More from Portugal

Today (June2) is a day to relax as the past view days have been filled with day trips. On Sat May 30 we spent the Day in Coimbra, an inland city on the river Mondego. It is the oldest University in Portugal, and the original building had been a former castle – became the University in 1537. Because of the historic nature of the main building, I couldn’t take too many photos. The library was incredible – 2 story high shelves of 300,000 books, everything guilded in gold. The structure was built in a way to allow for the proper temp and humidity for the books, and with resident bats to eat the bugs! You can see Dr. Gioia roaming the Via Latina colonnade walkway near what seemed to be a student center area.

The university had it’s own “Free Speech” protest and here is the sculpture commemorating it (it was recently the anniversary of the protest).

Below the university is a bridge that appears to be the style of the soon-to-be constructed Bay Bridge – does look better in reality than in the drawings posted in the Chronicle.

We ended the day at an Indian Restaurant in Caldas De Rainha (the town near Obidos) – on our day wandering Obidos we had been approached by two Indian men advertising their new restaurant (opened two weeks ago). Since Jim needed a menu with lots of veggies, seemed like fate. We had a hard time finding it, then foolishly realized that we had noticed an “Indiana” restaurant as we were searching – finally occurred to us that was the Portuguese translation of Indian….Afterwards, the evening was warm, and still quite light at 9:30, so we strolled the streets we had seen earlier in the week during the day.

Sunday we ventured into Lisbon. We have been pretty much in small towns, so it was quite a different experience. I think that you will all notice something familiar about Lisbon – a certain bridge, steep streets going down to the water, cable cars. While initially we thought we would use the public transit to explore the city, we decided we would walk and wander (which we both love) and it was do-able as long as you don’t mind lots of steps, and steep cobblestoned streets.

So up and down we went, exploring all the neighborhoods – each quite different.

Every so often we had to sit down and consult the tourbook map, as you can see.

This little girl seemed willing to help us….

Very interesting street art throughout: Bugs, Shoes, and a nest compass in the Botanical Gardens;

An interesting way of masking building under renovation; and a way to mix seating and natural shade.

And little surprises along the way (meaning, we didn’t really have a plan, and so happened upon things). A dance hall in a partially renovated building on the river (seems a bit like the SF Ferry Building), the excavation site at the Se Cathedral, boys swimming in their backyard below the Castle Of King Jorge, a peacock enjoying the activities at the Castle (which becomes a street fair on Sundays).

I had done extensive research planning before the trip to find one vegetarian restaurant for Jim, and we did manage to find “Terra” and enjoyed the lunch buffet and the garden seating.
I should add that in addition to the gelato mentioned earlier, there are these amazing custard pastries everywhere and they have become a dangerous daily routine.

Yesterday we went to Alcobaca which is about 30 minutes from here – site of the largest church in Portugal (completed in 1223). Being a little “churched out” we were hesitant to go. But it was a nice surprise – a beautiful structure with interesting history in a charming town. Charming streets around the town, children enjoying their walking fieldtrip from the preschool, and the local market (flowers, produce, fish, game and poultry).

We then headed to the coast for a scenic drive, lunch at the beach (view better than the food), a siesta at Figueira De Foz beach. We headed back to Obidos, to see the local ladies who walk up our steep street each evening. We decided we were due a nice meal, and headed into the village and had a wonderful gourmet meal in a charming restaurant – sat outside in the garden to eat. Very romantic setting! Website not letting me add more photos to this post! I guess I´m overdoing it...