Ye Daily Blog

OK, these posts are coming fast and furious now that we're actually doing interesting things.  The chores are suffering though, so we may have to attend to them for the next few days.  

Saturday 3/29 was a beautiful day, so after taking care of some things in the morning we went on a little drive to explore a mountain across the valley from us, this one right here -->

Pat plotted a nice scenic loop route through villages and countryside (with some very narrow roads).  We tried to find a way to the top of the mountain too but there just aren't any roads up there.  On a road leading to a church there were at least a dozen huge granite crosses like you see below, spaced about 20 m (yards) apart from each other.

The view, prior to...

Crosses leading up to...

... A church

Sunday 3/31 was another beautiful sunny day and we went to the city of Viana do Castelo with our friends Maayan and Dan.  Viana do Castelo is the largest city in the northwest corner of Portugal, about a half hour drive southwest from here, located where the Lima river meets the Atlantic Ocean.  It's a beautiful historic port city which we have visited the outskirts of briefly several times, but we have never seen the historic part like we did on Sunday.

Pat and Maayan visited a costume museum, which had dozens of authentic Portuguese folk costumes mostly dating from the 19th century.  Gerrit tagged along briefly, got bored, and left to find Dan who said he couldn't stand museums (a medical condition, he claims) for a cup of coffee at a pleasant portside café.  Pat and Maayan report that the museum was very interesting, with beautifully-made colorful costumes for celebrations and for everyday wear.  The museum used to be a bank, so there is a vault in the basement which the museum uses to store its golden jewelry!  Golden jewelry was an important part of formal festival costumes.

Maayan and Dan were more familiar with Viana do Castelo than we were, and they led us on a nice stroll through the streets and alleys nearby, ending up at a nice waterfront restaurant for lunch.  We split a delicious platter of robalo grelhado (grilled sea bass), Maayan had vegetarian pasta, and Dan had camarões (prawns).  Again we simply dove in without doing the Instagram thing, so you'll have to use your imagination to visualize what lunch looked like.  We are blogueiros deficientes ("lame bloggers" if you can believe the translator).

After lunch we passed a monument to the Carnation Revolution of April 25 1974 with its broken chain symbolizing liberation.  Liberty Day (April 25) is a very significant day for the Portuguese.  You see streets and monuments everywhere dedicated to it.

The final treat in Viana do Castelo was Bolas de Berlim, hole-less doughnuts filled with egg yolk custard and sprinkled with sugar.  The finest pastelaria (pastry shop) for these is Manuel Natário.  There was a line half a block long when we got there, waiting for the next fresh batch, but those in the know seat themselves in the shop and order coffee.  They are served the fresh Bolas first, which are indeed heavenly!  As we left the shop Gerrit was tempted to loudly praise them just to make those poor suckers in line feel bad. 

Back home, after recovering from acute sugar poisoning, we had a nice moderate late dinner of wine, cheese, nuts, and olives following our day of excess.

(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.)

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