Final Day in London - Eating

Today was our final day of our trip. We spent it in London.

The highlight was the Victoria and Albert Museum known to everyone here as the V&A. It has everything decorative that you could imagine. You could literally spend weeks in it. We spent our time looking at the Jewelry (Courtney / Ferris hope you have seen the collection it is amazing). We also went to the Quilt Exhibit.

Lots of shopping, nothing major, and wound up our trip with a fabulous meal at River Café. Crab Pasta, Lobster and Stinco (Roasted Veal) - What more could you want?. Tomorrow morning we fly back (volcano permitting) and greet our cats!

It has been a wonderful vacation. We have learned much and interacted with lots of different cultures.

It Ain't Mumbai, but it is good

We flew from Portugal to London where we are spending a couple of days. Today we didn’t do a lot because it took a long time to clear customs at Heathrow. The plane that landed just before us was from Pakistan, and as you can imagine the UK Customs was extra vigilant checking documentation. Interestingly behind us in the long line was a young man from Islamabad, Pakistan. It was his first trip to the UK and he is starting college here tomorrow. He was very worried about getting through passport control. We spent a lot of time talking to him and at the end I asked him if we were the first Americans he had ever met. He said yes. I am sure we left a good impression on him. I am sorry I didn’t exchange email addresses with him.

After checking into our hotel we darted to the Tate Modern which we had always wanted to visit. They have a huge photography show based upon hidden cameras. Now that everyone has a camera on their cell phone, there are lots of pictures of people being taken without their permission. It was a very interesting exhibit.

A journey across the Thames on the Millennium Pedestrian Bridge brought us to St. Paul’s Cathedral, the 2^nd biggest in the world. Rather then visit another church, we had a drink and looked through the bar window at it!

From there we went to Trishna, the London branch of our favorite Mumbai restaurant. It was good but NOT like being in Mumbai. We missed the Bombay Duck! (which is a fish).

Tomorrow is a day dedicated to shopping to in London!

Palaces and Parade

We started the driving to the hill top town of Sintra. This city near Lisbon is where the royalty and nobility of Portugal had summer palaces and homes. Brief history Portugal has been a country for 900 years. They have had LOTS of Kings, until the monarchy was overthrown in 1910. They then had a Fascist dictatorship now they have a democracy. So they had lots of time to build and rebuild their palaces. We spent a lot of time touring the summer palace of the king. The most interesting to most of us was the change in the style of the tiles that lined the walls of the rooms, over hundreds of years the tiles which originally were a Moorish (Arab) style became a Spanish Style and eventually Portugal developed their own style. The entire town is charming, in a touristy kind of way. It reminds me of a village in Switzerland.

We then drove back to Lisbon and walked around the shopping area before dinner. We didn’t know exactly what our dinner was, it was to be a surprise. It was!

We were driven to a real live working palace, a palace owned by The Marquis of Fronteria. He lives in the palace with his wife. He is childless and his nephew and his wife also live in the palace. When the current Marquis, dies the nephew will become the new Marquis and move into even a better part of the palace. You can see the beautiful gardens and the way we were served. After drinks on the terrace and a walk through the gardens, we were served dinner. We were the only guests. It is nice being served in a palace, but I miss our cats running over the table during dinner.

Over dinner we had an extremely interesting conversation with our Host Anna, who described the national mood to us and more of their history.

After dinner we were driven from the Palace back to the city for the much awaited, biggest craziness of the year. The partying for the Feast of St. Anthony closes down the city. They have a huge parade and lots of people wear green wigs. I was prepared for a wild and crazy time. All of the quarters of the city dress up in funny costumes (to me at least) and slowly walk down the street. An occasional applause is heard. Fado which sings of Soldad or melancholy is the national music of Portugal. Have you ever been to a melancholy parade? This is one! It is like the whole town is on Thorozene and is trying to convince itself it is having a wild time. I like all of the Portugese I have met. When we return to the states I want to learn even more about their history.

The Day of the Museums

Today was dedicated (mostly) to the artistic side of Lisbon. We started by visiting Ceramius, one of the most famous ceramic stores in Lisbon. Lisbon, if you don’t get it by now is MUITO GRANDE on tiles! They cover the insides and outsides of their homes, churches, palaces and buildings in tile.

We purchased a very modern set of tiles. When we get home and they arrive, we will have to figure out what wall to attach them to!

The Museum of Tile (loosely translated by me from the Portuguese) is in a converted convent. It is huge and has representative tiles from many different time periods. We liked the museum.

We then drove around Lisbon (Lisboa to the Portuguese – notice how I am going native). They have a quarter near the river where they had a giant expo in the late 90’s. Block after block is modern construction of office buildings, apartments, etc. There are lots of great buildings including a fantastic train station by the Spanish Architect and bridge builder Santiago Calatrava.

Every era has its great art collectors. JP Morgan, Frick in New York, California has JP Getty. Europe had several big ones, but Calouste Gulbenkian, was one of the biggest. This man was known as Mr. 5 Percent. He owned 5% of most of the oil coming out of the Mid-East. He was an Armenian financier born in Istanbul to an already rich family. He bought everything! When he died his collection wound up in Lisboa where he had been living. A fantastic museum was created to house his collection. So, if you are ever in Lisboa, this is the museum to visit. It even has Turkish tiles.

After the museum, a massage, then out for more Fado.

The city is getting ready for the biggest day and night of the year in Portugal which is tomorrow. The traffic near our hotel is impossible and tomorrow they party all night. What a great time to be here!

The Spanish word for "Retirement" is "Jubilacion"

A man came up to me today and said the Spanish word for “Retirement” is “Jubilacion”. I think that is great!

This was our first full day in Lisbon (Lisboa in Portuguese). This is a fabulous city. It is like San Francisco but even cuter. In the 1700’s it was completely destroyed by an earthquake, followed by a fire then a tsunami. It has been rebuilt and has loads of charm.

We have a fantastic guide and she is full of life and energy. She clearly loves her job and Portugal and revels in telling stories of the glory that once was this country. It only has recently emerged from its dictatorship and is hard hit by the worlds economic crisis. The spirit here is strong, and they are getting ready to celebrate the biggest day of their year, in 2 days. We can hardly wait. They will party all night for the St. Anthony their patron Saint!

We love the transportation, an amazing Vertical Elevator, Funiculars, quaint streetcars; cobble stone streets, hills, and bars and drinking everywhere. Many of the buildings have red tile roofs and colorful tile walls. It is really a beautiful city.

We visited many of the different quarters of the city and have a general feeling for Lisboa (as they say in Portuguese).

Although we saw much, the highlight for Cathy and me was going to hear Fado, the music of Portugal tonight. This music is sung in clubs without a microphone by a singer accompanied by 3 musicians playing Portuguese guitars. We went to have dinner at Fado club not knowing exactly what to expect. I was worried we were heading to a tourist trap. The manager of our hotel assured us it wasn’t and he goes there. The food was great and the music was wonderful. Four different singers sang, one who was a man. I didn’t know that men sang Fado. The music is often described as melancholy or sad, but it really isn’t. It is music of the longing of the heart. Even though we couldn’t understand the words, it made no difference. We understood. We were prepared to leave after the first singer (we didn’t know there were others to perform). The manager said he wouldn’t let us leave, we needed to stay and enjoy. We did! I suspect we will go to a different Fado club tomorrow night.

Bones: Lamb, Beef and Monk

It was raining when we left our hilltop fortress on Trujillo and headed for the city of Caceres to return out rental van. We had been there the previous day and I knew the streets were narrow and treacherous. The hotel provided us with a map of how to get to the rental car agency. The map was wrong and we could not find it.

Michael jumped out of the van to look for the address and soon he was lost to us. Cathy and Tamara jumped out of the van looking for Michael and soon I drove off in the rain not knowing where anyone was and not able to find the rental car agency. I circled the town about 6 times looking for the rental car agency but couldn’t find it. I figured all of the lost folks would find there way there. I wanted to hire a cab to lead me to the agency, but because it was raining no cabs were available. Eventually my phone rang and the voice said they would send a driver for me. The only location I knew to explain to them was the bull-fighting ring and we agreed to meet there. The driver showed up and guided me to the agency.

We all united there and transferred to a different van with a driver to take us to Lisbon.

It was like a magical transformation. Our guide, Miguel, regaled us with stories of the history and culture of Portugal. It is completely different from Spain. We learned about El Cid, the various Kings, Queens and Dictators and Dukes of Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula. It was a great education.

We then arrived at the medieval fortress city of Evora. We went to a real local, non-tourist restaurant for an amazing lunch of stews and soups. It was perfect (with the wine) for a rainy day lunch.

On to the strangest Church I have ever been in. Igreja de S. Francisco, is a gothic style church that would send chills down the spine of anyone who prays or visits it. The main cathedral has figures that are all suffering in the worst possible way. In the side chapel named the Capela Dos Ossos, there are the skulls, bones and bodies of countless thousands of dead monks covering every pillar, wall, etc. Above the entrance to the Capela in Portuguese is a sign that translates as: “WE BONES THAT ARE HERE, WE ARE WAITING FOR YOUR’S”. I get the point, but it is sort of morbid!

We drove on to Lisbon. It reminds us on first glance of San Francisco, if San Francisco wasn’t Victorian. We really feel at home here. We took the funicular train up to the top of the city where we walked by all kinds of Fado clubs, to dinner.

Tomorrow we explore the city, grateful that we are now in Lisbon.

Too Many Churches, Too Many Palaces

We met our guide to Trujillo who escorted us through our hilltop fortress. The cities big claim to fame is the Conquistador Pissarro and his 3 brothers all from Trujillo, discovered Peru, stole their gold, brought disease to the New World then had a falling out with their fellow Conquistadors killing each other. Pissarro made three trips to Peru, dying there, murdered by other Conquistadors.

We saw lots of Churches, Palaces, and stone buildings, till they all blended into one giant stone edifice in our mind. We then drove to the city of Caceres where unsurprisingly there were more Churches, Palaces and stone buildings.

All of a sudden we had a moment of self-awareness. We were sick of looking at Churches, Palaces and Stone Buildings. This area of Spain had finally wore us down. In fact, I am not sure why the Christians and Muslims fought over it for 700 years.

We contacted our tour operator and said: "on to Portugal, we are tired of Spain". Tomorrow, we will drive to Portugal if we can find our driver. I am supposed to drive to the City of Caceres to find him. The directions are drive to the Caceres, when you see a giant Horse then turn left. When you see a large Cross do a “U” turn and he will be waiting for us. There are a lot of Crosses in Caceres. This should be an adventure.

The Map Doesn't Help

We left our hotel in Cordoba and picked up a mini-van to continue our drive through Andalusia Spain. Andalusia, once again, is Southern Spain, continually fought over for hundreds of years by the Christians and the Moors. Although I am calling it Spain, at that time there was no country called Spain, just independent kingdoms and Caliphates – some Christian and for 700 years most Muslim.

Although we have very detailed maps of this region of Spain, they are of no use getting into or out of the cities. Inside the city walls the twisting streets are impossible to figure out. We had a GPS and it was no help either. To leave Cordoba, we stopped at a Gas Station and an older French speaking man, tried to explain it to us, then he jumped on his motorcycle, held up traffic for us and led us to the proper highway. It was very nice of him.

In other cities we randomly drove and eventually found our way to our destination. We were headed to Estremadora – a region of Andalusia seldom visited by tourists. It is famous however for its Ham that is made from pigs that are fed only black acorns.

The area is very desolate. Lots of agriculture, hilltop fortresses, built by the various invaders and defenders, lots of olive trees and grape vines. We were headed for the city of Merida. This was a major Roman Town and there are ruins all over the city. We concentrated on the Amphitheatre and the Roman Theater. As you can tell from the pictures, there are very few tourists in Estremadora. The Amphitheater held gladiator contests and chariot races (just like in the movies). The Roman Theater held plays. The theater is still used today and plays are staged in this ancient marble outdoor theater. It would be a treat to see something there.

From there (once we figured out how to drive out of town) we drove to Trujillo. This is a small hilltop village that has an surviving Muslim Fort. We will explore it tomorrow!