Last Sunday were the big parades for the Ponte de Lima birthday which we featured in our last post, then on Monday we took care of some domestic duties like Gerrit chipping pruned branches and splitting firewood, and Pat making fresh lemon curd. The place looks nice and tidy now with the pruning almost done, and holy cow that lemon curd is good!
Then Tuesday was the big Carnival parade in the nearby town of Arcos de Valdevez, the biggest parade in northern Portugal, with participants from Portugal and Spain too. It is just a coincidence that the Ponte de Lima 900th anniversary landed right on top of of the pre-Lent Carnival this year, so we've had plenty of entertainment the past few days! Carnival is celebrated all over the world as Mardi Gras, Carnival, and so forth, and is a huge indulgent party before the austerity of forty days of Lent. There is a big Brazilian influence in Portugal (or is the the other way around?) and Brazilian Carnival is world famous, so we expected big things.
Parking for the parade was pretty crowded, but we found a tiny spot in which to wedge
Pérola (our Honda Jazz sub-mini) and walked a couple blocks to the parade route. On the way to the parade route we saw this cool mural. It is built from junkyard parts and spray paint! We've seen three examples of this kind of art here in Portugal -- it's a thing. Our intrepid navigator Pat led us straight to the perfect observation point, on an arch right next to the route ("dumb luck" she says). We were midway along the route and the parade moves very slowly, so it didn't reach us until almost an hour after the official starting time. We had fun people-watching and enjoying the costumes in the meantime.
The parade was spectacular! The costumes and floats were astounding, elaborate and colorful, and they had themes from carnivorous plants to perfume bottles to the Age of Discovery to underseas. And some that were just plain weird. The music was pop and Latin, lots of fun, and the dance moves were impressive and skilled (even the kids). After almost two hours the parade wound down and we limped back to the car, tired of standing but happy. And ready for a nice austere Lent. Us and the weather: it went from sunny and fair through all the celebrations to foggy and rainy.
The big news on Wednesday was that we finally got a plumber to come take a look at our clattering water pump. He recharged the pressure tank and all is well (er, borehole actually). Whew! We had been experiencing worse and worse water hammering and were unable to get a plumber in here for one reason or another for over a month, so it is a great relief to have it all quiet and operating normally. Makes us want to take nice long showers.
(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done. Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)
