Fireworks and Fires

Wednesday Dec 31 was New Year's Eve, of course, and we were determined to stay up for the fireworks.  We had heard that we would have a good view of them right from our balcony, so that's about as convenient as it gets.  We watched a movie and a half and had snacks and wine, while trying to keep those drooping eyelids open.  But boy was it worth it!  The whole Ponte de Lima valley was a bowl of colorful sparkling skyrockets, with booms and bangs echoing from all sides.  We haven't been this delighted by fireworks for years!  The video here doesn't do the display justice, but you can get an idea of how the whole area was erupting.  Everyone, including our next-door neighbor, seemed to have huge commercial grade fireworks, and they shot them off with gusto.  And best of all, fifteen minutes after the show was over we were snuggled in bed.  Gerrit, as usual, was hopelessly awake right on schedule at 6 AM, but with a bleary smile on his face.

The evening before the fireworks display we visited Luna and Christiano, some new young friends in their twenties, at their apartment in downtown Ponte de Lima.  Luna is teaching Pat and friends Portuguese, and we hadn't met her boyfriend Christiano.  They are both from Columbia and have been in Portugal about as long as we have.  Their English is good and we used some Portuguese too.  They served us homemade croissants with a cream cheese, jam, and blueberry spread, and gave us a bottle of artisanal vinho verde wine made by friends of theirs.  It is the vinho verde tinto variety, which is kind of a rosé.  We played games, mostly in Portuguese, had a great time, and parted good friends.

We forgot to mention that on Christmas day our goods from Seattle arrived at a port next to Porto.  They have made it through the Panama Canal and across the Atlantic Ocean!  Now we wait, for their journey through customs.  We have a Portuguese liaison who will handle all that, and also getting the goods trucked to our home.

We found out from a friend here that fireworks are manufactured right here in northern Portugal.  There is a family-run fireworks factory in the town of Lamego, due east of Porto.  (The factory actually exploded in 2017.)  We thought all that stuff came from China these days!  There are also a number of fireworks retailers in northern Portugal too, so there's no shortage of pyrotechnics available for the fireworks fans out there.

On Sunday Jan 4 the weather was okay and we wanted to take the afternoon off, so we took a little drive to some lagos (lagoons) a few kilometers away which we hadn't gotten around to finding yet.  There was a very nice interpretive center and you could walk around the lagos if you could make it for 7.5 km (4.7 mi), which was out of our league.  We got a few photos instead.

On the way back we wandered around till sunset so we could get some shots of some local churches, which were still lit up for the holidays.  Check out the rolling dot-matrix message of "Feliz Ano Novo" (Happy New Year) followed by the scrolling martini glass!  Maybe this church offers a special communion service.

About sunset on Monday Jan 5 we saw smoke rising from the ridge across the valley from us, just above the granite quarry.  It didn't look like a forest fire, the smoke was dark and we thought it was an industrial or home fire, but it turned out to be a forest fire after all.  Pat found that it was being reported on fogos.pt (a website for real time fire reporting in Portugal).  We kept a wary eye on it for a couple hours as it faded and flared.  The ridge was a hard fire line, fortunately: a steep drop with nothing on our side but granite.  Our remarkable bombeiros (firefighters) here got it under control and the blaze dimmed by about 8 PM.  We are so thankful for our all-volunteer fire department here, which is common in Portugal, and we are enthusiastic supporters.

And Gerrit captured this photo of the rare Portuguese Rainbow Snake slithering along our hallway.  Oh, wait, that's from the sunshine hitting the beveled edge of the bathroom mirror and reflecting down the hallway.  Never mind.

(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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Sight-seeing Photo Gallery

This is our 100th blog post!  Holy cow, that's a lot of adventure in 18 months.  The blog has become pretty unwieldy to take in all at once, but you can scan for dates and search for specific things by clicking on the hamburger (three horizontal lines) in the upper left corner of each post.  It's fun for us to review too; it's like a big diary.

Saturday Dec 27 was clear and bright, so we took the day off and went on a road trip.  Pat plotted a route along the small byways, roads we had mostly not been on, north to Valença on the Spanish border to see the Fortaleza (fortress) there.  It was a beautiful drive through the Portuguese countryside.  The fortress is a huge well-preserved medieval castle, including walls, grounds, and a village within, but was completely overwhelmed with tourists on this sunny Saturday during the Christmas holidays.  Gerrit said it reminded him of Venice: a beautiful tourist attraction except for the tourists.  We crept through traffic into the little village inside the castle walls, found that parking was already overflowing, and crept back out to try again when the crowds are thinner.

Next we drove to Mosteiro de Sanfins, an ancient monastery which is a little southeast of Valença.  This was the complete antithesis of the fortress we had just seen.  It was tranquil, natural, and we were the only people there.  We wandered around the moss-covered ruins of the medieval monastery, peering into the small, unheated, stone, monks' cells and admiring the ancient walls and arches.  We thought about the incredible work that would have been required to raise and set the granite blocks into position in the middle ages, or to build the beautiful, ornate self-supporting archways.  There were narrow vertical slits (archer's windows) in the monastery itself, too, evidence of the need for self-defense even in a monastery.  There were indications of cannon ball strikes on the outer walls too.  Such a soft, easy, and luxurious life we lead now, we reflected as we eased back into our comfortable automobile and drove off.

The original monastery	Outside grounds
Inside the ruins	Arches
Corridor of monks' cells	A monk emerges from his meditations

Torre de Lapela was the next stop: the tower which remains from a medieval fort.  The castle itself was demolished in 1706 to provide stone for a nearby project, but the tower was left intact.  We walked around and gazed up at the imposing granite structure, but the steep stairs were too much for us so we restricted our admiration to gazing.

Granaries in front of the tower

Seems a little steep

We took another winding beautiful drive home following unfamiliar back roads through unfamiliar villages in the Portuguese countryside:

Not far from Retorta (2F4M+FGV map coords)

Village of Castanheira (seen from XG4G+MFH)

As the leaves began to fall, we noticed what looked like a huge hornet nest about 10 m (30 feet) up in a tree in the neighbor's lot across the way.  Here is a seriously zoomed-in photo.  A couple weeks later this red and white ribbon appeared, attached to the bottom.  Pat found that this is a sign that the authorities have destroyed the inhabitants of an Asian Hornet nest and not to touch it.  They also place a marker at the base of the tree.  We thought this was a nice example of the government responding to a reported dangerous condition and taking quick action.

The weather has been very nice the past few days and Christmas lights are still up, so after sundown on Sunday Dec 28 we took a drive to see some more of them.  There are only a few houses which have significant lights up, but Ponte de Lima looks like a birthday cake.  You see "Boas Festas" (Happy Holidays) all over.

There are lights at each entry road into town.  Here are all but one, which we couldn't get a clear shot of:

And here are some of the other light shows in our village and downtown.  2025 is the 900th birthday year of the town of Ponte de Lima (the oldest chartered town in Portugal), and you can see banners and lights commemorating that.

Our village church	Ponte de Lima old town
Happy 900th birthday!	Wishing you 900 more!
Downtown historic district	Nativity scene downtown

We also got some shots looking across the Lima river and back at the town and medieval bridge:

(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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Christmas II

This is our second Christmas in Portugal.  A year ago we were in our apartment in Vila Nova de Gaia, and now we're in our home in Ponte de Lima.  Much has changed, but much is similar too.  We hope you all had a good holiday too!  

Pat has been beading more than a dozen Christmas ornaments for gifts.  It's a tricky and exacting job, but she loves it and the results are beautiful.  Since this post will appear after Christmas, we won't be blowing any surprises by posting a photo here.

Here is our wee tabletop Christmas tree and a cozy fire at home.  Pat strung some nice icicle light strings along the balcony too.

On Christmas Eve we drove an hour or so south to Porto and checked into a beautiful hotel which Pat had found, just a kilometer or so from our friend Bernardo.  He had invited us again to his consoada, or Christmas Eve dinner get-together, the peak of the season in Portugal.  We checked in to the hotel and hopped an Uber to Bernardo's place.

Most of Bernardo's family was there: his mom Lígia, brother Pedro and sister Rita.  His dad, the good-hearted doctor, had agreed again to take someone's shift at work, so we missed him.  Some other guests were there too: Carolina, Bernardo's Uruguayan girlfriend who had just earned her Masters in Fine Arts, Natalía, a Uruguayan friend of hers, Martín, a fellow tour guide and colleague of Bernardo's originally from Macedonia, and Ann, an American from, incredibly enough, Seattle!

Bernardo met Ann when he helped her find an apartment about a year ago, in his role as a real estate agent.  Some time after that she was diagnosed with colon cancer.  Bernardo visited her in the hospital.  The cancer spread and she was pronounced terminal.  She is shortly leaving for Seattle to say her final goodbyes to her family there.

Bernardo, our friend with the heart of gold, invited her to his place for this, her last Christmas.  She is weak and barely able to stand.  He and his brother picked her up in their car, and literally carried her up three flights of steep winding stairs to his apartment.  She was a joy, proud of the life she has lived and facing her final goodbye with quiet courage and a sense of humor.  We had a great time talking about Seattle and Ellensburg with her, and her love of dogs and horses.  We had some wine and, courtesy of Rita, Carolina, and Natalía, an excellent meal of Bacalhau à Brás, salad, and a Uruguayan dessert cake.  Then Ann grew very tired.  Bernardo and his brother carried her back downstairs and, along with Carolina, drove her home.

Natalía, Carolina, Ann, and Lígia

Ann and Lígia

Lígia, Pat, and Martín

Our hearts were full, and our admiration for Bernardo and his family was boundless.

Pat had baked her delicious shortbread as gifts for everyone, and we had bought little jars of local Ponte de Lima honey to share some of our new home-town pride.  We distributed gift bags of all this, and other gifts were exchanged all around.  Pat got a luxurious warm scarf, and Gerrit got a cool simulated-sunrise alarm clock.

Then some of us played a board game from the Azores called Marralhinha (photo Board Game Geek) while others drifted into conversations.  The game was fun and fast-moving with quick reversals of fortune, and Bernardo's siblings were aces at it.  Gerrit started to get it after a while and had a great time too.

Finally, about 1 AM (way too late for us), we said fond goodnights and Bernardo's sister gave us a ride to our hotel.  We collapsed into the cozy bed for far too few hours of blessed sleep before we awoke at our normal time.  As usual.  Welcome to old age.  We took a coastal route home, took care of some chores, Gerrit had a little siesta, and we did some Christmas Day family calling.  When it works, video calls are astounding.  It's just like sitting in a couch across from your loved ones, but you're thousands of miles away.

There are three suspicious things about the solar panel system right now, too, things which don't seem right.  Gerrit is spending hours investigating and wrangling with the vendors, who deny everything.  Probably nothing will happen till a while after Christmas.

(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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Travel and Gravel

Saturday Dec 13 was clear and sunny, so we took a roundabout road trip to Soajo, one of our favorite circuits.  We already wrote about Soajo here, if you're interested in some details.  It was another gorgeous drive, much of it through the beautiful Peneda Gerês national park, with wild forests and mountains, remote farms, and horses and cattle wandering on the road. We even saw a small herd of long-horned cattle resting by the side of the road, with two dogs resting nearby and keeping an eye on them!  No shepherds were to be seen (except the dogs).

Spectacular Peneda Gêres scenery	A medieval bridge over the River Vez
Watch the River Vez go by from your porch swing	One of the famous cachena breed, serene in the sun
A lovely little one-car bridge over the River Vez	Beautiful stone fences in Peneda Gêres
A terraced hillside near the village of Sistelo	Our delicious cachena beef lunch in Soajo

We enjoyed the same lunch at the same restaurant: cachena beef steaks, "punched" baked new potatoes, steamed vegetables with zucchini, carrots, cabbage, and red pepper, seasoned rice, and a half liter of vinho verde.  It's literally some of the best beef we've ever had, and this time we took our own photo.  We were even at the same outdoor table we were at last time, and Gerrit actually got a little sunburn on the left (sunny) side of his face.  In mid-December!

As Gerrit prepared breakfast the other day, he held up the empty yogurt container and pensively quoted Hamlet: "Alas, poor yogurt!  I knew him..."

It looks like our long-suffering bungalow project might be on its last legs.  We just learned that wildfire safety laws don't allow structures within 50 meters (55 yards) of a forested area.  That means there is definitely no place on our lot on which it is permissible to build.  Gerrit looked up the actual law, and it is quite clear.  We started thinking about alternatives, like a raised platform with a roof suitable for campouts, or something.

But wait, a little further on in the laws it says that trees and branches must be 5 meters from structures.  So which is it, 50 meters or 5?  And how is it that existing structures, ours and the neighbors', are nowhere near 50 meters from forested areas?  The patient is still on life support as we get to the bottom of this.

Wednesday Dec 17 the gardeners began the next phase of our renovations.  They transplanted a couple fruit trees for better exposure and soil with less competition, and they cut down a dead cypress tree and bucked it up for firewood.  Next visit they will begin on an extensive irrigation system for the front yard.  Last summer the trees suffered a bit from their irregular watering, but not this year.  This will allow us to travel during the summer, too, and know that the plants will be well taken care of.

The guy who operated the little backhoe they used was a true artist.  He carefully guided the piece of heavy equipment on its rubber tracks over our cobblestone walk and between plants, eased it into position, and was as delicate with the operation of his machine as a watercolorist with his brush.  A pleasure to watch!  He spoke very little English, and showed up with a Santa hat on.  "Bom dia, senhor Santa!" we called out from the balcony when he emerged from the truck.  Alex the horticulturist referred to Santa's backhoe as his "reindeer".  Gerrit got a chance to use a few Portuguese phrases with Santa, too.

Here's a puzzler for you: "santa" in Portuguese means a female saint.  So what do they make of a jolly old bearded elf named "Santa Claus"?

Pat's coughing and sniffling turns out not to be due to the HVACs (heaters), and the HVACs are plenty clean inside too.  Yet still it continues, coming and going under all conditions, inside and out.  We visited a doctor on Thursday Dec 18 who found that she seems to be in good general health and prescribed some nasal spray and cough suppressant.  Pat couldn't wait for bedtime to try them out for the first time.

(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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Winter, and Christmas is Coming

With these rainy gray days it's great to spend a day at home, lighting a fire, watching the storms, feeling cozy.  It reminds us of storm watching on winter days at the Olympic coast.  

And when we're not sitting around feeling cozy there are a handful of projects to coordinate: major garden and irrigation upgrades, bugs in the solar power system, getting our driver's licenses transferred, preparing for customs and final trucking of our goods when they arrive in Porto, deep cleaning, preparing for the upcoming flood of boxes, and planning for the bungalow.

Our solar power system has been demonstrating a new feature: at indeterminate intervals of between a day and three weeks, it shuts down the entire backup network (main water pump, internet, house lights, refrigerator, access into the garage) for 20 minutes or so, whether the grid is up or not.  Is that any way to treat the circuits which are the most essential to keep powered?  The solar sales people tell us it is, it's a "perfectly normal regular safety check" but we are not convinced.  So the battle is engaged.

Our shipment from the US has become even more circuitous and we're not sure why.  It was bad enough initially, going clear through the Mediterranean to unload in Italy and then to go overland from there, but now we see the ship and itinerary going back through the Straits of Gibraltar, south hundreds of kilometers to the Canary Islands and then back north all the way to Leixões (next to Porto)!  Wacky!  We've asked our shipping agent about this, but no reply yet.

We have both been sniffly and coughing for several weeks, mostly Pat, almost constantly but especially at night.  We've cleaned the HVAC (heater) filters, vacuumed carefully, and washed mold out of some hidden corners, but the only thing that helps is to shut off the HVACs entirely for a couple days.  Gerrit and his new best friend Gemini have found the procedure to disassemble the HVAC housings for thorough internal cleaning, and that's next on the list.

We want to move the bed out of the middle bedroom and to the garage, so we can stage and store all the stuff which will be showing up here shortly.  There is also a bookshelf needing purging to make room for our coming books and other things, and the garage needs to be cleared out as much as possible so the boxes can be loaded directly from the truck into the garage.  And this is just the start...

We're still undecided on exactly which bungalow we want.  Our friend and architectural connoisseur Bernardo has convinced us that we should go for a modern look to match the house better.  The cabin manufacturer we had settled on has a significant number of credible bad reviews, too, all of which is making us rethink the whole thing.  Again.

On Wednesday Dec 10 we met our friends Jess and Julian in Porto for lunch.  They have been doing farm work for room and board (and their own education) here in Portugal for a while, and are just wrapping that up to head to the warmer south.  The weather for our lunch was comfortable, sunny, and beautiful, and we had a great time catching up over a delicious meal.

Ponte de Lima is gearing up for Natal (Christmas).  We were there on the nice evening of Dec 10 and took pictures of some of the spectacular lights they're setting up.  All this public expense and time, in a small town, simply for the enjoyment of its citizens!

Watch the lights "drip"

Some Portuguese greeting tips: "bom dia" means "good day" and is used as a general greeting.  Until noon.  At that moment everyone shifts to "boa tarde" (good afternoon).  If you wish someone "bom dia" after noon they will reply "boa tarde".  Then there is a looser transition, around 8 PM, to "boa noite" for "good night" or "good evening".  You can say "olá" (hello) along with these greetings, and even ask "Tudo bem?" (Everything is well?).  The reply is generally "tudo bem" as a statement (Everything is well.).  A group getting together can sound like a chorus of "Tudo bem?,  Tudo bem!" as greetings go around.

By popular demand (from Ron, anyway), here is a little run-down on the ways Christmas is celebrated in Portugal:

• Like everywhere, they have Christmas trees, lights, and nativity scenes (presépio), incessant Christmas songs on background music, and they exchange gifts.
• They are a strongly Catholic country, so church and Christmas mass are important.
• Some houses are decorated with lights, but not so much as in public areas, towns, and the streets leading into them.
• The common greeting is Boas Festas! (Happy Holidays)
• The Christmas season starts off with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on Dec 8.  It is a major holiday, a quiet time at home with families, a little like Thanksgiving.
• Christmas markets are becoming more popular, where gifts, treats, and Christmas trappings are sold from little barraquinhas (market stalls) in a sort of farmer's market setting.
• Kids put out shoes for Santa, not stockings.  Also, Santa was only adopted in Portugal about 30 years ago!
• Many places, including churches and towns, celebrate with big Christmas bonfires.  Sometimes they are huge.
• Of course there are special Christmas pastries and sweets.
• The traditional Christmas Eve dinner gathering in northern Portugal is called consoada.  The meal traditionally consists of prepared bacalhau (dried salt cod), often with with potatoes, cabbage, and hard boiled eggs.
• 
  In parts of northern Portugal young men called caretos dress in wild colorful costumes to celebrate the solstice (photo Rosino from flickr).  They throw water and hay on bystanders, strut around the town accompanied by rattles, pipes, and drums, and "squash" the girls.
• The “Bananeiro” comes from a store in the city of Braga called “Casa das Bananas” (House of Bananas), which used to be a banana warehouse. The owner had a small counter where he served Moscatel, a sweet Portuguese wine, as a way of attracting customers. When they requested something to eat, he would offer them a banana.  His son then started a tradition with his friends to have a glass of Moscatel and a banana before Christmas Eve dinner. It quickly became popular and is now celebrated by thousands.
• Christmas Eve is usually the height of celebrations, when gift-giving and family togetherness rule the day.

(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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