Say hello to the newest member of our family:
Pérola Azul (Blue Pearl), named after her opalescent slightly blue color. She is a new Honda Jazz hybrid. We rode the metro to the dealer in Porto on Monday evening to finalize the paperwork, hear a detailed run-down on all her controls, and drive her home. This involved creeping through a rush-hour traffic jam, unfortunately, but we made it.
Pat had planned the metro trip perfectly, involving transferring trains and a few blocks of walking, and she pre-loaded our metro tickets. We arrived at the dealer at 16:27 for our 16:30 appointment! The metro trip was fun, we saw a lot of Porto, but it was nice to be able to drive home afterwards.
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The following day, Tuesday, we of course took a big car trip. We took the smaller roads to Guimarães, an hour or so north of Porto and a little inland, which turned out to be a lovely little town. It is historic, well kept, the right size, and now on our short list of regions in which to look for a home.
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 | View outside our lunch restaurant in Guimarães
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 | Church in Guimarães
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 | | Landscaped street in Guimarães |
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It was almost lunchtime when we got there, so we slipped effortlessly into a petite little parking spot and walked a short way to a very nice restaurant in the old town section, facing a fountain and square. We had
Bacalhau à Brás (cod in a cake of rice),
Bochechas de Porco (braised pork cheeks), glasses of wine and cider, and coffee in a window seat. A wonderful experience! (We're going to stop raving about how economical everything is here though. It makes us look cheap, and only makes you, dear reader, feel bad. But lunch was only €21!! Sorry, we couldn't resist.)
We've had at least three of the supposedly thousand recipes for bacalhau (dried salt cod, a Portuguese favorite, which we have been spelling wrong here. That's fixed in all posts now.). They were all good, but this Bacalhau à Brás was the best. Wonderfully flavorful and no bones, since the fish is shredded for the dish.
After lunch we visited Guimarães Castle and walked around it. The castle was originally built in the mid 10th century. 1100 years ago! That's just mind-boggling. There was a waiting line for the timed ticket slots and some tall steps to get into the castle though, so we put off touring the inside for another time.
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Next we visited the
Santuário da Penha, situated on the top of the tallest point in the area with a commanding view. It is a much more modern structure, having been started in the 1930's and built in an art deco style, but it is still a dignified stone building like the Castle. To get there we had to wind up some twisting and narrow streets which put Pérola's small size and maneuverability to the test. She has pushbutton folding mirrors, which is a real delight and let us slip through the narrow passageways with ease.
The whole Santuário area is lovely and very nicely done with plenty of free parking and many picnic areas. There were dozens of families enjoying the day there, and we heard several languages too. Here are some Santuário photos:
Speaking of languages, Portuguese can be kind of wacky. We are finding that a given English word often translates to several Portuguese words, and vice versa. For example, "
vazia" in Portuguese means "empty" in English, very straightforward. At lunch a few days ago, though, we saw "
carne de vaca vazia" on the menu. Empty beef steak? What could that mean? We could find nothing in our Google or DeepL translators which made any sense. Our waitress finally tracked something down: "vazia" also means "sirloin". What?? Well, if "might" can mean either "strength" or the past tense of the verb "may" in English I guess the Portuguese can do it too.
On Wednesday, today, we took another car trip to
Espinho, south of us a short way and on the Atlantic coast. We've driven Pérola enough now to be quite in love with her. She is comfortable, amazingly quiet, strong, agile, smart, and cute. (Sounds like a marriageable daughter. Sorry, you single guys.) Gerrit was raving to Pat about her suspension, how the cobblestones and potholes were so nicely absorbed, when he suddenly realized that only old people rave about a car's suspension. Sigh. Well, it is true that the Jazz appeals to the, ah, aged, us included.
Our first stop was at a very nicely done boardwalk through a wetland area, Passadiços da Barrinha de Esmoriz. We didn't see any birds, but it was a very nice walk on a sunny warm morning. Many people were out enjoying the day too.
Next we had another delicious lunch of grilled fish and creamy steamed vegetables, with our favorite half-bottle of vinho verde "green wine". (By the way, "vinho verde" is actually a Portuguese wine growing region, not a specific type of wine. We didn't know that! But you can get rosé and red vinho verde, along with the much more popular and prevalent "green", which is actually a tart citrusy slightly effervescent white. We discovered this by accident, grabbing a bottle labeled "vinho verde" in the local grocery and finding that it was red. The red is not nearly as good as the traditional green, it has a kind of sour plum flavor, so we recommend you stick with the green.)
There is a huge vegetable and general open-air market in Espinho on Mondays, the largest in all of Portugal apparently. We found the place where this happens, and before the autumn weather sets in we must check it out. That only gives us a couple weeks!
(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click in the black area outside a photo when you're done.)
Our first stop was at a very nicely done boardwalk through a wetland area,