamego was the site of the first Cortez in Portugal and the seat of the first King of Portugal. Needless to say, there was a little history to enjoy.

From the main street we wandered up the road and into the tight hilly sidewalks to get us closer to the castle. The walkways were hilly and the buidlings pretty, and soon enough we'd made it up the fortress hills. Getting into the castle we were greeted by a super friendly guy in the booth, and he shared some quick information about the castle and how there's little documentation of the first King of Portugal. After our quick chat, he wished us a great travel, and we were off to walk around the castle. What a nice guy!

As far as castles go, this one was pretty small. A tall rampart around a small courtyard and a tower. We first went up the steps into the tower. There were three floors inside, but unfortunately no way to get to the roof for an even higher perch over town. Bummer, but each floor had some interesting information about the town and its history. Then we climbed the even steeper steps to take a walk around the walls and get some great views of this town tucked up in the hills.

As we were leaving, we stopped again to talk to the friendly castle guy, and he gave us a good recommendation for a café nearby where we could get our cap and snack. To get to the cafe, we took the long route and walked through some really quaint and cozy streets and were in awe of some of the tiny alleyways and homes.

The quaint little neighborhood popped us back out onto the main street, and the café was just a few doors down. I couldn't spot it, but Zack's keen eyes did and we popped in. We walked in and were immediately digging the chill vibe and various random doo-dads on the walls. Unfortunately the guy was super curt, stating that they closed in half an hour, so no food. Well no worries there, we only wanted coffee, and once we shared that his demeanor changed as he put us at a table. Sweet.

He was quick to clean the table and we sat down to take a load off. Turns out the guy was super friendly and talkative. He offered us coffee or Portuguese coffee (spoiler, it's an espresso), and was quick to bring them out. Then, he gave us a quick history of the phone call timer on the wall, one of the many random things hanging. Really cool stuff and a super friendly guy!

Paolo came back once again, making sure everything was ok. When we asked to pay, he refused and said we're all squared away. That was a super generous move of him, but he was super friendly to us so I couldn't accept that generous offer. A little cash on the table and refreshed from Paolo's wonderful and friendly attitude, we thanked him and were off. Rupert was just up the hill, so we jumped in and Zack got behind the wheel.

Legamo was quite the cool little town, and we had some traffic as we were headed out to take in a few more aspects of it. But we were soon back on the highway and headed south towards Coimbra. The journey weaved us through some mountains and more pretty landscapes as I was able to look up places to stay for the night, get some writing and documentation done, and do some other things as Zack was commanding the ship. Nice to have a great co-pilot and adventuror along for the ride.

Quick Hit: We'd been listening to the audiobook of Shadow Divers and they'd just solved the mystery of the unnamed boat. Cool story.

The drive kept motoring on, and soon enough we rolled into Coimbra. The hotel we booked was in an interesting spot, and there was no good parking nearby. Bummer, but found a janky spot for the time being to go get checked in. Once we walked in, we got our first groove of the Covid situation, as we were required to complete a self-test before we could check in. That was a surprise compared to our experience in Porto, but thankfully we had enough on hand so it wasn't an issue. Also, look at this weird-looking bike...

While we were waiting for the results, I went and grabbed the car to park it in the garage. Then, long story short, we were checked in. Up in the room we lounged around for a good bit to take a load off from the day of driving. Eventually, we got into gear, and put in a reservation for a recommended restaurant in town - it's part of the Michelin Guide list.

We got a move on out into the city before the restaurant opened, so we used the time to go wander and explore a bit and get our bearings. Just like seemingly everywhere, tons of tiny streets with stuff all over and tighly-packed market areas, so we wandered around to see what was up. There were tons of random shops, including a ton of fabric shops. Of course, that made me think of my lovely Mommy and how much she'd love to browse through those shops!

As we walked a few more interesting shops popped up, so we popped our heads in and saw what was what. The little meandering took us right to the core of town, so we got a good first taste of the layout before heading back to Solar do Bacalhau to get ready for our dinner time. Hunger was coming.

Although the name Michelin was attached to this restaurant, it came off as a bit of a factory restaurant - tons of space, huge menu, kinda like a Old Spaghetti Factory kinda thing, but Portuguese. Either way, we got in, saw all the fresh fish ready to devour, and were seated towards the back and greeted by our friendly and sarcastic waiter. Nice guy, and he got us squared away.

It took a while to decide, but Zack and I dove into a total treat for dinner and went pretty all-out. Wine, Pizza, Fish, the whole shebang. Turns out, it was pretty delicious. Definitely a classy vibe with some delicious food, and some really good wine. Hit the hunger pangs hard and we were both pretty content after all was said and done.

Totally satiated and tongues satisfied, we headed back out to town for a little walk around to let the food settle in. Back to the main square, then up the main shopping street. We popped into a couple shops, wandered around in the muted nightlife, and eventually let tiredness come and take hold as we headed back to the hotel to call it a night.

Day 6 - College, Ruins, and Beach

Since we'd only gotten into Coimbra as the sun went down, the plan for the morning was to walk around Coimbra and get a feel of this older university town. Breakfast wasn't a thing at the hotel, so the first stop was a café for some sustenance. I had a super yummy chocolate croissant. The dough was a bit different, a bit eggy, but really good and a kick start for the day.

Since we could keep the car parked at the hotel for the morning, we threw our stuff in the trunk and headed back to the city center. Another jaunt through the tiny alleys and then we found our way up some side paths as we set our sights on the top of the hill where the university sat. It was a lot of scenic, thin alleways that took us there, and with the chilly misty morning, we took our time.

It took some navigation and wandering through a construction site, but we eventually made our way to the top of the hill. The university seemed to have the entire domain overlooking the town. Coming to the top of the hill, we were greeted by some very stark buildings, and a bunch of them had some really cool statues out front. The first one looked pretty soviet-esque, so we popped over to take a look at it, then wandered over to the main building square to admire the rest of the cool statues. As one does, we tried to see if we could get into a couple buildings, especially the library, but the guards at the doors immediately turned us away. Buzzkills.

Although we couldn't get into the library, there was an archway through the main building that led to a massive courtyard, so we headed that way. In the courtyard, we learned the tower was also closed down (either covid or construction), but at the far end there was a little overlook to see the other side of town. We headed that way, greeted the Joao statue, and enjoyed the view from up top before heading back to the outer plaza.

From that upper foyer of big buildings, we strolled down the alley way to the other end of the hilltop. Down at the far end there was another statue, assumedly of some kind of king, and something to make Zack think he was a king. For some reason, a number of billboards and signs seemed to be oriented toward Zack, and he took full advantage of it.

From there, we weren't set on the best direction to take, but opted to head down the hill towards a cool looking aqueduct. It was a short walk down that hill, and we were greeted by not much other than the cool lookin archways and some political signs, still unsure of the right direction to turn.

But, through the archways, we spotted a park, so we jogged right and popped into the giant botanical gardens right there. Turns out the botanical gardens were pretty massive, and extremely diverse. They had a number of species from throughout the world, and from what we put together, was essentially part research garden that was used and cultivated in conjunction with the university. How cool. We toiled through some sections of fountains, bamboo, and eventually rolled on down the hill and back out onto the streets.

From there had a bit of a walk to get back to the main part of town, and to do so we wandered through some pretty cool side streets. That's pretty much most of the side streets we saw on the trip, but this counted here. Weird to see so many abandoned or empty buildings even on fairly big roads (also a common sight), but we wandered up the hill and back towards the main part of town.

There were more great sights and streets as we wandered back through the main streets of town. Eventually got to some more streets from the night before, peeked into a few interesting shops as we got to experience Coimbra with a little daytime life in it. Before long though, we were headed back to the car, plopped in, and cruised out of Coimbra.

Through town and out to the highway, we were headed towards Nazaré. But, Europe is really good at those random signs on the highway with random attractions. We drove by one, and it said something to the effect of roman ruins. In a split second of thinking about it, we opted to go check it out, and right at the exit with enough time to pull over and head that way.

Zack punched in the new coordinates and we were headed over. The route took us through the countryside a bit and then through a couple small towns. Well FUCK YOU Google, because you also routed us literally right through the ruins. Not sure how the hell that route was ok'd as a viable roadway, but we literally turned off a side road from one little village, and that took us on the maintenance road through the ruins and to the back of the visitor's center. What the hell.

After we parked, we went in and paid with the nice lady at the counter. First stop was the cool little museum inside. They had a bunch of artifacts that were dug up from the ruins themselves, along with a bunch of information and examples of what life could've looked like way back in those ancient Roman times.

After cruising through the museum and the exhibits of artifacts and information on Roman ruins and such, we popped out of the building and headed out towards the ruins. But before we got past the hedges a security guard walked up behind us pretty briskly. He didn't say anything but pointed at his phone and there on it was a picture of Rupert. Uh oh. What happened. Thankfully all we needed to do was move it, as he was parked in the employee parking lot. Goddamnit Google. All your fault.

Simple enough fix though, so Zack and I headed back to Rupert and sheparded him over to the visitors parking lot. Now, with Rupert where he should be, we could head on over to the archaeological site for the Conimbriga Roman Ruins. And what a treat.

The complex as a whole was massive, and there were a number of sections of ruins, all of which were really cool to observe and explore. First was a bit of a residential area, tons of alleyways between excavated building foundations, and a number of pillars still standing. Crazy to see what all is still standing, and to read about likely how old all of it is.

After weaving through one of the excavated assumed residential areas, we meandered our way down to what used to be the baths. There was a family with some annoying and loud kids running around, but the bath complex was pretty big, and set up right on the edge of a canyon. The overall landscape was fairly tame, but the big river canyon right below the plain added to the cool setup. They'd re-constructed parts of the baths (I'm assuming close to believed historical design), but I enjoyed the contrast of the old stone vs. the new stone on the walls.

Wandering back up the grade along a couple more residential/home excavations/ruins and over to another massive excavated area of a mixture of stuff. Then, going back through the large outer wall, we wandered down to the replica fountain/bath that was on site. It didn't seem like all of it was rebuilt, as a number of mosaics and such were still onhand, and really impressive. Even for a Euro you could turn the fountains on (that setup is not original...), and it was a very pretty setup to end the walk around the grounds.

Peanut Gallery Thought: How in the world does a place this size, and way back when must've been pretty opulent, get abandoned? Like abandoned, ghost town, to the point no one remembers it existed. Then rediscovered to total grandeur and surprise? Ancient history is weird like that. There must've been pretty good awareness/knowledge that this was a Roman outpost with likely some stuff going on, but once it was deserted, wouldn't someone else have moved in and taken advantage of the existing architecture? Seems like a missed opportunity. But I'm not a historian, so what do I know...

Once we'd finished our waltz around the ruins, we headed back to the car. By that time, it was early/mid-afternoon, and you know what time that is. Grub time. We had our food kit at hand and some sturdy camp chairs, so we plopped down and whipped up a little picnic in the parking lot. Nothing like a little picnic, and when it's random, on a sunny day, with a great buddy along with you, that just makes it even better. :-)

Is it weird that both Zack and I (well, maybe moreso me...) flip off the camera when the other is taking a picture? That normal?

Before we jetted off, I popped back into the visitor's center to use the loo. In the hallway back out to the car, I saw that excavation efforts are ongoing, even showing some discovered artefacts from digs just a few years ago. History always has something to offer.

At the car, satisfied after our picnic, and Rupert all buttoned up and ready to go, we hit the road and continued our journey on down to Nazaré. It was only about an hour from the Conimbriga ruins, but Zack was clocked out for most of it. Thankfully the navigator woke up just in time to see Nazaré as we rolled in. Holy crap what a beautiful town. We had to circle the block a few times to find a (free) place to park, but did so, jumped out, and made our way down through the town to the beach.

Along the way, we could tell we were getting closer and closer to the touristy-ness as we descended the hill. But Zack's keen eye (and thirst for coffee) spotted a little oddity. One of the shops was just full of vending machines. He popped in and snagged a coffee (and was excited from the whole process), and I got a boring but delicious 7UP and we continued on.

It wasn't long before we arrived at the beach and what a beautiful spot. A massive beach out in front of us (would've been great for a beach frisbee tournament...), a picturesque main drive down the beach with pretty houses and such, and a massive cliff right at the end of the beach extending out over the water. Really a cool sight. We strolled out to the beach and each took some time to stand in the sand and take in the beautiful town and surroundings.

After letting the refreshing breeze of the Atlantic pass through our lungs and fill us with that feeling that only the ocean can give, we wandered over to the Funicular to head up the hill and take in the town from above. As soon as we got there, the next train was just lining up and boarding. Perfect timing, so we jumped in line, got in.

As we crawled up the hill, an older retired guy sitting next to us said he had the same backpack as me. In his words, his wasn't as dirty, but from there we chatted with him for a bit. He and his wife were traveling around in their retirement around Europe, and for the holidays a couple of their kids were with them. Through the conversation we were able to squeeze out a couple recommendations, both in Nazaré and for the trip as a whole. Quirky, but overall a nice guy.

Once the train reached the top of the hill, we popped out, wandered over to the nearby lookout, and were astounded by the view. An absolutely gorgeous perch there above town. Right there we had a beautiful overview of the whole beach, the whole town, and the context of the hillsides and countryside behind town. The sky was blue, sun low, and it was an absolutely gorgeous spot to take in the ocean and the beach town below.

We jumped on the boardwalk/pathway hugging the edge of the cliff and stopped frequently for the great views. Eventually, the buildings faded away, and from the church plaza the path morphed to a road that eventually led down to the lighthouse at the tip. We weren't feeling up for the whole trek down there with the hoards of people, but pushed down a bit to the cliffs overlooking the water, and saw a really unique statue in the process.

We were getting close-ish to sunset, so we loitered about on the cliffs admiring the water and rocks and such for a while. Zack spit out the idea of sunset beers, so we loitered about for a bit more, then headed back up to the row of vendors and food trucks and such and snagged a couple beers each. Packed 'em in the bag and then headed back down the cliff to find a spot to post up.

It didn't take us all too long, but we found a cozy spot on a little rock drop, got comfy, had the conversation flowing, and waited for the good 'ole trusty gold orb in the sky to do its daily routine. Nothing like a trusty friend in such a situation to have some good things to talk about. We chatted and drank and enjoyed the moment as the wonderful colors of an Atlantic sunset popped up off the water. I had my camera out to take it in, and we chatted and drank the daylight away. Always a great way to send off the sun.

The sun was gone. Our beers were empty. Bummer that it always come to those things, but it was a relaxing way to watch the day fly away.

Quick Thought: having such a great friend to adventure with is such a blessing. A great conversation buddy, an encyclopedia of history, an adventurous soul. You da man Zack.

Once it was all the way down, we packed it in and headed back up the cliff. Rather than taking the lazy quick way down, we weaved our way through the buildings and the viewpoints and found the walking trail back to town. We still didn't have a place to stay that night, so when an open bench came up along the trail, we popped down and did a little research.

It didn't take too long before we found a cheap, decent looking place just right down by the water. No rush, so we stayed to enjoy the beautiful view. Next stop was back to Rupert though. Since the parking spot was free, no need to move! So we grabbed what we needed for the night, then headed down to town to check in.

Portugal Tidbit: regardless of where we went, we were able to find pretty cheap, decent hotel rooms. Seemed to be a pretty standard thing, but it ended up being the perfect setup, a cheap, double bed room with a bathroom. All you need for a quick night on the road, and they served us well the whole trip.

The wandering around town led us to the right spot, but we had to go check-in and get the keys from a nearby hotel. That was done quick enough, and we got to the room and were able to lounge around and get a bit comfy for a bit. Always nice to find your home base (regardless of how long you're there) and plop down after a day of wandering.

Before long though, dinner was on our minds. Thankfully there were a good few restaurants nearby, and we did our best to hunt out one of the recommendations from the guy earlier. We did, and wandered that way. But, after looking at the menu, there wasn't much for vegetarian options. Unfortunately, that goes for most of Portugal, and also for pretty much every restaurant we walked by after taking a look at the menu. Veggie is a bit hard to find in Portugal.

We went around to a good few restaurants, but didn't find anything super appealing. Considering our options, we headed back to the first place and found a table. It was another Michelin Guide restaurant (whatever that means now...), and we ended up with some more seafood and some more wine. You know, when that's on the menu for the night, it's usually hard to have a bad time. A delicious meal, and some good wine to wash it down with.

Quick Thought: there's gotta be something different with this whole Michelin Guide thing. That was the second place in two days that blasted that 'rating' all over the place, but neither spot was something I'd consider to be close to getting even half a Michelin Star.

After dinner, we were looking for a place to watch some Fútbol. One of the things we really wanted to do while we were in the country was go to a soccer match. Both Lisbon and Porto were at the top of the league, but the nights they played made it a bit weird for us to try and make. We could've rushed down to Lisbon that night to go watch the game, but opted for staying on our course and missing the game. To make up for it though, we went full bore Lisbon supporters and found the Irish Pub nearby that had the game on TV.

We got there right after the game started and got our beers shortly thereafter. For some reason, I was struggling with staying awake after a couple of those deep beers, but we were all in on Lisbon pulling out the win, despite starting off down by one. I don't know why I got so tired so quickly, but after they tied things up, we finished our beers and headed back to the hotel for the night.

Only to learn later that the game finished with Lisbon winning 3-2. That, ladies and gentlemen, is yet another lesson to never leave a game early! We were pretty bummed we weren't at the stadium that night, but you can't win 'em all.

Goodnight.

Day 7 - Exploring the Beachy Coast

We both agreed to get up way earlier than we'd been getting up, mainly for the big pull to Nazaré - the surfers. Nazaré is known for massive swells. World renowned, major hotspot, with waves that have been said to get to 70, 80, 90, 100ft. That's just nuts (practice your German!). We were looking forward to seeing what kind of waves would be ridden, so we were up and at em early.

I got all showered and packed before Zack, so I decided to pop outside and wait for him on the boardwalk. Not gonna lie, it was buttfucking cold, but the quietness of the morning, with the distant waves crashing, and a few passersby made for a relaxing way to start the day. I even beat the sun up for the day, and got to see it slowly drape its warm light over the cliffs in town.

Olive Oil, Wine, and Friendship - the Older the Better.

Once Zack made his way down, we dropped the keys off at the hotel and then made our way to the car. Along the way we looked for a cafe to snag some breakfast, and as soon as we got out of the touristy part we found one. Unfortunately, the guy inside was all kinds of gruff and grumpy. But despite all of that, and despite him trying to stiff me 10€ in change (hopefully unintentionally), we snagged some coffee and pastries and were off.

Rupert was packed up right quick and then we motored over to the other side of town. The North Shore (no relation to Hawaii's, other than surfing) is where all the big waves hit, so we headed that way to find a lookout in hopes of some entertainment. Wasn't sure where to park, so that got annoying, but we had a bit of a walk down to an overlook in the extremely cold wind.

Camp chairs, coffee, and pastries in tow, we posted up above the shore and got comfy. Unfortunately, we hit it on a day that wasn't throwing around monster waves, and to that tune there were only two jetskis out there, with I think just one surfer working on his skills. Bummer there wasn't more to watch, but Mother Nature can't be told what to do.

Once the biting freezing wind became too much, we gathered all our stuff and headed back to the car. Packed in, we pointed Rupert roughly south, and continued our journey headed for Ericeira. The quickest route took us back to the highway, but those damn nickel-and-dimeing tolls got all kinds of pesky.

Driving along, all of a sudden we called an audible, and veered off in the direction of Mafra. I'm pretty sure this came out of Zack's 1997 Tour Book, but this was supposed to be a pretty renowned castle/palace, so it seemed like worth the visit. And Holy Batman was it - what a gigantic castle/palace/city within four walls.

We rolled in, parked, and were (or at least I was) astounded by the giant open plaza right out in front of the palace. We basked in the blue skies and sunlight for a hot sec, then dove in. Tickets paid and we started wandering.

Apparently this used to be the national palace. Not a seat of power, but still a royal residence for the monarchy. There was a ton of stuff in it, and it was essentially it's own city - a church, library, convent, royal palace, a huge complex that could've easily housed an entire town. It was built in the 1700s, and quasi-abandoned when the rulers fled to Brazil with all their furniture before the French rolled in.

We did the usual museum cruise through, reading some of the plaques and enjoying the pomp, grandeur, and incredible intricacy of the works of art, furniture, weaponry, craftsmanship, you name it. It was really an incredibly opulent place, most notably through the royal quarters (duhhh), and then through the queens half of the building, and then way in back was this massive library. Tons of incredible old (think 1500s) and historic books. That would've been quite an adventure thumbing through those bookshelves to see what amount of human knowledge and history is stored there.

From the library, the route wandered all the way back down the building, and then past the church and out back onto the road. Massive complex, but only a part of it was open for the public, or at least in the tour through the building. Our waltz and commentary along the way continued until we popped back out onto the plaza out front. Massive building, must've been the site of many an impactful moment in history, and a cool place to check out.

From there, we packed back into Rupert, soaked up a little more sun, and then were off to Ericeira! It was just a stone's throw from Mafra, so we made it there pretty quickly, and navigated to a parking lot on the north side of town. Free! By that time, we were a good bit munchy, so the goal was to find a bakery or cafe and snag a cap and snack.

We strolled down towards the water first, then autocorrected and headed up along the cliff through town. It was a quiet morning, and the streets and alleys were quite mellow and calm as we strolled through. Getting past one residential corner, it opened up to a beautiful shot above the main bay/port in town. From there, we curved up and around, and there we found a couple cafes.

I hung by the edge taking a few pictures and admiring the view, and Zack was awesome and snagged a table after a couple cleared out. We plopped down, body-languaged our order after having to take a look at the bakery options inside, and soon enough had not just our delicious pastry and coffee, but a table full of horny hostel-goers right next to us to listen into.

I don't remember what I got for a pastry, but hot damn it was good. Something super fluffy and chocolatey, and it was delicious by itself and with the coffee. We were in a very relaxed mood, and had a perfect spot to let that mood permeate. I whipped out my book from José Saramago, and started to read. But unfortunately having to listen to those hostel folks (I can't quite shut out English when I hear it in public like I can with German) kept me distracted, and a bit annoyed.

Not able to concentrate on my book, I took to taking in the surroundings. We were in a tiny beach town on the coast of Portugal, the sun was shining, had something to eat and drink, and it was a calm, gorgeous day. What more could you ask for... Out on the water, the giant crane on the jetty was tossing around some wave breakers, and watching them drop into the water on the breakwall was a cool little activity to keep me engaged.

That was all kinds of relaxing, just sitting there in the shade on a nice beach day. But after a while, we'd finished up our coffees and treats and were ready to move our legs a bit more. Not up for anything too energetic, we continued on through the Santa Cruz-like town through the main drag with the shops and people, and a really cool art installation along the whole lane.

We waltzed our way through the entirety of town, and when we made it through to the other side, got smacked with another gorgeous little bay and beach. We continued on down the path towards the beach and then stumbled upon a little kiosk. Now was around lunch time, so we figured an actual meal wouldn't be a bad way to go, and popped in to snag some grub.

Definitely the absolute correct call, and luck was on our side. Once we entered our order we walked out to find a spot to sit, and there was a table right on the break wall open and calling our names. Nothing like sitting right in the warm sunlight, staring at the ocean, laid back and letting the day grace our lives.

Stopped. Slowed down. Sitting. Enjoying the spot and nature. We haven't done that enough of the trip to this point, but this was an absolutely soothing place to take it slow and let the world come to us. I was in a really relaxed mood, and enjoying everything about that spot.

Then, to add to it, our grub showed up! A beautiful day and a delicious sammich!? Seriously, nailed it. It was a big sammich, and hit the taste buds like a feast. Munching on lunch, sitting in the sun, we also had some entertainment with a few agile birds swooping and diving for fish, and even a surfer or two making their way out to the break. Seriously. Relaxation and enjoyment to a T.

All good things come to an end, and that perfect little spot was unfortunately no exception. We finished our time there, and then continued on a little bit further down that trail, with an eye on a really steep chute that we thought was a really steep staircase. It wasn't, so from there we doubled back and headed back towards town, this time along the beach.

After getting around a big hotel, we scrambled out to a pretty rocky outcropping hanging above the waves. We'd seen a couple big waves crash up and splatter all over, but we were feeling exploratory and meandered around on the rocks. With our wits about us we narrowly escaped a big wave or two, just missing getting completely drenched, but kept wandering around.

Eventually our progress got us back to the bay that was below the first coffee shop. We must've hit it right at that time, because there were at least 6 different surf courses underway on the beach and in the shallows. Must be a surf retreat town, and the surf learners were active and underway. We cruised along the beach, did our thing, made it to the other side, and from there had a relaxing last bit of the walk to the car. Ericeira, honestly, one helluva relaxing little beach town.

At the car, we weaved our way out of the lovely beach town, and were off. Where to next? Well, when a cool, random, travel-related superlative makes its way to your vicinity, you kinda have to go check it out! This superlative was the Western-most Point of Continentual Europe, and you're darn tootin' we threw it on the map! That settled, we were off to Cabo da Roca. It was an easy, scenic, and cool drive through the windy roads and countrysides. So much so that Zack got another nap in.

The last stretch of getting to Cabo da Roca was honestly really interesting. Through a super tiny village, which barely had roads wide enough for cars, let alone buses. Then the hairpin curves along a cliff were just as thin, with a few places to overtake and such. It was a fun little drive but we made it down to the park center quick enough and immediately were blasted by some high winds coming off the cold Atlantic.

Despite the gustiness, what a cool spot. We first walked out to the monument, but it was essentially there for instagrammers and people that think influencer is a job title. Despite the nest of people, we got to peek at the cool monument and then wandered around up and down the cliffside. Up on the cliff there were incredible views up the coastline and looking out over the ocean. Just another beautiful spot.

Heading away from the hive of tourists we wandered down the hillside, around a rockwall, and found a spot to sit and take it all in. That didn't last too long though, because the wind was howling like crazy, and a cold one at that. We sat around for as long as we could then slowly made our way back to the car. Cold, windy, but gorgeous and scenic as well. But, all done there, it was time to hit the road and head into Lisbon!

The drive out from Cabo da Roca curved us around the mountains and slowly more and more civilization started to surround us. Eventually it became a hectic maze as google was leading us deeper and deeper into town. Eventually, we got right to the core and had to do a bit of a lap around some one way streets to get close to our hotel. Close is the operative word, because there wasn't any parking. Thought for a half-second about just parking there and checking in and such, but opted for running in and asking for parking directions.

There was a parking garage close by, but holy shit it was gonna cost a ton. Gameplan - check-in, drop our stuff, then drive the car out to a cheaper place to park. That's exactly what we did. After a little research, there was a big park pretty close to town that supposedly had fairly cheap parking. We made our way up there, parked Rupert, and put him down for a couple days rest in a foreign town. Beep beep, see you buddy.

Walking back towards the train to take us back to town, food came up as the next stop on our adventure. Had to stop in the park and do a little research before finding a good Indian place nearby. Put in a reservation and we had a nice relaxed time buffer to walk over and grab some food.

Some joking conversation on our walk through that part of town, across some big thoroughfares and along some quiet residential streets, we slowly neared our target restaurant. Then, by total lucky and awesome chance, a little kiosk popped up. When kiosk beers present themselves, one does not just say no. Two beers and some good chats out on the sidewalk. Always a good adventure.

We finished up with the perfect amount of time needed to finish the walk over to the restaurant. But it wasn't as simple as walking in and sitting down. Lisbon was pretty tight on restrictions, and that was our first experience with needing to show a test result to enter somewhere other than a hotel. We didn't have a test certificate, but were able to pay a few Euros to get a self-test to test right then and there. After a bit of waiting, we both passed with flying colors and could commence the feast!

Not gonna lie, I can pretty much always go for Indian food. Flavorful, plentiful, delicious, spicy, all of it. So goddamn good. We polished off a big 'ole variety platter and hot dayum it was good. Polished things off with a few beers and some garlic naan, that's the makings of a good meal.

Nearly having to roll out of the restaurant, we eventually got our legs under us and headed off to the metro. Normally, no sweat. Thankfully I had cell service so I found the nearest station and off we went. All went well until we got to the platform, then all of a sudden a train was headed our direction, but at the other platform. What the hell?!?! QUICK! RUN!!!

Well, we didn't make it. But what the fuck kinda bass ackwards setup was in place here? Portugal is a right-hand traffic country - you drive on the right, steering wheel on the left, you know, standard affair. So why the fuck was the metro a left-hand traffic setup? Why the fuck was the train on the other side!?!? No lie, that pissed me the fuck off, because it didn't make any goddamn sense. Why the fuck were their trains on the wrong side!?

Zack was a little disappointed in me, and I could feel it.

Despite having to wait for the next train, we eventually made it back to the main part of town. We strolled back to the hotel, got changed, and then were off to some plans for the night! Long story short, my Mom has a friend from our childhood that lives in Portugal! It was through the office, but I'd never met Emily before, but while we were in town, figured it be the perfect place for two folks from good 'ole Olympia, WA to meet!

Zack and I had a cool walk through a pretty trendy, hip part of town, and eventually made it up to a schnazzy rooftop bar to meet Emily and her sister. Crazy to meet someone from my hometown on the other side of the world! Over a few drinks we had some fun chats about life in Portugal, Americans living abroad, and life in general. The place was a little slow with service, but Emily was such a gracious and helpful guide, and gave us a ton of great tips and restaurant suggestions for our time in the country.

After a while, we were all pretty dead and they headed back off to Emily's and we said adios. Huge shoutout again to Emily - great to meet her, and great to get such great suggestions from her in her adopted country!

Zack and I toiled about up on the patio on the roof to get some sights over the rooftops of Lisbon. Then, after making fun of the elevator, traveled back through the super hip, trendy part of town (the Pink Road, or something like that) as we made our way back to the hotel. It was a long, relaxing, and fun day of traveling around, so we clocked out for the night.

Day 8 - Learning about Lisbon

Before the trip, Zack instituted the Red and Yellow card. When someone pulls their Red card (one per trip) that means the group is doing that thing. Yellow means agreement is required. Well, Zack pulled his Red card coming into Lisbon, and he made sure we were gonna do a walking tour of the town. I had no objections, and that was our plan for the day!

We got up, did the usual, got the hotel breakfast, and then were out on this awesome town. Zack's research showed that most city tours were three hours long. That's a pretty long time. But Zack nailed down one of the tours and we had some time to kill before we were supposed to show up at the meeting spot. To kill that time, we ended up snaking around a bunch of the streets in downtown and putting together a little scenic tour on a roundabout way up to the square where the tour was supposed to start. What a lovely day for a walk around town!

After walking under the famous San Jose Lift, we walked up the hill and stumbled upon a bookstore. But not just any bookstore, it claimed to be the oldest bookstore in the world. We poked our heads in for a bit, then continued our time-kill walk up the hill towards the top of the lift. The observation deck was partly open, so we walked on up to get some beautiful views of town. It was a blue-sky day with bright sunlight streaming down and all of Lisbon was out to admire. What a beautiful town!

It was a short walk from the oberservation deck to the plaza where the tour was to start, and it was about time, so we headed that way. When we showed up though, the tour we were planning on wasn't there. What the heck. After a good few moments of confusion and 'what the hell?', we got looped into another tour that had already started and were in for a long ride with our expressive and fun guide Fraga. We got lucky too, because we skipped the whole ice-breaker thing at the start. But now we were off and running to learn about Lisbon.

The Lisbon trolley's are scenic as fuck. No joke, contemplating flying back to Lisbon just to take more pictures of them...

The first stop on our walking tour was the neighborhood of Barrio Alto (right where we were at) - aka the old neighborhood. There were tons of bars and restaurants, and it was a very trendy place to be. We wandered past a few bars that had some history behind them, and then next we learned about The Chiado. There was a statue of a guy pretty hunched over on a big pedastal, but it turned out it was the local drunk 'rapper' who setup shop in that part of town way back when. Despite it also giving off the vibe of a ritzy shopping area, there was some life in Barrio Alto to enjoy, and Fraga gave us a bunch of stories about it all.

From Barrio Alto, we headed back up the hill from earlier and over towards the top of the San Jose Lift. But rather than heading out to the lift, Fraga gathered us all in a big plaza right out front of what used to be a convent. Here, it turned into true story time. Fraga whipped out some big stories about Portugal and Lisbon's past - the Battle of the Johns, the establishment of the giant convent behind him (and how it was destroyed and not rebuilt after the earthquake), and the story of the fall of the dictatorship (and how his dad was roundabout involved in it!).

From that plaza we turned down some quiet streets and headed downhill. Next stop - the train station! We gathered in the plaza outside for some more stories and deets about that part of town. There were a couple other tour groups (in a variety of languages) doing the same thing, so got the feeling for a second that we were in a tour assembly line. But from there we walked through the station (really pretty in there) before popping out onto the main square down in the downtown bowl.

Down in the downtown valley, we congregated out front of the train station for a good while, and I was really digging the building. Some really intricate carvings on the facade and I honestly would never have guessed that it housed a train station. There was tons of activity going on all around us, and I was half-listening and half-enjoying the activity of this capital of Portugal.

From that point out front of the train station, we started a bit of a zig zag to the various plazas and thoroughfares through the main part of town. In one of them, we wandered through an old cathedral that burned down in 1959. Parts of the destruction was kept as a memorial/remembrance of the event, and seeing the melted stone from the fire was pretty crazy.

Continuing on, our route took us through the plaza we'd cruised through next to the hotel, with the giant statue of yet another Joao. Next was a stroll down the main drag leading to the water. Around that time I struck up a conversation with a friendly gal along the tour, Daisy from the Netherlands. She was in town a little early before her friends arrived for New Years, and Zack and I got to chatting with her as we strolled down the main drag.

As we chatted, we eventually rolled up to a standard touristy restaurant, and Fraga told us all to hold up for a second - he had a surprise. We loitered about a bit, hit the loo, and kept chatting with Daisy about our travels, and then Fraga brought out a big platter of Pastel do Beléms for everyone! It's a custardy cupcake-type thing, and it's absolutely delicious. Especially with a little cinnamon.

Zack counted the number of people in the group correctly, but Fraga didn't listen to him. The good part of that, there were two leftover Pastels after everyone got theirs. Time for some trivia! Zack won one of them, like a boss.

Quick Thought: one thing we learned in that spot was something that blew my mind the rest of the trip. There are tons of tall buildings in the heart of Lisbon, which means lots of shadows throughout the day and darker lighting down on the streets. One way they combat that is to use white tiling! It's so simple, but holy shit what an incredible effect it has! Cobblestones and non-flat surfaces are everywhere, and instead of using darker stones/materials, the lighter/whiter materials/stones are used, and that helps reflect more light and keep the city brigther despite the building shadows!

With our little break and snack all in the books, we continued on down the main drag, through the wide pedestrian alley, and eventually popped out on the giant square right out front of the bay. Holy shit this main square was awesome. To start, it was huge, massive. On the one side there was a Arc du Triomphe variant, and both sides were pretty cool buildings, and the other side opened to the giant bay. Fraga was sharing a bunch of information, but my focus was on the beautiful blue skies and the awesome square we were in. I was really digging it.

Continuing on our fantastic tour with Fraga, we entered into the Alfama neighborhood. This was the old Moorish center of town, and Fraga started to point out a number of muslim influences in the architecture and artwork as we strolled along. This point was also the start of our climb for the tour, as we packed through some really tight walkways and alleys as we headed uphill.

After a few staircases and some alleyways, we entered into a fairly intimate square, with apartment buildings all around and a church on one side. Fraga had us all gather around the staircase, and we all sat down as he shared some more stories.

The coolest one, and one I'd love to take part in, was a recounting of how every June is just a giant party. Every night the streets and alleys are full, people build little stands to sell food and drink, and it's nothing but a feast with wine and sardines. As he told it, it's literally the whole month that this party rambles on. As a sub-story, he shared that he and his friends have a competition to see who can eat the most sardines in the month. The record? 398. That sounds absolutely disgusting.

But right after that stop there was an old grandma and grandpa out with a little table out front of their home. Not so innocent I guess, but they were joining in that spirit of the June celebration and had some goodies for sale. Not wasting the opportunity, Zack and I both got a chocolate shot of the Ginjinha, a fruity liqueor that was delicious. And the fact that it was in a chocolate shot, damn good stuff.

Quick Hit: 'A Nossa' is the Portuguese version of Cheers, and translates to 'To Us'. I really like that sentiment :-)

Quick Hit: You know how the names of some countries differ in other languages? For example, Germany in German is Deutschland, but in English is Germany? Well for Portugal, in some languages their country name literally translates to 'Orange'.

The Alfama neighborhood was just a beautiful network of tiny, tight, and beautiful alleyways on a nice hillside. Onward and upward we went. Another really cool thing about that neighborhood were the memorials to the many residents of the neighborhood. Those apparently came about through an expat that moved to Lisbon. That person was struggling and found refuge thanks to the many lovely, helpful, and kind people of the neighborhood. As a thank you and to memorialize the many great residents, plaques were made and posted throughout the streets of the people of Alfama. How cool.

Those windy hilly streets and stairways eventually led us up to the top of the hill and the neighborhood, which unfortunately was also the last stop of our wonderful little tour. There was a big chapel up on the hill, a few little touristy booths, and a great viewing platform looking out over the whole east side of the city and the bay at hand, and somehow a ton of KSC stickers. Not sure how Karlsruhe was so popular in Lisbon, but that's how it goes...

Fraga huddled us all around for a bit for a nice send off after a great tour. He hung around for questions and we give him some cash for the good time. We loitered at the top for a little bit and snagged a picture of me and Mr. Herhold. Then, Daisy, Zack, and I were on a mission to find a place to sit in the sun and get some coffee.

Thanks to technology, we saw there was a nice terraced cafe right at the top there. But although it had a gorgeous terrace it was going to be about a 15min wait. Fuck that. We started backtracking down the hill through the various alleys and made it all the way back down to the water level. Just after we got to flat ground we walked past a cafe we'd passed on the way up. There was a nice table open and waiting for us, so we posted up.

I got put on the side staring right into the sun, but Daisy, Zack, and I got some coffee and charcuterie on order in a jiffy and sprawled out with the day's warmth. First conversation on the list was about a fabled event that only happens in the right conditions through the various lakes and channels in the Netherlands. And since we had a native Dutch on our hands, we had to take advantage of her insider knowledge!

The Elfstedentocht - aka the Eleven City Tour. It's an endurance race done on ice skates, but only when the channels and lakes freeze over. That means its become a rare occurrence, but is now officially on Zack's bucket list. Which means hes gotta be ready at a moment's notice to fly to the Netherlands to take part. If it ever happens again... And if he does it, I'll be there.

Daisy turned out to be a really cool gal, and we had a great time chatting about not just the Elfstedentocht, but a good slew of things. We learned that there's a weird anti-Santa tradition in the Netherlands, we were reprimandend on how to pronounce Gouda (it's CHhhhouda), and general tomfoolery and stuff about life. Unfortunately, she had to jet a bit early to go meet up with her friends who were arriving in town, but we got her contact info and planned to meet up for New Years later that night!

With an open chair not looking directly into the sun, I jumped over and with the coffee's done, it was wine time. The charcuterie was delicious, the wine was on its way, and we had a job to take care of. Time for some postcards! Zack just started cranking them out like a factory, and I got underway with the writing as well.

While we were cranking out some postcards, the two nice waitresses caught notice and made a friendly joke about it. Along with the joke, a joking request that we send them one too! Well, I wasn't going to send them a Lisbon postcard within Lisbon. But, when I got home, I got a Karlsruhe postcard and sent it on down. I hope that they got it!

The postcard factory eventually got all throughput complete, and we got another glass of wine to celebrate, but then moved to the mutual part of the project - the joint postcards for our CBYX crew! While we were cranking away on those, a pair of folks from Canada came in and plopped down at the table next to us.

The reason I say pair of folks there, was because it was clear they weren't a full couple. From what we gathered, they were a couple work colleagues, and the way the conversation was rolling, the guy definitely had his sights set on her, but she was either oblivious to it or actively trying to avoid it. That was funny to listen to.

Eventually, we cranked out our postcards, and both of us had quite the stack. With that we bid adieu to the friendly waitresses, still had a little bit of sunlight, and were back to cruising around town on this wonderful New Years Eve.

POSTCARD BONANZA: want a postcard on my next trip? Give me your address and there'll be one headed your way on the next trip!

It was approaching sunset and golden hour was in full swing. We cruised through the ferry terminal (which was really sweet). But around then, we were in the mood for a place to watch the sunset. I'm not sure how it completely went down, but a spat came down and it wasn't til later that we cleared the air:

• I asked what we should do
• Zack said we should head to the lookout above the city that Fraga pointed out
• I explained some skepticism about that option
• It was far off
• We likely wouldn't make it in time
• Then said we should head back to the main square and watch from the waterfront
• Zack essentially shit on that idea, and I got pissed

Getting my idea shit on wasn't a good feeling, and a bad mood sprung up. Zack was pissed that I didn't just say what I wanted to do rather than asking what we should do, and I was pissed that he just discarded my idea. To stem the discussion and decide on our move, we reverted to the time-honored descision making process - we flipped a coin. Waterfront or Overlook. It ended on the waterlook.

The acrimonious mood was hanging in the air, but we worked our way down to the waterfront, found a good staircase, and posted up. It was an absolutely beautiful sunset over the water. The heavy clouds out past the bay and hanging over the ocean made the sun disappear earlier than expected, but it was still gorgeous for sure.

With the sun behind the clouds, we were on the move. This time we had an agreed upon target, and we slowly wandered through town along the waterfront towards the giant Mercado. It was an easy walk through town in twilight, and soon enough, we were there. Welp, bummer, you needed a test to get in and we didn't have one on us. Damnit.

A little dejected, we walked through the building and were wondering what our options were for some dinner. Out the back of the Mercado put us along the streets we'd cruised through the night before, so we knew there were some bars and such nearby. It didn't take us long at all to find something of interest as we walked right past a place named Coyo Taco. No way I could pass that up. We found a table outside and got ready for some grub.

To start was a small order of chips and guac. Had to go with that. And then, our dear burritos made their way over and holy shit was it good. Maybe it's just because I haven't had good mexican food in ages, but it was delicious. I was in complete hog heaven with my shrimp burrito and Zack was infatuated with the weird glass coffee mugs purposed as beer glasses.

While we were munching and sipping on our grub, I asked Zack about the scuffle from earlier to clear the air and talk it out. In brief:

• We're really close friends - usually Zack can sense when I know what I want
• I don't always say what I want when asking questions trying to make decisions
• That can cause problems when what he's looking to do doesn't match up with what I want to do
• His suggestion - I need to share my preference rather than keep it under wraps

Mental Side-Adventure: After having had a ton of time to mull that point over, I'm not sure this is a one-size-fits-all solution. For sure, I should work on being better at clarifying what my desires and ideas are before just poopoo-ing someone else's. But outright always doing this, I don't think would be right. I've gotten feedback that I can be controlling and arrogant through always sharing my viewpoint or idea. So I've gotta figure out how I find a balance, depending on the situation and crowd, when I go which direction.

Talking things out always helps. It sucks when it feels like I'm always the one causing problems or conflict, but getting it out on the table helps you move on. Coyo Taco gave us some delicious grub, and the next step was to head back to the hotel. On the way, we stopped by a tiny store to grab some beers and then worked our way through the streets to go freshen and rest up for a hot minute.

Back at the room, exhaustion kinda took hold. I got in a bit of a nap at night, and that was (as all naps are) a total delight. But awake, spry, and ready to go, the night begins! That means cracking open some cold ones (and to scratch another Zack Itch, some really small ones). Now before the trip began, I put an outright ban on Miley in the car. But Zack noodled his way through that restriction, and got his weird Miley fetish out before we hit the town.

New Years Eve 2021 here we go! First stop was another little kiosk to load up on a few more beers before heading down to the main square. The plan was to head there and meet up with Daisy and her friends. We had some time to kill though, so we headed to the square and pushed down to the water front. There, we started a little reflection of the year that was and Zack asked about my resolutions. I'm not usually an ardent follower of making and folling New Year's resolutions, but here are mine for 2022:

1. Take the first step (don't let static friction rule my life)
2. Gain leadership experience (work-related, but work on the skills necessary to get me to the next level)
3. Make physical activity a regular thing (yeah, all my hobbies are active, but need to do stuff during the week and make it consistent)

Right as I asked Zack what his were and he got his first one out (improve endurance race times) we got interrupted by Sahil, Harry, and Prabat Singh. To back up and explain this, we'd noted a ton of folks with NASA gear and shirts and swag here, Prabat Singh was one of them. The conversation started though with them offering us shots of Jameson. Of course, time to get the party started! (Not the first time this kinda thing'd happened to us...)

After the first shot, we were now on a collegial level and the fun began. Liquor lubrication helped, but Zack called out the NASA shirt, and before we knew it, this happened...

That one shot and shirt swap turned to two, and things got crazy, boisterous, and full of jokes. Soon enough, a third shot came up, and that cemented the crazy start to the night. Thankfully, they didn't ask about a fourth, and they cut off and wandered on. Zack got his shirt back and we laughed about the funny encounter as we finished our beers and then headed out ourselves.

We still had some time to meet up with Daisy and her friends, and we were fresh out of beer, so we headed back to find a store to stock up. It took us a little walk to find a place, but we stocked up, got a snack, and we started the first round with some 0.0% beers. Not sure why Zack's been all about those lately, but he was stoked to find them!

Quick Hit: this was really prevalent in Lisbon, but everywhere you went were peddlers. "Weed?", "Coke?", "Negative Test?", crazy the kind of effect a global pandemic can have on the definition of contraband...

Once we got back to the main square, we cracked another beer as Daisy and her crew rolled up. There we got to meet her friends from Poland - Sylwia and Paola. We offered them all beers, but they were looking for a different kind of drink and a place to sit. That meant back towards the main drag. Thankfully we found a table for us to sit outside at, we had some beers and the gals got some wine as they proceeded to call their families and wish a Happy New Year.

Around the phone calls, wine, and fun chats, we learned how they all knew each other. Turns out it's through their experience in competitive archery. All are apparently world-class, and then we learned that Sylwia even competed in Tokyo at the Olympics! Holy Shit!!! We were in the presence of an Olympic Athlete! I don't know why, but I was totally flabbergasted - that doesn't happen every day!

Around the time the wines were done we had to pack up and head back down to the main square next to the water. The clock was almost to midnight! Along the way we saw our friendly Indian friends again and got swarmed with some big hugs. Definitely not social-distance conforming, but it was a very energetic greeting, that we somehow were able to break away from and try to keep with the pack.

We ended up losing the gals, but we had to find a place to piss in a city overflowing with people. After a quick sketchy break we found Daisy, Paola, and Sylwia again. Right about then, we only had a few minutes til the stroke of midnight, so we wandered over to find a decent place to look out over the water and watch the moment 2022 started.

There was no official countdown or nothing setup to mark the moment. In fact, the whole situation was supposed to be avoided, you know big crowds and Covid and social distancing and such. But half the country was out on the square and near the water, and the intermittent yelling and screaming of thousands of people signified the time was nigh.

Quick Hit: crazy how regulations were in place to prevent gatherings like this, but people always find a way.

At some point, likely at varying exact moments between the gaggle of people present, it was now on to 2022! The roaring and screaming was held for a while as a good bunch of fireworks were set off across the bay and we got to enjoy the display. Here's to a great year!!!

After the clock struck midnight, we didn't hang around too long before wakling with the gals back towards the town center. It was fun chatting with Paola along the way as we walked. At some point, I learned Zack signed me up to hit a bullseye with a bow and arrow from 20ft. He said I had natural talent, and now there's a big expectation on my shoulders. I called him out (jokingly of course!) on his Class-A Bullshittery, but I think I can do it despite no experience...

The walking and talking continued until they split off for their hotel. Great to celebrate the start of the new year with some new friends. Zack and I continued on our way and had some jovial conversation as we made our way back to our hotel. We were out late, drank a lot, and were really ready for bed at that point. But what a great way to ring in the New Year!

Day 9 - Statues, Closed Museums, and Grub

I keep waking up at the same time every day. I've got nothing but space and time to sleep in, but my body won't let me. Either way, wake up, clean up, breakfast, and go.

We initially weren't fully set on where to go or what to do for the day. The initial idea was to head out to Sintra and explore over there. But after talking about it, we decided to push that out a day and opted to head down to the train for a ride out to Belem. It was a wholly different train network that we'd need to use to get to Belem than what's used around town in Lisbon. But we got to the station, figured things out, and were soon enough were on board ready to go.

The train ride out was weirdly quiet (and had been getting that way over the last couple days). I'm bad at reading current and prior situations, but I wasn't sure if it's because we'd run out of things to talk about, if something was wrong, or if we were just enjoying the silence. Either way, it was only three stops and we were there.

After we hopped out the train we worked our way to the waterfront and were immediatedly confronted with a giant, incredible monument neither of us had any knowledge about. How something that cool could fly under our radar really suprised us, but hot damn this one looked cool! We started making our way towards it, but had to detour to get around a little marina before we got to it. Soon enough we were right out front of it, and what an incredible structure!

After a little help from google translate, we learned it's a monument dedicated to Henry the Navigator and all Portuguese who explored and discovered the ways of the sea. It was a really cool structure, with statues of the many explorers and sailors that charted Portuguese history. Intricate in detail, symbolic in structure, and just a cool, massive monument. We wandered around it to take it in for a good while, then continued our stroll down the waterfront.

Our slow stroll along the waterfront was really relaxed and a great way to spend the sunny but fresh day. The path had us for parts along the water, then required a few detours around a couple inlets/marinas, but we eventually worked our way down to the Tower of Belém. It was closed (either due to Covid or New Year's), so we wandered around it from outside the walls.

Continuing on the walkway, we passed a military museum and opted not to go in. Right next to it was the Tomb of the Fallen Soldier. While walking around it and reading the names, we were confused and weirded out by the setup. Were these the names of the soldiers that died trying to preserve their colonial rule during the dictatorship? If so, yikes...

Pushing on a little further, we came to the agreement we should find a place to sit and take a load off for a while. Past the museum/tomb wasn't anything we saw to achieve that goal, so we turned around and started heading back. It was a bit of a hike, but we got a good ways back down the waterfront walkway to a little converted VW Bus with a bunch of tables out front. We found a table right next to the walkway overlooking the bay/river. A great spot for a cap and snack.

Coffee and Charcuterie, such a great combination. The sun wasn't fully out, but the veiled clouds were keeping things warm enough to really take a load off, people watch, and let the day go by. We had some good conversations, but I still had the vibe there was somthing under the surface. I couldn't put a finger on it, wasn't sure how to gauge that correctly, and was too timid/conflict-averse to bring it up.

I was feeling really apathetic in terms of plans and next steps, but Zack came up with a plan. Our next stop was to head to the Electricity Museum and see what's what. So once we polished off our coffees and killed the charcuterie, we squared up and walked off. Walking back past the awesome monument, we noticed the incredible map on the ground out front of the monument. On a map of the world, each Portuguese discovery throughout the new world was marked. A cool way to show the exploration prowess of the tiny country of adventurers!

We took a slightly different route heading back towards the museum, but were greeted with a gorgeous park as we almost arrived. But, buh dum... The museum was closed. And unfortunately specifically because of New Years. Damnit.

Dejected, and slowly starting to feel like we were reliving our Moscow New Years experience, we headed towards another nearby museum. The Coaches Museum (think stagecoaches and such) was supposed to be open according to google, so we were optimistic. But after crossing the tracks and walking up to the whole place being dead quiet, it was closed too. Damnit. New Years Day is not the day to go museum hopping...

To be honest, we were a bit dejected and bummed. We were hoping for a little more activity, but a holiday is not a prime day for such activity. From there, it was back to the train station to head back to town. I was super tired and quiet at that point, and just sat there waiting for our ride back. The train rolled up, we jumped in, and we made our way back to town.

The rough plan, once we got back, was to head back to the hotel for a nap and a break. Zack's idea was to walk a different route/loop back, so we got off a stop early to take our walk through a neighborhood we hadn't seen yet. Yet again, this was a great call. The neighborhood was gorgeous. A little more raw and less touristy, and it was filled with tram tracks, which made for some great views in the many alleys and streets. A great little spot.

The road we took was gorgeous with the tram lines, and we followed it as it eventually plopped us back onto the square in Barrio Alto. To our luck, the kiosk was open. We grabbed a couple beers, grabbed a table, and took a nice little break in the plaza. I whipped out the backgammon board, and Zack kicked my ass. Godfuckingdamnit that pisses me off so much.

Once we finished our beers and the last game, Zack suggested we head back to a different square we went through on the tour the day before and do some more kiosk beers there. I was all game for that. It was a short walk away, but with the beauty of the tram tracks all over the place, it took us a while to get there.

Unfotunately, the kiosk at the square we had in mind was all shuttered up. That was a big bummer, as that was the relaxed, low-key vibe we were both really pulling for. But not to give up on the idea so quickly, we wandered another street over to a row of trendy cafes. A table opened up at one of them as we walked up, so we plopped down for another break.

Quick Hit: the vibe of a kiosk beer is such a great way to go. It's low-key, laid back, no stress, just hanging out with your crew in a park, plaza, square, or wherever. Cafes are nice, but having the complete lack of structure that a kiosk provides is such a great way to go.

The waiter came out quick enough, and continuing on our trend of laid back food and drink, we soon enough had a couple glasses of wine and some tzaziki right in front of us. Definitely some good stuff. Again, a different vibe with the cafe, but we enjoyed our vittles and polished them off at a relaxed pace.

While we were sitting there, Zack spotted a taco shop just across the street. Fooding it up, that was the next waypoint. Once we'd wrapped up our stuff, we headed over to the taco shop and were floored. It was 11€ for two tacos!?! Hell fucking no - that's extortion. In that mental confusion Zack rememberd a swanky pizza spot we'd walked by the night before, so we wore off the sticker shock by walking back down the hill, intent on some 'za.

Well wouldn't you know it, even the damn pizza place was closed. We just couldn't catch a break. A bit dejected for a moment, we went from focusing on the problem to focusing on a solution. In that, we realized we were close to the giant Mercado we'd swung by each day already, and figured we'd give it another go.

The test requirement was obviously still in place, but we now had a couple Aces in the hole that could help us out. After a quick swab of the nostrils with our self-tests, we had quick proof we were healthy, and they let us in! Damn good thing we did this, because holy hell what an incredible setup we stumbled upon. There were about 20-30 stalls with everything under the sun available to eat, drink, and enjoy.

To start, we walked a lap around the whole place just to see the potpourri of options at our disposal. To be honest, it was a little bit overwhelming. Once we got our bearings though, saw what we could dive into, we slowly pieced together what we were going for and prepared ourselves for a total culinary adventure.

And when I say culinary adventure, it truly was. I was gunning for seafood once again, and hit some pretty big wins with it. Here was the spontaneous menu:

• Appetizer - Octopus Salad and Wine
• Dinner - Shrimp and Scallop Pasta, Oysters, and Wine
• Dessert - Brownie, Cookie, and Wine

Did I say it was a feast? Because that was a damn feast. Delicious in every course, filling, flavorful, and just an absolute smash hit. Mercado's are an absolute treasure.

We took our time consuming those goods, but when we finished up dessert, we looked at the clock and put together a plan that required a bit of a hustle. Sunset was slowly approaching, so we headed directly for the metro to take us up to the overlook above downtown. On a mission, we hit the trail.

Quick Hit: kinda looks like the El in Chicago, right?

Once we popped out of the metro, it was still a bit of a hike, and uphill, to get to the lookout. That required some consistent map checks to weave through the maze of streets and stairs to make sure we were on track. But, you guessed it, that was no problem. Soon enough, we'd made it to the top and the place was chocked full of people, but it's pretty clear why.

We arrived just after the sun went down, but the colors and the sky were still absolutely beautiful. Zack and I both found spots to post up and enjoy the colors and the mood. Fraga was totally right, it's a great spot up there to look out over the whole town! The lights in the sky slowly continued to dwindle as just the deep, dark blue was left.

At this point in the day, after a ton of walking around, a couple museum bummers, tons of cool sights and sounds, and some killer food, we were both feeling pretty tired and slow. From the lookout we started making our way downhill along the steep streets to get back to downtown. We walked through a cool park til it turned into a dead end, then continued on the many side streets and alleys to get back to the main spot between the hills.

Always with an extra burst of energy, Zack suggested a round of darts at a place we saw a night or two prior. We changed course and headed that direction. But after the short walk, we rolled up to yet another shutterd (for the day) establishment. Damnit. That was disappointing, so we flipped around and headed back to the hotel.

It wasn't too long before a delayed food coma set in and I was out for a nap. I wasn't down for too long (Power Nap!!!), and when I woke up I did a little writing and watched some of the Rose Bowl. Had to turn it off eventually because my Buckeyes were getting destroyed (but came back to win in glorious fashion!!!). But, soon enough, it was time for bed.

Until not!!! A little spurt of energy after our long break had us back up and on some extra life. With that, we were back out on the town for a little walk. We headed up to the castle that was directly over downtown (couldn’t get in), and then cruised around the Alfama district on a beautiful night before strolling back and clocking out.

Day 10 - Exploring Sintra

Unfortunately, plans for the day had us leaving Lisbon. What a cool town, and fear not, dear readers, I'll be back to adventure there again someday. Those trolley rails in the streets just make for some incredible views. But waking up we did our standard thing, got some breakfast, and were off.

It was a quiet walk through downtown as the city came to life. We headed for the train stop, jumped on the metro, and soon enough were walking through the park. Well, we got to the parking garage no problem, but were blindsided for a ridiculously high parking fee. There were advertisements for a weekend around 20€ (and we parked Friday-Sunday), but were slapped with 95€. What the fuck.

And just our luck, there wasn't a soul in sight so we couldn't even clarify why we were extorted. Goddamnit. That left us no option but to give the thieves their money. Pissed and annoyed at that racket, we found Rupert safe and sound, packed into the car, and were off and running towards Sintra. I ticked the mark to avoid tolls on the way over, but google's full of shit and that didn't happen.

After short last, we rolled into Sintra. I was in a 'fuck you' mood to paying, so was on the hunt for a free place to park. The first lot lied and we had to pay to get out, then after looking at a map, saw one closer in to town. Whiddled over that direction and success. A wide open parking lot for Rupert to hang out while we explored. Love it.

To start, we didn't really set any sights. We knew we had to make our way generally uphill to go check out a couple castles, so just pointed that direction. Well, that didn't turn out too great, because it just put us onto a bunch of windy, switchbacky roads that wasn't really near anything. To stem the aimless wandering, we doubled back and headed to the historic city center to get our bearings.

That turned out to be a great game plan. As we approached, we saw to weirdly conical white stacks, but the walk popped us right into the square in front of the main castle! Hot damn. From an initial to confusion, we were back on track. To start, we walked in to get our tickets, but the lady was on the phone and took a few minutes to acknowledge us.

Eventually she was done with her phone call, and we were able to get some tickets. We opted for the combo pack for the main castle, the moorish castle, and the crazy castle up on the hill. Because of availability, we had to book a time for the crazy castle, but at least we were all set. And, with that, it was time to dive into the main castle. Holy history batman...

It was clear that there was a lot of history in the Palacio Nacional de Sintra, and that was clarified pretty early on. It was initially built as a monastery, but then was used as a castle as of roughly the 15th Century. That's a long time. That along with a few other tidbits of knowledge and history clarified how important this place was throughout Portuguese history.

We cruised through the many wings, rooms, and displays throughout the castle. Tons of ornate furniture, lots of old artwork, and a bunch of really interesting information (all of which I've forgotten since the trip...).

My two favorite places in the castle were first a giant rotunda with massive vaulted cielings, with the 72 crests of the most noble families at the bottom, and the royal crest at the top. A clear sign of the pecking order in Portugal at that time. Then, the massive kitchen. The two conical towers were the smokestacks for the many ovens. Not sure why they were white (wood burns and soot is black), but this was definitely a kitchen fit for royalty.

All in all, it was quite the incredible, intricate, ornate, and massive castle. We learned a good bit about it's history and how it integrated into the country's history. But after we were done exploring through there, we were in need of a coffee and a snack. Luckily enough there was a cafe right across the square. We waltzed in, snagged a coffee with a super moist, delicious chocolate somethingorother, and got the last table on the sidewalk to enjoy it in.

That fuel up was perfect. Got in a little people watching, got some caffeine, and a snack to keep us going. From there, we were off to find the bus. The walk through the tiny side streets in town was quick, and soon enough we'd worked our way up to the supposed bus stop, but I wasn't convinced we were actually in the right place.

Checking what info I could, google maps said the next bus wasn't coming til the next day, so that confused me a good bit. We continued waiting, and slowly the crowd kept growing, which settled things a bit. Soon enough, our bus came, and we all packed in to head up the hill.

It was a super windy road up to the top of the hill. Not sure if it was actually a public road, so that anyone other than buses or residents could drive up, but our bus deftly maneuvered through the curves and hillside and got us up to the top. It made a stop at the Moorish Castle, but we stayed on til it got to the Palacio Nacional de Peña, and we immediately felt like we got duped into a massive tourist trap.

The bus stopped with two or three other buses loading and unloading people, there were taxis and tuktuks all over, and tourists strewn about everywhere. We'd already paid for entrance, so we weren't gonna just toss it away. So we kinda hesitantly went in and started walking up the hill to the castle. Slowly, that disappointment of a tourist trap melted away as we got sight of the crazy, prominent castle up on the peak.

Overlooking the region, the ocean, and everything in between, this place looked like it was colored in by a 4-year-old in art class, with random mixture of colors everywhere, and the shapes and forms of the whole castle were nearly just as chaotic. The craziness was not a detractor, but an extremely vital part of the really interesting building. We kept walking uphill and our views of the place increased with each step. Once we got to the castle, we toiled around the small plaza outside the main entryway to take it all in. We were really digging the place.

To start our exploration of the place we saw a sign for a Wall Walk, and headed that direction. This gave us some incredible views of the surrounding land and was just gorgeous. They definitely picked an incredible perch for this vibrant castle up on the hill. The wall wrapped around the back of the castle, and we followed along, stopping for pictures and waiting for people to squeeze past in various spots.

The rampart walk eventually popped us into the rear courtyard with still incredible views out over the area. Unfortunately, there were also hordes of people taking selfies and overly-posed shots. Seriously, I hate civilization... We wandered around for some different views trying to get away from the vanity, and then went up the steps to a really tiny chapel off the courtyard.

Within that super colorfully-lit chapel, we learned the castle was of German design, remniscient of Schloss Neuschwanstein. The stained glass window was from Nürnberg, and for some reason the coat of Sachsen was on there too. Germans do kinda get their hands into everything.

From the chapel, we wandered through the various archways, and I noticed how the tile work was more complicated than at first sight. Rather than just painted emblems on the tiles, it was actually forms molded on in the shape of the artwork. Wicked cool. That, and once we got back out to the main courtyard, the crazy, creepy, and weird statue above the main archway was throwing us for a loop.

Next up was the tour through the castle. Despite having to book a specific time, the place was packed with people and seemingly no order to the whole setup (is Covid real? Yes, but people are ignorant to it). But, despite the chaos, we jumped into yet another cool castle.

In line with the other castles we'd cruised through so far (this trip, and always) this place was crazy opulent and full of royally expensive tastes. I mean, an opal armoire? That shit's gotta be expensive. As a bit of history through the place, this palace was apparently used right up to the overthrow of the monarchy, and the queen departed for exile directly from here. Crazy.

Once we finished up the walk through the castle, we were back out onto the main courtyard. There we wandered around a bit, got some more viewpoints and more views, and then wandered through a couple of the gates and small walkways, still in astonishment of this crazy castle up on the hill.

Wrapped up with the Palacio Nacional de Peña, we debated our next step. There was a thought to go check out a random statue somewhere in the hillside below the palace, but opted to head straight to the Castel dos Mouros down the hill for the last stop on our monument tour for the day.

From the Peña complex it was just a short walk back down the road to get to this stop. As soon as we walked in, it was a totally different feel. Lots of nature, lots of green, lots of boulders, and really low key. There were a few signs and interesting things along the way, but we shortly made it into the stone castle walls.

Before diving into these castles walls, it was time for a break. I was running on empty by that time, so we wandered over to the snack bar. They were really low on goodies for the day, but we snagged a couple bags of sweet potato chips and I snagged a 7-UP and found a table. It was quiet, relaxing, and we definitely needed the break with just enough calories and energy to top us off for the time being.

Refueld and ready, we were off to explore. First stop was a giant cistern right below the main gate. Apparently, there's a king that drowned and is still at the bottom, but because the cistern's never been emptied, nobody knows for sure. A quick diving excursion could solve that, I'd think.

Now it was time to go explore the walls. We first wandered up to the low peak, and got our first taste of the beautiful scenery of the area from this castle. There were tons of walkways and perches to explore up there, and we did just that.

The path from the lower high peak followed the wall, down into a trough, and then started climbing up to the upper high peak. The hike up was really pretty, with more of the same great views over the valley, out to the ocean, and nearby with giant boulders all over the hillside. Once we got up to the top, there were a good few people mulling about, but I found a spot after a bit of climbing to perch and take it all in.

We hung out at the top spot for a while, taking in the views, looking across to a few giant manors on the hillside. A clear day, some incredible castle ruins, and a great adventure buddy, hard to have a bad time. After a bit of time up top, we slowly started our descent from the great castle hilltop back towards town.

From the castle, we had a really relaxed walk down the hill. The trail was first quiet and wooded below the hill from the moorish castle, then popped us out onto the winding mountain road coming down from the castles. We opted for a more direct route back to the car and it took us through some pretty streets and cool alleyways. There was a near dogfight as we went by one spot, some old folks with their roller suitcases trudging down the windy roadway, and eventually it all led us back Rupert. He was there waiting for us, and after winding down for a hot sec from a great walk through Sintra (highly recommend a visit here, for the full day!) we were off!

From Sintra we pointed back north to make our way over to Tomar. Stemming from the conversation with the retired guy on the funicular in Nazaré, we opted to head to the big castle there on our loop back up through the country. It was an easy drive headed up, and as we got closer we got some great views of golden hour over the Portuguese countryside. But soon enough, we'd made it into Tomar, and thankfully, it was a little easier (and cheaper) finding parking in a smaller town.

We grabbed our gear from the trunk, headed to the hostel, and got all checked in. Somehow we got a super chic place for the night, and the lady at the front desk was super friendly and helpful. When we were checking in, we asked for some dinner reccomendations. After we got all settled into our room though, we were back out and looking for dinner.

The first place she recommended didn't look to have much, so we scooted along pretty quickly from there. On the map there was a brewery nearby, that got us pretty excited about our chances. But, we walked over there, and it was anything but a brewery. Just kinda looked like another empty restaurant. Pretty unfortunate.

When we continued our walk around looking for a different place to eat, we stumbled upon a fairly indistinguishable restaurant but took a quick look at it and figured it'd be worth a shot. We walked in, were asked a cursory question about Covid (weren't checked at all), and got a seat at a place that looked to be a pretty good spot.

It was clear when we walked in that we couldn't speak Portuguese, and I think that impacted things for a bit, as we looked to be dealt the owner's son as a waiter. He clearly wanted to do a good job, but it was evident he had no desire to be there. With our English though, we got in our orders and were looking forward to some grub.

We started off with a couple appetizers and some cheeses. Then, the main course - grilled octopus. Holy shit I was excited. I'd never had the full, entire octopus before, so I wasn't completely sure what all was edible, but damn it was some good stuff. I was really enjoying the well cooked octopus and took my time with the great meal.

Cultural Tidbit: in restaurants, it's common (pretty much the norm), that appetizers are automatically brought out to your table. Prices aren't told when they're there, and you pay for all that isn't the way it was set down at the table. In my opinion, it's a pretty predatory practice, but that's how it goes.

Zack and I both kept the wine coming, and after some convincing from our increasingly friendly and fun waiter, opted also for some dessert. Damn that was the good decision, because holy shit that was delicious! Kinda like a tiramisu, but I can't remember what it was called. Either way, it was yummy.

Blog Stuff: At some point during the meal, Zack came up with a great question. We'd talked a little bit about how I'm conflicted how I want to progress with this blog, if I should change things up, or even keep it going at all. His question was, if I had to reduce my summary of a trip down to 10 questions, what would they be? I honestly loved that question. It's not easy to condense my novels down to 10 questions, but having something pointed, particular, and specific to try and hit at the key points and experiences of a trip, that sounds like a cool way to re-frame an adventure. More to come on this at the end.

After dessert, the waiter (we'd asked his name, Portuguese for George), just randomly brought us a digestif shot. We think it was Ginjinha, but he was super nonchalant about it. After the first shot, he just dropped two more off for us. And then once the third shot was on our table, he said that was that.

Quite the great find for a random discovery. And after the mildly cold start, our waiter friend ended up giving us a great dinner experience. Along with, of course, some really fun times and conversations. We thanked him for his great hospitality, paid off the relatively cheap dinner, and were back off to town.

It was late, but not late enough for bed, and both Zack and I were up for another beer. To start, we walked through the town center for a bit, then made our way back to the first recommendation from the hostel lady. It was pretty empty, but Zack was in hog heaven for the majority of our time there. For one, the bar stools had a really tall footrest, so everyone, short or tall, had a spot to rest their feet. Quite the handy setup.

As we were getting our beers, Zack became infatuated with something else. We both snagged some Super Bock beers (they had a dark beer, it was pretty ok), and Zack noticed on the wall behind the bar some super tiny glasses. We got our next beers small-sized to get the chance to drink out of the tiny vessels. Then, while enjoying it, he asked the nice bartender if he could buy one as a souvenier. Well, the lady was super friendly and said that she just 'dropped' one, so inventory was one short. What a sweet deal.

Quite the successful night. A great dinner, friendly service, good beers, and a new glass for the collection. After a long day of exploration and wandering though, we called it a night and headed back to get some sleep.

Day 11 - The Knights Templar and National Parks

Breakfast at the hostel was pretty meager, but a couple folks gave us some leftover eggs to spice things up with a little scramble. When life gives you lemons...

After getting all squared away and checking out, we went and dropped our bags at the car. It was super foggy to start the morning, but before we could get to adventuring, we headed to the post office right there to get our postcards sent off. It was quite the busy place, and despite the activity it was pretty organized with a pull-number system to wait in line. It wasn't too long until we'd gotten our stamps and our postcards were off and running.

From downtown it was a quick drive up the hill and to the castle. The fog and the mist was everywhere, which added a cool vibe to the whole complex as we walked in. It was an initial quick walk around the main courtyard before we skirted through the really tight walkway to find the main entrance and dive in.

After paying the entrance fee, it kinda felt like a video game walking around the castle. There were tons of wings, rooms, hallways, sections, and areas to wander through, and I didn't want to leave anything out. We first headed through (I think) the monastery, then through an incredibly intricate church, then through the many halls of the other parts of the big complex.

There was tons of history in the place, evident on every wall and every room. It was initially founded by the Knights Templar, but when that order fell apart, it was taken over as the HQ for the Order of the Cross. We came into it all jazzed about the Knights Templar aspect, I mean, that's almost a millenium ago! Unfortunately though, there was essentially nothing in terms of information on the Knights Templar usage and establishment. The only information we saw was how the place was utilized in the 16th Centry from the Order of the Cross. Not sure why the Knights Templar got shafted so hard, especially when they built the place!

We wandered up, down, through, around, and all through the castle, convents, and many areas in the place. It was really quite the huge complex with tons to explore, and we just did that. After we'd seen the entirety of the castle from the inside, the exit took us through the gift shop (convenient...) and back out to the parking lot.

Before doing anything else, it was time for a little break. We wandered over to the cafe next to the parking lot, got in for some coffee and a snack, and got ourselves squared away right before the massive tour group showed up. The java was warm, and the hearty little snacks hit the spot. Just the ticket for a nice little break.

From there it was back to the castle, but this time for a walk around the fortress walls. Since the whole complex was a huge place, the walk around the walls was a nice long stroll around the complex as well. We found the slightly hidden trail, got up to the walls, and had some great views right over town right from the start of the walk around.

Once the wall curved back towards the castle, it opened up to a pretty large garden just below the wall. Orange trees everywhere, it was a quiet, secluded, peaceful little spot on the wall and in the gardens. We finished the walk along the wall, then ducked into the orange grove.

Throughout the country, orange trees are everywhere, and I'd been wanting to snag one from the gazillion trees. Now, with a grove right at my grasp, somehow an orange found it's way into my hand. Not sure how that happened... The thing had an absolute ton of seeds, but it was citrusy and delicious.

We slowly meandered out of the grove, and from there, the wall walk popped us back onto the courtyard at the start. No joke, quite the cool place to explore. It's weird to think there's essentially a millenium of history in one spot, something completely foreign to anything we know in America. But from there we worked our way back through the gate, down to the parking lot, and hopped into Rupert to head to the next stop, a cool connection to the castle just up the road.

At some point during the castle's long history, the inhabitants (I'm assuming during the Order of the Cross era) got all industrious and built themselves an aqueduct to supply the place with water. Well, as you saw in one of the pictures earlier, there were still remnants of the thing existing, and up past the castle in the hills was more to see. Zack and I were headed to one portion of it, as a few sections were highlighted on the map, and we were off to get a closer look. We wove through some windy hilly roads, and then when we were close, parked in a little turnout and saw a moderate piece of the aqueduct spanning over a valley. But to the right was a decanting hut, and beyond that was an incredible find.

After we crawled through the decanting hut, we got our first sight of the real masterpiece. Across the larger valley was a massive stretch of arches supporting an aqueduct up to 30m above the valley floor. The fog was still hanging around, and the end was slightly visible through the mist. But what an incredible piece of architecture and history right before us.

Next to the little channel of water flow was a small walkway. To start, there was a little wall to keep your feet on the path. But as soon as it turned the bend and got to the tall part, that walkway fell away, and wandering the aqueduct was up to your feet and coordination. We were both pretty astonished by the architecutre and durability of the thing (it's been standing for about 400 years!) as we worked our way above the road out along the water bridge.

Once it got to the no-sidewall section, Zack wasn't feeling like tempting fate. It was a good bit misty and wet out, so footing wasn't a guarantee. I was feeling adventurous though, and continued across to the other end to explore. Yet another thing that would NEVER be found in the US - looking down over the side at 30m above the road and fields below was definitely a bit hairy.

But I wandered over to the other side, to the adjoining decanting hut (meant to collect sediment along the water's route along the channel) and poked my head out to the hilly land on the other side. The aqueduct kept weaving its way up through the hills. But I flipped around, and took my time on the walk back towards the other side of the aqueduct.

Back along the top I met back up with Zack, and we were both enjoying the size, longevity, and ingeniuity of this and the whole system of aqueducts the Romans were all about. For it being over 400 years old, that thing was in pretty incredible condition. There was one section that was reinforced and supported from tipping over, but for a bunch of stonework from a few centuries ago, pretty sturdy work.

Not only sturdy, but scenic too. The mist, fog, green, grey, stone, and it all matched to make the scene pretty inviting. The 58 upper arches and 16 base arches put on quite the show. We had a nice little stroll back along the top as we made our way back to the start. After turning back to look at the archway a couple times, we toiled around the decanting hut for a hot second, then made our way back to Rupert.

Once we reached the car, both of us had the impression that there was more of this incredible architecture to see (we somewhere read that the aqueduct spanned about 6km from the source to the castle...). So instead of heading back towards town, we turned up the road, drove under the incredible archways, and were on the hunt for a few more such relics of the centuries-old construction.

Looking on google, I found a few more spots that made it seem like an archway for the aqueduct was hanging around. The way there plopped us onto a dirt road, then that dirt road turned to something a little more adventurous. We parked Rupert on the side and these noble adventurers continued on foot.

It was a rocky and interesting forest road, but it wove us down a bit of a hillside and into the sticks. But as we continued along and tracked the map, we eventually stumbled upon another section, tucked into the hillside. It wasn't as big, but it was just hanging out with no pageantry or awareness. Not as easy to get to, but more history, just hanging out.

Right at that point in the road was a bend, and looking left we saw yet another section just a stone's throw away! This one was a little bigger, and after picking through some stickerbushes, I was able to work my way up onto it and see it from above. It's absolutely crazy that these spans and archways are still sitting there, remenants of completely different era of human history.

Quick Hit: it's kinda confusing that they didn't try and make the aqueduct channel into more of a straight line. Yes, of course, water needs to flow downhill, and digging a channel through hills would be a waste of time and resources. But the route seemed to weave around places that didn't seem necessary. Even the first massive arch section had a bend/curve in it. Didn't seem like that was required, especially when you're building a massive bridge that could be a straight line between points. Hmmmmm...

It seemed like a number of sections and portions of the aqueduct channel (and likely a number of archways to go with it) were destroyed when the little nearby town was established and built. But despite that, there seemed to be a good number of sections just riddled throughout the whole hillside. From that second archway, we weaved our way back up the road, back to the car, and then headed back towards town after a cool bit of exploration in the countryside.

Weaving back through the big aqueduct got us back into town, where we just had a couple things to do before hitting the road. First, topped up on gas, then headed to the grocery store for some snacks. Turned into a little more than that when we saw just how damn cheap wine was! I stocked up for my Portuguese wine to take home, plus some, and we loaded up on trip snacks for later. With that, we were off and running heading back north.

Next stop was planned to be the Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela, a big national park right in the middle of the country. The drive was going by really easy, little traffic and smooth sailing. A perfect recipe for a road trip. After a while, we pulled off at a rest stop and whipped out some of those road trip snacks for a mid-afternoon bite. Cheese and bread from the market to go with our goodie snack bag, not a bad way to nom.

Zack jumped into the helm and I got to relax for a bit as the route eventually broke off from the highway and took us more into the countryside. Slowly, the terrain became more variable and hilly, then mountainous, and more and more great views came around.

As we got closer to the park, there was one road we followed that seemed to be right at the edge of a giant chasm, and right behind that chasm was the park and the mountains (struggle calling them mountains, but we'll go with it cause it's easier). We were getting closer to sunset around that time, so the golden light was hitting everywhere. From the top of the chasm, we dropped into the valley for a bit, then began our ascent into the park.

The road up into the park was pretty damn fun. We slowly swerved our way up and out of the trees, and eventually were cruising through a really rocky and barren landscape. The terrain really reminded me of my alien hike on the Isle of Skye, with weird random rock clumps all over the place, but this also had incredible views looking out over the entire countryside. We took a break down low, enjoying the views, then another one once out in the tree-less level, and by that time the sun was pretty close to the horizon, so we pushed on towards the peak.

Soon enough we reached Torre, the tallest point in continental Portugal at 1993m / 6539ft. Although it's a national park, there was an old abandoned observatory and a few warehouse-type buildings perched up top. We were all sorts of confused about the history of the place. A national park isn't normally criss-crossed with giant mountain ski villages (there were ski lifts up top, but as you can imagine, no snow), abandoned observatories, or other more built-up infrastructure. There seems to be a cover-up in place in the history books.

Weirdness aside, it was windy as shit up top. As soon as we parked we whipped out some warmer clothes to bundle up before wandering off to watch the sunset. Not wanting to stand right in the wide open with the wind whipping around, we wandered off a little below one of the big abandoned buildings and found what looked to be a little lookout bunker. It was a bit of a wind-break, but also a great spot to stop and watch the sun work its way down the sky.

It was a bit too chilly and cold to hunker down and wait for the full sunset, so we jumped the gun and continued wandering around to get the blood flowing again. Up past the abandoned buildings toward the center of action there at the peak, Zack diverted to go into the apparently bustling mini-market on the peak, and I wandered over to the Cairn in the middle of the roundabout with no distinguishing markings. Weird.

After Zack came out of the market and shared how interesting, random, and surprising it was to see something like that in a national park on the top of a peak, we hurried back to Rupert to warm back up. As we were getting back to room temperature, we found a place to sleep that night at the tiny 'ski' town just down the road. That all set, it was off down the super windy mountain roads to find this little town.

The ride was absolutely gorgeous, but it was a bit of a bummer to see it all in the dark. Fully rocky, numbers of giant outcroppings and towers all around, definitely felt like a really foreign and alien landscape. But soon enough we'd made our way down the first hill, and just over the ridge we rolled into town. The place was pretty damn quiet, but we found the hostel (which we think used to be a ski chalet from the dictator era...) and got checked in. Honestly, quite the nice hostel.

Dinner time was next. It being a small mountain town, over the holidays, google showed that there were only three restaurants in town that were open. We walked down to the first one, and after waiting for one family to get shot down, we walked in and were also shot down. No space, no food service in the bar, so not an option.

Continuing our hunger hunt, we headed towards Option #2, and that place wasn't even open. Next stop would be the last stop, but as we were headed there, another place popped up along the way. It was open, so we stopped in and were able to successfully land a table. Hot damn.

Right after we sat down they did the plethora of appetizer plates thing, but we knew the shtick. After asking about the prices of each, we nabbed the cheese and bread, and then had some wine to go with some soups. I was still pretty full from the cheese and bread fillup at the rest stop, so I didn't have much room for an actual meal. That worked well though, as the apps, soup, and wine worked out perfectly.

From the mountain-lodge vibe of a restaurant, we ambled back up the hill to the hostel and the fresh air and cool evening. Once we were back, bed was an option, but we both had a little energy and opted for a movie. Zack whipped out one of the bottles of wine from the grocery store, I found a working stream of Robin Hood - Men in Tights, and we were off. Such old humor, but still such a funny moving. We polished off the bottle with some old Mel Brooks magic, and then it was off to bed.

Day 12 - Monsanto to Madrid

The plan for the day was to wake up early, get our adventure gear on, and then head back up to the park for a hike. Well, it was windy as shit all night, and even with earplugs in I tossed and turned with the wild winds outside. We got an earlier start in the hopes of that hike, so up and cleaned up and off to breakfast.

It was a decent enough breakfast in the old ski chalet, and while sitting there we talked about the plan. Unfortunately the wind (maybe 15-20mph) hadn't slowed down yet, was a bit more than either of us were really up for. Add to it the start of a drizzle, the option for a hike was put on ice. It was a bummer, but it wouldn't have been warm, fun, or full of any kinds of views other than fog. Whomp whomp whomp.

Cutting our losses, our plan was to start our journey down off the mountain. After breakfast, we got all packed and loaded up, then hit the road. It was yet another super curvy, windy, and switchbacky road, and after a while we'd made it out of the fog and clouds and had a view to go with the light rain. Soon after things were visible, we stopped off at an overlook to get a view of the landscape down below with a couple rainbows highlighting our sights.

The road continued on down the mountain and took us through some pretty cool looking towns as we got back down to the valley and flatland. Our next stop was Monsanto, so we let google take us in that direction. At some point though, we saw a sign for the Museum of Cheese, and immediately changed course. It seemed like it was on the way, so that seemed like a total win.

Soon enough, we rolled into the village with the museum of cheese, and the place was dead quiet. After looking at the museum sign, it didn't open for another 20min. After looking at some pictures of the place, it didn't look to be worth the wait, so we were back off and headed towards Monsanto.

It was a muted but scenic drive through the eastern Portuguese countryside. The weather was pretty grey and on and off lightly raining, but it was a calm and easy drive. Thankfully, the clouds were high enough to the point where we could see the rocky outcropping that is Monsanto from a good ways out. As we got closer, we kept following the road, and it took us all the way up to the village on this giant pile of rock.

Monsanto is a pretty unique place, as it's high up on a big pile of rock, as I said, but what makes it even cooler, is that the whole village and most of the buildings are integrated into the natural setup. People didn't just come in and cut through the stone to make their vision come to life, but they implemented their vision throughout most of the existing nature. Granted, buildings are strewn about like any other town, but a number of places just kinda stick out with how they have incorporated or built around the many boulders and rocks that have been on the hill for who knows how long.

Once the road took us all the way up to the top, we parked and got to exploring. We didn't have a plan or route through town in mind, so we just started wandering and seeing what came up. Turned out to be quite the intricate and tightly-packed village. Mostly everything was closed down and really quiet. I imagine the place gets completely overblown with tourists in the summer, so we continued wandering around, stumbling upon a few known/signed landmarks, exploring the tiny alleys and the melancholy weather.

We eventually weaved and found our way through and out of the main part of town, and started heading uphill. That path took us past a few more interesting things, like a grotto and some interesting rock features, and after those we worked our way up to the castle on the peak.

Quite the spot for a castle. It was at the very peak of the hill, and with all the stone on that hill, whoever built it did a good job of fortifying the place (except for the little door on the back of the castle wall, but let's forget about that). Not only was it in a cool spot, but it was quite the cool castle too. Big, steep, stark, a good few areas to explore in the varied elevation of the peak, quite the cool spot to explore around.

As soon as we got into the walls and castle itself, Zack got on his improv game and was having a good go at acting out whoever occupied this place centuries ago. The first move we made was to climb up the ramparts of the castle entrance. Quite a sturdy wall all throughout, and we followed it around to the various other sections up there on the way to exploring the whole thing. Seriously, quite the cool castle and remnants of what must've been quite the stronghold.

Unfortunately, as we continued wandering around the place, the visibility dropped to shit and it started raining. Lame. We kept exploring despite the change in weather and slowly worked our way around the whole thing. Including the open door at the back of the castle. Serious design flaw there. But up and around the other side of the walls and peering over the high wall over the hill in the fog was pretty precarious.

After we'd covered all the castle grounds and walls and achieved enough tomfoolery up there to be satisfied, we wandered out and continued on. Down the path were a few more buildings up near the radio tower, so we went and explored those spots. The trail weaved through some more big boulders, up the hillside, and around to a couple different spots that we went and checked out, before finding another trail and making our way back to town in the drizzle.

Once we got back to a few more buildings and were exploring more alleyways, we were on the hunt for a cafe. It was rainy, we were a little tired, so that would've been perfect at that point in time, but everything was closed. Big bummer. But while we were hunting for a place, we stumbled upon the tourist office and popped our head in.

There we met a super eager lady who was ready to tell us all about the town and share a number of brochures, but she also pointed us to the little town museum in the office. It was inside and looked interesting, so in we went. Quite the cool compilation of history and facts and information about the town, its background, the boulders, and a lot more.

There we also learned that Monsanto won the award for "Most Portuguese Village" in 1932. The emblem/prize for this? A Silver Rooster. After we'd wandered through the museum, we asked the friendly lady at the front where the original rooster trophy was. Turns out it is in the local municipality office (and not in town...), but the church spire we walked by earlier had a replica of the trophy. Big Buckin Chicken.

After the short museum excursion, our cafe hunt eventually became fruitless. Not ideal. But since the rain was still there and fog wasn't going away, we decided to head back to the car and continue on. Definitely a cool stop up to the rocky hill of Monsanto, quite the ingenious integration of massive boulders into usable structures. Oh, and Zack found his perfect door as we were headed out!

We were still in need of some coffee, so as we got down from the hill from Monsanto, we had our eyes peeled as we were going through the other little towns. We stopped at one right along our way, but the guy wouldn't serve us coffee (I think because we weren't going to order any food...). That put us back on the road.

At the next 'big' town there was a cafe on the map, so we headed that way. It was a really quiet town, but we parked and walked in, and the guy had a couple wonderful americanos out on the table in short order. It was a big store/bar/restaurant/arcade, but only a couple tables and it was pretty quiet. So Zack and I sat there in comfortable order quietly sipping and finishing off our coffees before we hit the road and Zack was at the wheel.

Next stop - Madrid. We were cruising through the eastern Portugal countryside and eventually crossed over into western Spain. To be honest, for most of the way, the countryside and landscape was giving me clear vibes of East Texas. Rolling hills, sparse vegetation, nothing for miles except for one giant gate leading to a ranch and nothing else, really similar stuff. Zack was moving and grooving, and even hit 120!!! (kmh).

Eventually it was time for a break and a driver swap. We plopped into the rural spanish gas station, got some drinks, and were back off and running. Coming into town, the first sign for Madrid was still 40km outside of the actual city, a clear sign we were heading into quite the large metropolis.

As we got closer to our hotel, google pulled another bullshit move and tried to route us literally through the walls of a tunnel on an exit/connection that didn't exist. Not sure how that was programmed in, but we had to reroute, figure out which direction was which after we came up out from underground, and make our way to the right area. Eventually we made it, and got confronted with some more expensive parking, but got all checked in and situated in our room with a weird shower in the corner of the room. We took a load off, relaxed for a bit, then it was time to hit the town. But before we did so, Mr. Herhold got us in the mood for our plan to attack the town.

To start, the town kinda hit us. As soon as we walked outside we were blown away and a little freaked out by just how many people we saw. Madrid is definitely a big city, but with Covid and all we weren't expecting to be smacked in the face with a city as if there wasn't an ongoing global pandemic.

The plan for the evening was to wander around and stumble upon a few places, first on the list was a place for tapas. Then a place for dinner. Then a place for drinks. After the first shock of how many people were there, we eventually got through the thick of it and things calmed down once we got off the crazy massive main drag and wandered over to the Chueca neighborhood.

Jeffrey!!! Look at this shop full of Hotwheels!!!

It was a pretty chill neighborhood, with an increasing number of cool little shops, cafes, restaurants and such. The hunger level was rising, and then Zack spontaneously bolted to the side of the street and snagged some pizza from a trendy pizza spot. Since my mind was set on the plan of tapas and I was hungry, that kinda just made me hangry. I thought we were searching for a place together, but he split and did his own thing in between.

Nothing like a little anger and frustration to aid the food search. We kept on wandering around, neither of us fully convinced on any of the places we crossed by. But eventually we entered into a little square with a couple places nearby, and settled on a cool little bar. Jumped in, got a table, and we were underway.

The friendly dude there and the immediate delivery of some olives helped lighten the mood and get the night back on track. That was followed up by some beers and a cheese plate. The cheeses were a little muted, but the combo was still a great starting point for the night.

That round of hors d'oeuvres got us back in the game. While we snacked and sipped, we debated what our next plan was. After finishing things up there, we paid and took the long walk to the bar right next door for our next drink. It was a super trendy little hole-in-the-wall, but had quite the crowd for a really quaint spot. We both got some craft beer and sat at our little table drinking, chatting, and watching all the Madridians go about their trendy little conversations.

From there we were back on the wandering path and more earnestly on the hunt for some food. After walking up and down a good few streets in the neighborhood, we came up pretty empty-handed. Not to be defeated, we re-aligned our sights and headed back to a Mercado I'd spotted earlier on. Time to go to town.

We made our way to the top floor and found a good slew of little food stalls. I was still in my seafood mood, so I geared up to go big. There was a place with a whole slew of seafood options, but more importantly, a whole row of little seafood tapas. I picked out a few and met Zack back at a table. Hot damn were they delicious. The herring with avocado and herring with dijon were my favorites.

Again, Mercados are such a fantastic concept... After that place, beers and food were filling our bellies, we were satisfied, and ready to move on down to whatever came next. From there, we wandered down another main drag for a minute then over to another bar Zack wanted to go to - the Hemingway bar. We walked in, but learned that their week starts on Wednesdays (and we were there on a Tuesday). Bummer, for Zack.

It was late-ish, so from there we opted to start making our way back to the hotel. But along the way, we stumbled upon a place that looked pretty in line with our type - muted lighting, quiet, old-ish looking, and a super cool vibe, so we popped in for a little night cap. The guy at the bar said we had to go downstairs for space, and the guy downstairs was short, straight, and to the point in giving us a hurried spot to sit.

While taking a look at the menu, I noticed a name I'd first crossed paths with durring my tasting at Bunnahabhain - Pedro Ximenez. Didn't know much about it other than pure name recognition, but knew that was what I had to get.

Turns out we'd entered a sherry bar. Not what we expected, but we were there and in for it. Despite that, we both got and sipped on our sweet liquor with the nuts the guy threw our way. As we were sitting there, we definitely felt like there was a lot of history through the basement and bottle vibe we were immersed in. And the guy behind the bar was keeping track of the tabs with chalk on the bar, old school cool right there.

Although the PX Sherry was pretty good, it was overall more sweet than what I was feeling. So after we finished our glasses we continued on our merry way. And as luck would have it, not three doors down, Zack spotted a craft beer shop. We are not legally allowed to pass up on such an establishment. Trust me, it's written law. Not wanting to break our law-abiding history, we jump in.

No joke, an ACTUAL craft beer selection. I'm so fucking deprived of that in Germany, so it was an absolutely refreshing sight to see. I snagged a Pale Ale and Zack got an Amber. Unfortunately, they were both a little flat and lacking in taste. But the place was a local brewery, so at least we had that going for us. Despite the lackluster result, we enjoyed the beers and the cool vibe, finished our elixirs, and then it was off to bed for the night.

Day 13 - Madrid, Expedited Exploration

This was (unfortunately) our only full day in Madrid, so our plan was to enjoy it as best we could. We started with a relaxing get-up for the morning, and soon enough we were out on the sunny morning streets and wandering around. Our first stop for the day was the first cool coffee shop we could find, and that landed us on a super trendy spot.

It was a one-woman show in the front and a full bakery in the back, so we snagged some pretty good coffee and a delicious snack and posted up for some breakfast, java, and good chats to start the morning off right. With our goodies we sat, sipped, and snacked to get the morning started off right.

Zack's always been good at providing random things to talk about, and that includes lots of fun hypothetical questions or "What If..." scenarios. This time the scenario was -- You are given the resources to setup and start a coffee shop, but it all has to be based off of a theme, with all of the menu itmes named or created based off of that theme. What would that theme be?

Zack's Theme: Fake Art Movement. Come up with random names and designs for fictitious art movements and motifs of years past and see how many hipsters will act like they know what they're talking about even though it's never existed.

Nial's Theme: One-hit Engineering/Industry Wonders. It's kinda based off of the Falkirk wheel (the world's only rotating boat lift/elevator), but all items would be based off of impressive engineering marvels that are the only ones of their kind throughout the world. The Falkirk Wheel is the only such example I could/can think of, but not gonna lie, kinda really jazzed about that theme.

With breakfast in our bellies, we were out on the town. There was still a little bit of time til Zack's Covid test (so he could fly home...), so we took a leisurely walk over that direction. The morning was still low key (Madrid seems to be a late-start kinda place), so we strolled the quiet streets and ended up at the test center.

After he came out from the test center, it was pretty funny to hear how chaotic the place seemed to be. It matched totally well with his previous recountings of his encounters of other complete Spanish discombobulation, so it was hilarious to hear. He ended up testing negative (YAY!), and while he was in there I was able to keep reading my book from José Saramago on the quiet morning big city street. Not a bad way to start the day.

Now ready to continue with our exploration for the day with a little more peace of mind in place, we crossed the street and walked around a massive and beautiful park (Parque de El Retiro). It was shaping up to be a beautiful, sunny day, so the blue skies went really well with the green trees and brown trees and blueish/green water in the big pond. We had some good chats going as we walked through the park, around the pool, checked out a massive monument (not sure to what), entered a really unique pavilion with a bunch of random wooden sculptures and pieces of art, then rounded out through the park and crossed paths with a bunch of green parakeets.

After our loop around and through the park, Zack suggested we head over to the Reina Sofia. It was pretty nearby, and he was itching to see some more Picasso. I've never been a big fine art buff, but hard to pass up the opportunity to see something so renowned, so we strolled through the sunny streets and made our way over. There was a massive line waiting to get into the museum, but those were just to get tickets. Thankfully, they had an option to get tickets online, so I jumped online, got our tickets, and we were in and ready to appreciate the finer things of art.

Once we got in and I got my bag checked, we headed straight up to the area with Guernica by Picasso. First though, we went through a couple different areas, and I quickly got yelled at for taking pictures. Sooooorrrryyyyyyy. But then we wandered into the room with Guernica and damn. That was a pretty incredible piece of art. Massive, distinct, and really something worth seeing.

After taking in Guernica for a good long while (it's a massive piece, so it requires some time), we continued perusing the various rooms and exhibits on the floor. Nearby were a few interesting pieces from WWII timeframe (always disturbing to see a fucking swastika, regardless of where), and then a few pieces from Salvador Dali mixed in. Again, I'm no art buff, but Dali's works are really cool. For me, the incredible detail and resolution is really appealing.

There were a couple more areas thoughout the museum that we walked around, admired, and explored, but after a while we wrapped up our meandering and were back out on the streets of Madrid. Around that time our stomachs were demanding some attention, so we put food as the next option. Right around the corner was a burrito shop, so we bee-lined it there. Yet again though, we were disappointed. Google said it was open, but the shutters on the door said otherwise. DAMNIT.

Upset and still hungry, we continued our search for food. Eventually, from wandering the streets and our hunt, we stumbled upon yet another mercado. Hell yeah. We dove right in and went to town. First, we walked around the first level, admiring the huge variety of food and goods, and then stopped at a booth at the end to start off with some empanadas and a beer. Killer way to start things off.

After wrapping up our appetizer, we headed up to the second floor for a lap around the offerings, and then decided on a little restaurant right across the walkway from a produce stand. There were some available tables on the walkway, we snagged one, and in short order the waiter was out to help.

It wasn't before too long when our glasses of wine arrived to accompany our rounds of tapas. It was the perfect little lunch spot to grab some sustenance, good wine, and watch the activity of the mercado halls and the produce stand right across the way. The waiter and waitress were super friendly, and gave us some good tips on some really good grub.

Satiated, we paid up and headed back to adventuring through town. From that neighborhood, we wandered around over to the main part of town and down a pretty big main drag. Zack had eyes on the post office, so we asked around a couple places and eventually entered the correct place. I sat and waited as Zack got in 'line' to get some stamps, but after a while he just came back pretty peeved and we left. Again, Spanish customer service completely failing the customer. Kinda weird.

One of the many recommendations Zack got from some of his coworkers and friends was a rooftop bar there in Madrid. And, as luck would have it, it was right near the post office! So we headed over, and had to pay an entrance just to get to the bar, but soon enough, despite the really rude service, we had a table up on the roof overlooking Madrid. Bit of a battle, but we eventually had a couple of glasses of sangria with our names on them to enjoy.

The sangria was pretty good and it was awesome to have a great view of town while we chatted and sipped our drinks. But the service was pretty rude, so our spite grew. We kinda became the drunk Americans as they tried to explain to us why we couldn't order coffee, which honestly didn't make any sense.

Once we were done, we exuded our spite by paying and then loitering about on the patio. It really was a great view over town, and it was awesome to get a view of just how massive Madrid is. Really went on for quite the ways. But we loitered, took some pictures, made some jokes about the jerks up there, and took our time enjoying the views of the city.

From there, we started a slow trek back to the hotel. The path took us through some more side streets and cool neighborhoods and alleys, and was a relaxing stroll. Eventually, we got to a bit of a restaurant district, and Zack pointed out the bar that he got kicked out of over a decade ago. He was quite the proud little Eagle Scout. :-)

Continuing on, we stumbled upon a bottle shop and got some great recommendations from Sean. Again, for me, so much craft beer in one spot made me elated. Sean had just moved back from Britain back to Madrid, and was able to share some good insight on some good beers from the local area, and even gave us a tip about a craft beer bar in the neighborhood. After that, we made it back to the hotel and took a little break to hang out and rest for a bit. Nothing like hanging out on a bed and just chilling after a full day of walking and exploring. As always, it was a nice break.

Once dinner time came around, we were back on the move, and our first stop was the bar recommendation from Sean. Soon enough, we'd made it over there and were sipping on some local brews at Chinaski. Round one and the snacks were good, and then on round two I discovered they had a Black IPA!!!!! HOLY SHIT. Such a rare but absolutely delicious blend, and it lived up to the bill for sure.

With some great beers to get us kick started for the night, we continued on down the slightly rainy roadway and headed down to another recommendation from Zack's crew. It ended up being a bit of a hole in the wall, but the folks there were super friendly, welcoming, and got us squared away at a tiny table in a jiffy.

We were a good bit hungry, and their menu was looking pretty good, so we spontaneously went all in. The concept of tapas is such a beautiful thing - a bunch of smaller dishes so you not only get to share things family style, but try a ton of different things. We did just that. We each got a couple that looked good and we had a lay of the land on the table to enjoy. So damn good. And to add to it, our table was next to the kitchen, and they had a full Iberian ham leg on the carving block ready to go. Swanky deliciousness.

We bit off a little more than we could chew there, but the food was delicious and we polished off nearly everything. I even came out with a task for the year to make the sauce that was on the patatas bravas, a sort of orange pepper sauce. Looking forward to that adventure. Grub in our tummies, we were back onto the street and headed off to Zack's target.

The journey took us on a mix of wandering through the main drags and back streets, but we eventually made our way back over to the area with the rooftop bar. As we were strolling up, we saw a pretty massive glob of commotion and color and weren't sure what the heck was going on. As it turns out, we'd stumbled upon a pretty decent size parade going right through downtown (and who knows how much of the whole town the route was weaving through). Well, at Chinaski the bartender mentioned it, but that night was the Three Kings holiday, and apparently it's a big enough deal for a parade!

Curious, we wandered over to the hubbub to watch and find out what was going on. Despite the rain, there was a good crowd mulling about and I started climbing around to get a better view. Turns out, climbing up a lamp post with a little fence right next to it can get you to a great lookout!

There was quite the bit of action going on, and the parade looked to be quite the big deal. We wandered around the crowd for a bit, got a couple more glimpses of the procession through the throngs of people, but soon enough we were kinda over it (and the rain), and opted to continue on. Next Stop - the Hemingway Bar.

Zack was once again super pumped about this place. One reason because it was named after (and apparently frequented by) Earnest Hemingway. But to be honest, I think the reason he liked it most was due to the 'secret entrance' of the place. It was inside a pretty swanky looking white-walled restaurant, and after we asked about the Hemingway Bar, we were escorted to the restrooms. But the farthest door on the opposite side of the restrooms doors was the entrance to the bar. Needless to say, Zack was all kinds of enthralled.

Turns out it was a pretty cush little bar down there. Very dark lighting, bunch of plush benches and a bit of a retro vibe. Turns out this place wasn't cheap though. After taking a look at the menu, we snagged a cocktail each and lounged back on the cushy couch for some muffled conversation to act like we were in some kinda secret hideout.

Unfortunately, I wasn't really feeling the place. Mostly because the music just didn't match the vibe of the place. They were playing some kind of obscure 80's pop/upbeat mix, and the vibe was super muted, low-key, and chill. That was weird to me. But the visual aspect of the place was pretty cool. With our schnazzy cocktails in hand, Zack came up with a plethora of hyptotheticals as to why Hemingway might've been a frequentor of that unique establishment, and we schmoozed and boozed in that schnazzy little spot.

With empty glasses we made our way out and were off to continue wandering. It started to take the direction back towards the hotel, but along the way we stumbled upon another lively looking establishment with a bunch of shit on the walls, a soccer game on, and a weird name (the Aunt Onion). Feeling good, feeling lively, and not ready to call it a night (and quasi a trip...) we popped in and had beers on the way.

We were both in quite the good (and slightly drunk) mood. Lots of laughs, a few pictures, funny wait staff, and generaly tomfoolery abound. That was our last night together on the trip, but we were making the most of the fun and the time together out in Madrid.

Soon enough, our glasses somehow became empty. Bummer. But we were still laughing as we walked back to the hotel, lazily got a bit of packing done and prep for the morning, and then crashed.

Day 14 - Adios Zack, Homeward Bound

With Zack's departure out of Madrid, and his previous chaotic experience with Spanish airports and every other service, he was adamant he get to the airport with a shitton of time to spare for buffer. That meant an early rise and hit to the road.

We got all cleaned and packed up, headed to the car, and were off. It was an absolute maze getting out of downtown Madrid, but we somehow made it through. The car ride to the airport was a bit quiet, but needless to say, I was really sad to see my adventure buddy, resident historian, and best friend leave.

Zack had plenty of time to spare and to make sure his departure didn't get screwed up due to incompetent/disordered procedures, but dropping him off at the airport was a bummer. Another incredible trip with an incredible friend was in the wraps, and this Well Oiled Machine was done with yet another great tour. After some hugs and goodbyes, Zack was off to fly back to CA, and I was off to motor on back up to Germany.

It was still dark out, and I motored on through the fairly barren landscapes of Spain as the sun slowly came up over the horizon. As more and more daylight came to be, I got to see more and more of the beautiful landscapes that were hanging around. The cream of the crop was being able to see the Pyrenees from the highway with a fresh dusting of snow way off in the distance in the crisp blue skies.

Really gorgeous countryside throughout the whole drive. It started out pretty flat and deserty with some gorgeous mountains in the distance (kinda like East Texas, except with mountains), then it morphed into some gorgeous red rock canyons and hills and ridges. Really pretty stuff. After a good few hours cruising along, the map had me jump off the highway and start heading north towards the Pyrnees. Mountains, here we come!

Pretty soon I'd noticed that I'd entered into a bit of a different region. The street signs were no longer purely spanish and things seemed a little curious. But soon enough, I put 2 and 2 together - I'd entered Catalonia! Signs of "Independencia" were written on sporadic overpasses, and it was cool to know I'd entered a region with a pretty notable independence movement.

The road kept getting more and more into the mountains as the horizon rose ahead of me. Where was I headed? Well, rather than taking a straight shot home, I opted to hit up another one of the micro-states here in Europe - Andorra! It's tucked right in the heart of the Pyrenees, and it was kinda on my way home, so I had to stop through and check it out!

Eventually I worked my way up into the mountains and crossed into the tiny country. I was immediately a bit confused, as I had no fucking clue what language was in play here. Wasn't French, wasn't Spanish, not English, and nothing I could try and piece or parse together through the weird amalgamation of language. Kinda seemed like a mixture of everything from the trip.

The road weaved its way through the tiny country and every half mile was a gas station. As I'd learn, Andorra is a bit of a duty-free haven for Europe. Gas was dirt cheap and it seemed to be a shopping hub for people to pop in, grab some stuff, and pop out after saving a ton of money by doing so. I followed the signs (to what I thought was the main town/capitol) and eventually rolled into town.

After pulling off the main highway, I cruised through the fairly quiet streets and found a place I could park for free. After the good few hours of driving, I was ready for a little break to stretch my legs and get some walking and exploring in. The sun was out, sky super blue, and the fresh mountain temperatures lent itself to a good little walkabout through town.

From the car, I wandered down the street to the river and followed that for a bit. The sun was really bright, but the warmth was really nice to go with the fresh mountain air. I wandered along with the water, taking me to another side of town, and continued to meander.

Utilizing one of my favorite travel hacks, I found a hotel to sneak into and use the bathroom before continuing on. Seriously, such a great trick. The streets and sidewalks were all pretty darn quiet, likely because of the holiday (I think). But I continued on to the other side of town. There was some interesting artwork, a cool super-tall Pyramid cone building, and a really interesting lay of the land. As the country is purely tucked in the mountains, the town was layering both sides of the mountainous valley. Not gonna lie, I don't think there's a naturally-flat patch of grand within Andorra's borders.

After I looped back around and headed back toward the other side of town, I found a nice bench in the sunlight right above the river to stop and take a load off. I had some bread, chorizo, cheese, and snacks with me, and it was a perfect time and place to snack on some lunch. There was a hoard of pigeons that caught on to my gig really quick, but I kept them well enough at bay to enjoy my food in peace in the warm and bright sun.

Satisfied, the wandering continued. But first I threw a few crumbs to the pigeons to get them off my tail. The walk continued along the river and eventually made it down to a Salvador Dali installation - The Nobility of Time. Quite the interesting piece of art. I admired it for a while, getting some pictures amidst the other onlookers. From there, I was wondering what else I could explore in the tiny country, and the next item on the list was a bit up the road. Back to Rupert and off we go!

The Moorish Tower was in a different little town a few minutes up the road, and thankfully I had google maps going, because it was really tucked in there. The streets once you get off the highway are insanely tight, twisty, and barely wide enough for a car between the homes. It got tight in a few spots, but thankfully me and Rupert are pros and found our way to the parking lot with relative ease. Parked, and off we went to explore another historical relic in the hills.

It was a short stroll between some old stone homes on the hill and a quick jaunt uphill to get to the tower. Weirdly enough though, as soon as I was up there at the tower, and at the stone church/building next to it, there was absolutely zero information or text, other than the names of the structures. No historical info, no "this thing is X-hundred years old", nothing. That really irked me, as there has to be something important, relevant, historical, significant about those places, but the unaware visitor such as myself has no chance to inform themselves onsite. Weird and annoying.

Despite that, I wandered up the stairs up the tower to take a look at the tower and the view from above. With such a clear and sunny day, it was a great spot to take it all in. After coming down from the tower, I wandered over to the church/building nearby, but without any historical information to highlight its history or significance, I didn't have a lot to learn or explore. Despite the disappointment, a cool stop above town and from there on I continued along my way.

After weaving my way back through the really tight alleyways, I found myself back to the highway running through the country. Since gas was so damn cheap, I stopped to top off my tank before continuing on. The road kept gaining more and more elevation as we drove on, and soon enough we were right in the thick of some snowy mountains on a blue bird day. It was absolutely gorgeous out.

At some point I saw a sign for a tunnel, but there was a road that split off of it. Not really knowing where I was or what I was deciding, I decided to take the road, and I'm damn glad I did. Turns out the tunnel was a toll tunnel to go under the pass, and the road was a switchbacky snake going up and over the pass. Hot damn a good gut call. The road was all kinds of wavy as we worked our way up the pass and eventually made it up to the saddle at 2408m / 7900ft.

It was absolutely gorgeous out and I needed another break to take it all in. At the top of the saddle was a gas station, restaurant, and a mini town, so I pulled off, found a place to park, grabbed my camera, and ventured up onto the snow. What a beautiful sight looking in both directions - back down the valley I'd just come up, and up the valley I was about to head down. There were skiers going down both sides of the hill, sledders enjoying themselves on the spot near the road, snowmobilers blasting up the hill opposite the skihill, and a couple even asked me if I was a professional photographer so I could take their picture (did so with their phone, they were a little disappointed). But what a beautiful spot with warm sunlight, blue skies, and crisp mountain air.

I made sure to bundle up before I left the car so I could take as much time as I wanted at the top. Despite that, it was pretty darn cold and a tad windy. I wandered around a bit through the snow, admired the great views down each side of the pass, watched the mountain crawling with skiers and boarders in the shade, but soon enough was back at the car to warm back up.

Throughout the whole time, I had the feeling that I should really jump out and adventure, do something active and involved, but was kinda unmotivated and didn't give myself the jump start to do anything extravagant. I was on a road trip with stops abound as they came about, but no adventurous plans in the mix. In a way, I kinda felt like I was wasting the opportunity on the way home to explore new tracts of land, but I was also getting to the point of just wanting to be home and get some rest before the holidays were over. Fear not though, I was in good spirits. The views were insane and I was enjoying the journey. Regardless of how adventurous I felt!

In the car at the top of the pass, it was time to head down the pass. The curviness of the road didn't let up, and eventually it started winding down. I didn't get far before I had to stop to pull off again and enjoy the view. Such drastic mountains on such a clear day, it's hard to keep your eyes off it all...

Down and down we kept going, and eventually we entered a pretty massive town (Pas de la Casa) cleft into the side of the mountain. It had billboards all over the place, and honestly lived the impression of Andorra being a duty-free haven. It was right around ápres ski time, so there were skiers and boarders all over the place heading to the bar of their choice. I just kinda cruised right through, and didn't even realize that I'd crossed into France at the other end of town.

Motoring on down the road, I knew there was a bit of a fork in the road coming up to start the venture out of the Pyrenees, but I wasn't sure which fork I was supposed to take. Naturally, I didn't have any reception at the top, so I picked one (right) and drove down to another pull out. The advantage of the pullout was again, that it was gorgeous. I mean, I'm in the mountains, hard for it not to be. But after fiddling with the phone and eventually getting a map downloaded, it looked like I was on the right track to keep motoring on.

Not sure how I stumbled upon the totally right track, but from that little pullout all the way down to the main highway (working out of the Pyrenees range) was an absolute treat. It was a long stretch downhill, but it was an absolute gorgeous, mountainous, curvy drive. I'm not sure what I was listening to, but I was in the total drive zone, enjoying the roadway, the views, the solitude, and the scenery. And to boot, it was an absolutely beautiful stretch of roadway.

Slowly but surely, the sun started saying goodbye to the day. Around that time, I'd made it down off of the mountain roadway, and was nearing the town of Perpignan. By the time darkness hit, I was back on the highway and essentially in a lets-jet-home kinda mood. I still had a good long stretch of roadway ahead of me, and eventually convinced myself to pull off at a rest stop and hit the sack. I knew it was gonna be a cold night, so I bundled up with my sleeping bag over me in the driver's seat and knocked out for a little shut-eye.

Day 15 - Motoring on Home

No idea how the hell that happened, but cramped into the driver's seat, with my mummy bag all over me, the steering wheel cramping my space, and the temps pretty nippy, I got a full 10 hrs of sleep in Rupert. Hot damn, I was all kinds of jazzed about that! Once I was awake, I jumped into the gas station to hit the loo, grab some food, and a good bit before the sun came back to say hi, I was back on the roadway making my way back home.

All that sleep must've really put me in the driving mood, because I just found a zone and started cruising. The weather in the morning was gorgeous through Montpellier, Nîmes, Valence, and eventually up through Lyon. But as soon as I got a little further from Lyon, the weather started getting wintery and snow was a'comin down. No worries for Rupert and his winter slicks, so we kept chewing down the kilometers (that just sounds so much worse than chewing down the miles...), and before we knew it, we'd made it to Dole for a gas break.

I found a decent Fred Meyer type place off the highway (price gouging is an absolutely real thing with freeway gas stations in Europe. Sheesh) and filled up the tank, then hopped into the giant grocery store to stock up on some goodies. All in all, I only ended up with a bottle of wine and some general snacks, but it was a nice little break to stretch my legs and get some walking in. Then, getting back out to the car, the snowy wonderland that was taking over the area took over Rupert. Look at that pretty little dusting on that sweet little ride...

Back in the car, back to the highway, and back towards home, now with the final stretch. Before we left France, the snow had calmed down and it just became a bit of a grey and moody day. Then, as soon as I got back into Germany - fucking traffic. No real highway parking lots or anything, but I'd just spent the whole day cruising on relaxed, fairly empty highways. But as soon as I was back in Germany the roads were packed. I guess there are some benefits to tollways.

After long last, there was a wonderful name that I saw on the traffic signs. Karlsruhe was coming up. And after long last, lots of driving, and one helluva trip with my best friend, I was back home.

This trip was a little quicker to unpack from than Scotland, and soon enough I had all my stuff up in the apartment and could begin the dust-settling process. Earlier I was hemming and hawwing about taking advantage of the return journey, but once I was home I was pretty happy to be home, and still have a couple days to relax, get back in the groove, and take it easy before having to start back up at work.

That said, what a helluva trip. Nothing like adventuring again with my main man Zack, and through such a beautiful country and peninsula, it was a wonderful little trip.

Good, Bad, Different

Continuing on with the wonderful tradition I gained through the experiences in my CBYX years, here is another installment of Good, Bad, Different! This is the part of the story where I categorize (comically, against the teachings of my exchange program cultural training) all of the things that I noticed and what stood out being in an environment foreign to me. With that, here goes!

Good

• Technologically with-it as a country. Credit cards, apps, seem to be up with the times, which is un-fucking-believably refreshing
• English proficiency is very high
• There are tons of runners. Everywhere. We were pretty astounded how they were all over the streets wherever we went
• Wine glasses are filled AT LEAST half way. At least. If not damn near full. Now that's a wrinkle I can get behind...
• Jaywalkers. People are not shy about jaywalking and I love that it’s a thing
• Actual nighttime stars are visible from Lisbon and cities. Crazy!!!
• May be just a one-off example, but there was a sign language translation during a newscast. How cool!

Bad

• Hostels thus far (up until Lisbon). Zero shits about Covid. Seems a little surprising.... (Might just be a hostel thing)
• Lots of dog shit on the sidewalks... Is picking up after your pets not a thing?
• Stray cats and stray dogs are pretty common. Is this a bad or a different?
• Nickeling and dimeing is everywhere with everything. Road toll? Only 0.45€ here but 2km down the road it'll be another 0.45€.

Different

• Gender of the Portuguese language is based on who is saying it vs who is the content of the speech (obrigadO (thank you) when said by men, obrigadA when said by women)
• Portuguese can sound like Spanish or Russian, depending on who’s talking... and when it’s Russian it really sounds like Russian. (we're not crazy here, this was confirmed by a few people and all over the country)
• So many cobblestones. People peg Central Europe for nothing but cobblestone streets, but (at least Porto) takes the cake
• Lots of little mini-cafeteria type shops, similar to what we saw in Cuba
• This is a right-hand traffic country, but trains and metros aren’t (as in when going forward, the vehicle is on the left side of the roadway or set of tracks). Not sure how that makes sense
• Olympic Rings are used as a general sign for sports, not for the Olympics

A New Kind of Summary

During our delicious dinner in Tomar, Zack and I got onto the topic of my blog and my struggles of what I want to do with this thing. He came up with an incredible idea - what about reframing it?

The conversation stems from me feeling unsure of how or if I want to move forward with the blog. The fact that it takes me months to get one post done, with all of the writing, processing pictures, proofreading, etc, it's a lot of work and eats up a lot of the space in my mind - it's a task that just hangs over my head until it's done. Trying to see if I can find a balance of still keeping this going, but making it a more manageable (less-painstaking) task, is the goal.

This is where Zack threw out a great idea. Why not just synthesize everything down to just a few questions? Pick 10 questions, and just answer those. Doesn't matter what they are, but boil it down to things that would be impactful, insightful, memorable, and whatever else. Rather than taking months to write a novel, why not just try and hit on the key points and experiences from things? Love that idea.

But, since this novel is already done, I'm gonna use this as a chance to put the initial draft of what questions I'll use for this format. Here's what I've got so far:

1. What was Good? Bad? Different?
2. What was the the best Food? Drink?
3. Describe the most memorable situation/interaction with a local
4. What was the most frustrating experience?
5. TBD
6. TBD
7. TBD
8. TBD
9. TBD
10. TBD

It's still an idea in motion, but I'm looking forward to putting it into play!

Greetings from the Peanut Gallery

Take It Slower

One thing that was going through my mind through the trip was how each place we went to, we could've easily spent another 2-3 days in. The nature of our trip, since we had a limited time frame and a ticking clock with Zack's flight out of Madrid, was pretty quick and fast paced. We were very cognizant of the limited time available to us, and wanted to make sure we were able to see and do a bunch with the time that was available to us.

We've always been able to do that, and in the past it had never been a big deal or as noticable to me. But for some reason, this trip felt more fast paced than usual. Actually in the moment, all was well. But as soon as we got to Ericeira, and were having coffee on the boardwalk above the water, I realized that we hadn't had much time to slow down and just vibe. That was such a relaxing and chill moment, and I'm sure the ocean had a big deal to play in that. But sitting there, taking it in, not rushing, and just relaxing to the day, that was such a dream.

As I said though, each place we went, we could've easily extended for a few days more. Porto was a big city, tons of stuff to do and see, and so much more to explore than what we saw. Nazaré and/or Ericeira would've been great places to just post up for a couple days, live with the waves and just take it slow. Lisbon and Madrid were also both massive, with more to offer than what we scratched the surface with. And no joke on Lisbon, it's on my radar to fly back for a weekend and just take pictures of the tram tracks going through town, those were so picturesque.

All that to say, looking back on the trip, only thing I would've done differently is maybe slow it down a bit in parts to just breathe in the Portuguese air a little deeper. That said, no crisis here, and the trip was an absolute blast. Just means I'll have to head down again sometime soon for Round 2 of all those wonderful places we stopped in!

Share My Wants vs. Leave it Open Ended

Going back to the spat Zack and I had in Lisbon before the sunset, his feedback has been mulling around in my head a good bit, interacting with other experiences and feedback I've gotten from other folks in the past. Unfortunately, this isn't a one-size-fits-all kinda situation, but really gets into the nitty gritty of relationships, situations, and reactions.

The more I think about it, the more it really does come down to a situational, or really person-by-person basis. We humans are all so intricately different, there's no way to put it all under a single process to make it work every time.

So for some people, I'm going to have to be more forthright. If I ask a question, looking for preference or consensus, I should share my thoughts (aka bias or preference) before coming into it. That way, others will know what I'm thinking and can critique it equally as I will critique theirs. Fair and square, all out in the open. For other people though (maybe in bigger groups? Maybe specific people?), I should do the opposite and hold off on sharing my opinion and give others the chance to share theirs first, internalize it, then see where my idea fits in (if at all).

A big reason that I tend to harbor my opinions until last is to prevent a bias or impact on other's opinions. If I ask a question, I geniuinely want to know the answer. My feeling is that, if I give out a question seeking an opinion, and then immediately share my opinion right after asking, that could have an impact on the response to the original question. That doesn't seem fair to me, as it hampers the open discussion of what's at hand.

If you can't tell, that interaction at sunset has kinda gotten under my skin, and I haven't been able to sift through it adequately to clarify where my head's at on it. Regardless of how it shapes out or how I wrap my head around it, a little more flexibility, recognizing my crowd, and understanding how people tick, will go a long way.

Europe Travel Resolutions for 2022

Right around the day or two that I got back from the drive, my dearest Mommy forwarded me a lovely article from Rick Steves. We've ALL been struggle-bussing through this goddamn pandemic in our own ways. It's closed doors, limited mobility, and reduced our lives to the point where'd we'd do close to anything to be back to the old normal, pre-Covid. For me and a lot of other people, the reduction in travel opportunities has been a huge pain.

Well, 2022 is shaping up to be a little bit more optimisitc of a year than the last two. With that cautious excitement, the travel bug is biting again, and before the world gets out adventuring again, Rick Steves had some pretty prescient points to share. Kind of a bummer, as it's only focused on Europe, but the points he makes in here are valid for travel throughout the world.

Travel Resolutions for 2022

With this new year, I hope you're able to get out and back to exploring! No, Covid isn't gone, and won't be for a while. But take the necessary actions to stay safe and healthy, and get on back out there exploring the world :-)

Next Up

A bit rare these days, but blog-life is only about a month and a half behind real-life! Not a bad way to go. With that, I'll talk about real-life stuff that's next up to stay on the same page.

This weekend has been all kinds of lazy. Horizon Forbidden West just came out and let's just say I'm glad I worked from home on Friday. So a lazy weekend now, but the next few are likely to be anything but!

To start, a buddy of mine is a teacher, and he's got a winter break next week. After riding back biking with him and another buddy in Heidelberg, he said he's road tripping down to Italy to go biking for a week. Fuck that sounds nice. Now, knowing I've got some days to burn, I'm figuring why don't I join? So I might be heading out this coming Thursday night and rolling into Finale Ligure sometime on Friday to get a few days of riding in. Nothing like a little coast, mountains, sun, and dirt to do a body good.

Then, the week after that, the plan is likely to fly out to Georgia. No, not Atlanta, but Batumi. A buddy from college has been bouncing around Eastern Europe since before Covid hit, and it's about time I fly out to catch up with him. That'll be another couple days off work, but the travel bug bit hard, and I'm trying to get back into the game as best I can.

Then then, to top it all off, work is sending me on a test trip. Coincidentally, the testing we'll be doing will be located in Portland and Madras, OR. Work's sending me home! WOOHOO!!! I'll be flying into Portland on March 25th, and flying out on May 5th. A full 5 weeks back home to do a lot of work, but I'll be squeezing out every bit of play during those weeks that I can! Don't you worry there.

So the next few weeks and months are going to be busy and packed, but full of movement and hopefully lots of fun. Looking forward to some adventure, and enjoying every bit of it!!!

Dates Covered in Post: December 23rd, 2021 -- January 7th, 2022
Original Publish Date: February 19th, 2022