Loving Lisbon Day 3: Beautiful Belem

Belem is the apex of Lisbon history. Set on the river, it is yet another beautiful area with shops, historical buildings and most importantly, the Casa Pasteis de Belem.

The entrance to the museum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This is  where sailors began their voyages of discovery around the world. We started our day of discovery at the Maritime Museum, which is filled with models of every imaginable ship built to scale and a complete history of this seafaring nation. In discovering new lands in India and the Americas, Portugal built itself into the richest country in Europe.



The original monastery has been transformed into the Naval Museum

 

This museum is housed in the Monastary of St. Jeronimos, which is attached to the church. This amazing building was built by King Manuel in the early 1500s as a tribute to the sailors who would come to the original humble chapel to pray before setting off on their dangerous oversea adventures.

The church at the end of the monastery (museum) is awe inspiring, with motifs from the sea throughout. Inside we even found the tomb of Vasco de Gama, the courageous explorer who first rounded the Cape of Good Hope, discovering the first sea passage to India in 1497.

Although the monastery and church were spectacular, I couldn't get my mind off the most important part of Belem, the famous Casa Pasteis de Belem, where the famous custard tart pastel de nata originated. Although they sell this pastry throughout Portugal, the recipe here has been highly guarded, and people line up around the block to buy these tasty treats.

Across the highway along the river is the Monument to the Discoveries, built as a tribute to all the explorers who set off from this port. It beautifully captures the team effort that it took, as each explorer built on the discoveries of those who had gone before, and were dependent on the kings who financed their voyages and the soldiers who often took the new lands by force.



Loving Lisbon Day Two



We absolutely love our little apartment, first because it is nice and quiet and we get terrific sleeps, and second because of the location in the coolest part of Lisbon. We discovered today that we are right on the path leading up the hill to the Castelo St. Jorge. This was about a half mile walk up a narrow cobble road lined with funky shops and restaurants. We took many pictures of fascinating doors and windows along the way.

 

   

 The best part of the castle were the views, as we were able to see almost a 360 degree view of the city from the grounds and castle walls. The beginning of the castle was built in 600 B.C. during the Iron Age, now that is old! The main castle was built in the middle of the 11th century by the Moors, and was mainly a military post during that era. When Dom Alfonso Henriques conquered Lisbon in 1147, becoming the first king of Portugal, the castle was remodeled to become the home of the royal family.  When the Spanish conquered Portugal in 1580, the castle once again became a military stronghold.
















Leaving the castle, we enjoyed a leisurely stroll through the charming village surrounding the castle, stopping to enjoy the narrow cobble streets lined with picturesque homes. After only two days we are fully in love with this city and look forward to exploring it further!

Loving our Lives in Lisbon

Trolley cars run throughout the city

We decided to try something different for this vacation instead of running all over the country like crazy fools. Upon the advice of our friends Pam and Jim from Washington DC who are seasoned travellers, we decided to skip staying in expensive hotels and try renting directly from the owners of small condos through VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owners) for two weeks in Lisbon and two weeks in Porto in Portugal. We will see less of the country, but this will give us a much more relaxed vacation at half the price.

We finally arrived at our rented condo in Lisbon 24 hours after being dropped off at the airport in Vancouver. We were very grateful that everything had gone so smoothly, as by the time that we had waited in London for our connecting flight, caught the subway to Rossio, and after stumbling around the square in dazed circles, we finally asked someone in a restaurant if they could help us find our condo. To our surprise, rather than telling us where to go, one of the servers kindly walked us right to our door, even dragging one of our suitcases along for us.

When we finally found the condo, we were astounded to see the stairs that awaited us.  Gathering our last ounce of energy, we managed  to stagger up to our new home for the next two weeks. We were delighted to find a small but clean and cozy condo with everything we need, including a washer and dryer combo!

Yikes!

Our hostess Sofia even walked with me to the closest restaurant, took care of ordering, and waited with me for 20 minutes as they prepared our dinner. By now, it was 11:00 at night, and we were exhausted but so thankful for the kindness of our new Portugese friends.

A view of our new home from the rooftop restaurant next door. We're in the bottom door on the right.

Our first day in Portugal started off slowly, as we allowed our jet lagged bodies to get caught up on our sleep. After shopping at the grocery store at the bottom of the stairs, Bryce cooked me a delicious cheese omelette, and we set off to explore the city.

Oh boy, more stairs!

Lisbon is known as the city of hills, and they are everywhere. Many streets are pedestrians only, which means that they can link one to the other with, yes you guessed it, stairs!

Lisbon is situated at the mouth of the Tagus River, the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula, which includes Portugal and Spain. This creates a beautiful backdrop for the Praco do Comercio (the Square of Commerce), a lovely shopping area with lovely sidewalk cafes  that stretch from the river to the square in the centre of Rossio, the beautiful area of the city that we are staying in.

The entry into the river plaza is through the Arco da Rua Augusta, which was rebuilt in 1873 after the earthquake of 1755 destroyed most of the town. The arch was designed to celebrate the bronze statue of  King Jose 1, built in 1775.

Bronze statue of King Jose 1

Brycey framed by the Arco da Rua Augusta
 

After enjoying lunch in one of the lovely sidewalk cafes, we wandered and shopped along the mall for a few hours and a leisurely one mile stroll until we reached the Rossio square.

A selfie in front of the fountain in Rossio square
 

This has been one of the main squares in Lisbon since the middle ages, and is still a popular meeting place.

Ah, an exhausting but happy first day, we were grateful to settle into bed, as we were still feeling the effects of jet lag.

Our National Lampoon American Thanksgiving Vacation

Doing "time" in Hermosillo Mexico

How we love our life of adventure! We have seen some amazing places and done many wonderful things. My sweetie and I are like a couple of kids off exploring the world hand in hand, usually with big grins on our faces. In fact we often congratulate ourselves as we go about these adventures. Never do we choose the easier softer way, preferring the sense of freedom that comes from planning and taking the trip on our own,  problem solving the little bumps in the road that inevitably come along. Not only that, we pride ourselves on being thrifty travellers in our quest to make our travelling dollars outlast our wanderlust.

Every once in a while however, the joke is on us! Our trip from our winter home in Bucerias Mexico to Phoenix for Thanksgiving was just one of those times. To start with, we are Canadians going to enjoy American Thanksgiving with a bunch of  our Canadian snowbird friends who winter in Mesa Arizona. After being their snowbird neighbours for several years, it's become a tradition that we didn't want to miss even though we no longer live there. We always tell ourselves, isn't it great to have two Thanksgivings? Little did we know that we would soon be in our own version of John Candy's "Trains and Boats and Planes" as we tried to get "home" for the American holiday where no one was American!

It all started with us driving as we usually do, like obsessive crazy people from our winter home in Bucerias, just north of Puerto Vallarta Mexico. We get some sort of strange buzz from getting up at 3:30 am in our effort to beat the traffic and then driving  past supper time, pulling into our motel with just enough time to eat and pass out for the night. This usually works well, as we switch off on the driving, which allows us to take cat naps during our off shift. What we hadn't planned on during this trip was the early winter nightfall. Everyone knows that it is a mistake to drive in the dark in Mexico, as there are no streetlights, and if you have car trouble there are no shoulders to pull off on. Many times we have come upon a broken down car on the highway, with a kid standing down the road waving his shirt warning the other drivers to slow down. The last thing I ever want is to be that kid!


If only we had stopped just as dusk approached, we could have saved ourselves a pile of time and money and I wouldn't be writing this blog! But we convinced ourselves that our years of experience of driving in Mexico over-rode that wise advice. "Big mistake", I thought as I hit the big chunk of truck tire lying right in the middle of my lane. In the dark I didn't see it until the last second, and even if I had, there was no way to avoid it as there was no shoulder on one side and a big semi on the other. "Oh, bleepity bleep," we both said. "Well, let's hope we didn't do any damage." (Mistake number two). We were only a half hour from our hotel in Hermosillo so we kept on driving. When my sweetie lifted the hood, it was so hot that he just slammed it shut and said,  "Let's go eat supper, we'll deal with it in the morning when it's cool."

After a good night's sleep, we checked the oil, all was well, the water not so lucky. Totally and completely bone dry. We must have cracked the radiator. We filled it with fresh water and hoped for the best, but as soon as we started the car it was obvious that we were in big trouble. Fortunately there was a taller (garage) right across the street and our car coughed and sputtered its way over as we prayed that we wouldn't stall. The mechanic just shook his head and said, "This is very bad, this is very very bad" as he looked at the steam coming out of the tailpipe. (As this was not a steam engine!)

The guard dog at the auto mechanic's. Be careful, Bryce, she'll rip your arm off!

After three days of waiting, he was finally able to tell us that the damage was indeed serious, possibly the head was warped and the block was cracked. (I really don't understand what that means, but I knew it was bad.) He would need to order parts and it would take at least a week. At that point, we were relieved just to have some answers, as we were getting awfully tired of our hotel room, watching stupid movies, reading stupid books and telling stupid jokes. My sweetie started to refer to doing time, and our efforts to make the best of the situation started to wear thin.

Fixing the sign at our hotel

We had thought that we could just take a bus to the border and then rent a car, but dogs aren't allowed on the bus. Last minute airline tickets cost more than a trip to Europe, and we couldn't drive a Mexican rental car across the border because of insurance complications. We called around to the car rental agencies until I found one that quoted me a reasonable price to leave the car at the border. Once the driver arrived at our hotel he started on the fast pitch and suddenly the price was double what we were originally quoted, as we would need a driver to bring the car back to Hermosillo. We reluctantly loaded our luggage into the trunk, but at the last minute said "forget it," and told him we would find another way.

We went to talk to our new best friend the mechanic, hoping that he might know someone who would do it for less. He called around, but after waiting for three hours, the best he could do was to line us up with another car rental and driver for the same price, but at least this guy was up front about the price, and was even willing to drive us all the way to Tucson to pick up our Anerican rental car.

We tried to rent an American car just north of the border, but out of the two rental agencies in town, one was out of cars and the other was out of compact cars. The best they could do was $60 a day for a Rav4. We decided to try a rental agency in Tucson and figure out how to get there from the border later. We managed to find a car for $20 a day, which is a big difference when we were possibly looking at renting for 10 days.

We finally made it to Mesa just in time for Thanksgiving dinner. The car took more than two weeks to fix, but we finally got if fixed, and drove very carefully, very sensibly back to our beautiful Casa in Bucerias. This was an expensive lesson, as there were many more repairs needed to get our car fully restored, but we were grateful that, as we both survived with our humour, lives and marriage intact.

Yeah, back home safe and sound in Bucerias!

 

Au Revoir, Marrakech

How do you say good-bye to a place that has captured your heart so fully and completely? A place where romantic French is the most common language after Arabic, a place where birdsong echoes in the country air, and mad chaos in the medina? A place where the most delicious chicken served in its own little cooking pot, the tajine is served in every restaurant; a place where it is warm enough to walk around almost naked at midnight (not that I do), a place where we have felt welcomed, relaxed, and fully captivated by the people and their ways.

Lovely gardens at our hotel

After spending our last two days at the night market and touring around, we agreed that some of our favourite experiences were:

haggling with persistent shop keepers who refused to take "no" for an answer, then when we walked away, would call us back, only to try to get us to accept a higher price. Once we stood our ground, they usually came down to our price, or perhaps we came up very slightly, they acted like we had just royally ripped them off. We kept our senses of humour, thanked them, shook their hands, smiling all the while, as they shook their heads in disgust.

Yes, he is very clever!

Having one of the shopkeepers wrap a scarf around my head Arab style. So much fun, how could I not buy it after this?

How do they get those spices into those lovely pyramids?

Appreciating the creative ways that things were displayed.

Hand beaded gowns fit for a princess or maybe the Queen of Sheba!

 

How about some olives?

In the middle of the chaos of the market, we came upon inobtrusive little doorways that led to delightful riads, or hotels that had a sweet courtyard opening to the sky in the middle. The deskeeper let us take a quick peek at this one where we could have stayed for a fraction of the price. Hmm, maybe next time!

It's hard to believe that anyone would want a warm hat in this hot climate!

And always a delicious meal!

Good-bye to beautiful buildings

Wide boulevards

And herds of camels on almost every corner. We will miss you, but we promise to come back and explore more of your glorious country!

 

 

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Atlas Mountains and Berber Villages

Leaving Marrakesh bright and early in the morning with our new friends Garry and Marie from London, we were soon out of the city heading toward the Atlas mountains. Our driver Abdullah explained as we went that the people in the small villages in the Atlas mountains were Berber rather than Arab. Driving through these villages is like stepping back in time to when people lived much more simply. While tourism has its drawbacks in these types of villages, there is also a significant economic advantage, as the locals have created cooperatives which help them to collectively benefit from selling their handcrafts.

The first village that we stopped at was in the Argun Valley. This cooperative showed us how argun oil is made from the argun nut. First it is pounded by hand between two rocks to crack the nut.

Then it is ground on a wheel to squeeze out the oil.

Argun oil is reknown for its cosmetic properties, promising beautiful skin to those who use it. We shall see! It is only available in the Argun Valley, as this is the only place in the world that it grows.

In true Morrocan tradition, we were given a cup of delicious sweet mint tea, and only after social niceties have been exchanged were the different kinds of oil explained...lemon for tired feet, lime to help you sleep, and rose to keep your skin beautiful. We wanted to buy one of every kind, but the restrictions on our luggage helped us to exercise restraint!

Climbing the stairs above the shop to the roof gave us terrific views of the village!

Driving through later Berber villages, we saw women washing rugs in the river, and hanging them out to dry.

Garden patches irrigated by hoses run from the river higher up in the mountains

And villages built on the side of the mountain.

We set off on a hike to see the waterfall. Across a very rough and rickety bridge. Don't bounce, whatever you do!

Through delightful little oasis where comfortable sitting areas had been created

and the oranges are kept cool by a hose carrying water from high in the mountains. These made me think of nomadic people coming upon an oasis as this surely was, and by placing a few carpets and cushions on the sand, creating lovely resting places.

We climbed over huge rocks, and after an hour of climbing, finally decided that the trip to the top was too dangerous to attempt wearing flip flops.

On the way down we passed village women leading their goats

and stopped for a short camel ride.

This land of mystery, magic and memories will stay with us forever!

 

 

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