Portugal 2021

LISBON

December 2, 2021
Armed with a pack of paperwork and our fingers crossed that everything was in order, we finally arrived in Lisbon about 4 PM after 25 hours of travel. I say “fingers crossed” because many countries were implementing new travel restrictions due to a Covid variant called omicron. In fact, after a five-and-a-half-hour layover at Heathrow, we took nearly 2 hours to board because they had to meticulously examine everyone's COVID test results, proof of vaccination, and passenger locator forms in order to board the plane. But we are here!
Our Airbnb is quite charming and authentic. It's up six flights of stairs (3 floors) in a residential area called Mouraria. It's quite small with low ceilings in several rooms including if you stand up to full height at the toilet. After hitting my head several times (including one time quite hard), I think I've learned where to duck. It doesn't have heat but we have a radiant space heater that does seem to heat the whole apartment quite well. The location could not be more excellent! By the time we went over the specifics with Guida, our Airbnb host (right down to the washing machine dial in Portuguese) it was starting to get dark. However, we still managed to get about 6000 steps in as well as more than 30 flights of stairs in this extremely hilly city. We had an excellent meal at a small restaurant called Café 0 Corvo. By then I was quite wiped out because I only slept (as usual) about 90 minutes on the several flights.

Our Airbnb is on the top floor of the pink building

You think that you just have these stairs to get to your building...

...only to round the corner and see that there is yet another flight of stairs.

Then there are six more flights like this to get to the apartment!

Why is that plant in the middle of the floor? To remind myself not to hit my head on the slanted ceiling (AGAIN!)

Cafe O Corvo was so good that we went there twice

December 3, 2021
A wonderful day! We met up for our free walking tour at 10 AM. The tour guide was very wordy and packed in a ton of history and information for us. Some of the quick facts are:

· Portugal is one of the poorer countries in Europe

· They had the longest running dictatorship in Europe. First, António de Oliveira Salazar was in power from 1932 until his death in 1968. A weaker dictator briefly took over... but by 1974, not only had the people had enough but also the military was done with living under a dictatorship. The military officers planned a coup that would begin when a banned song played on the radio. Thousands of civilians poured into the streets in support of the coup. In the main square, there were women selling carnations and the military put carnations in the muzzles of their guns. This became known as the “Carnation Revolution”. April 25th has since become a national holiday in Portugal.

We started out the day having avocado toast at a place called Copenhagen Coffee Lab. We sat outside despite it only being around 48°

The story of the 1755 earthquake is also quite fascinating. It is still the worst natural disaster in Europe's history with up to 50,000 dead. It happened on November 1 (All Saints Day). The tradition for this day (all of over the world) is for Catholics to light candles in honor of their deceased relatives. Then they went to church and were there when the earthquake hit at 9 am. The shaking lasted for a full six minutes. However, it wasn’t the earthquake that killed many of the people, but the fires that were caused by the lit candles. Then, many people ran down the hill to the large square near the waterfront to escape the fires, only to perish when a 25-meter tsunami hit. The Jewish and Arabic sections of Lisbon fared better because they didn’t have the fires. The area we stayed in was the Moorish area (hence, Mouraria) and it did survive. This collapsed church is now a museum.

We toured an old residential section called Alfama. I noticed that many street corners had photos of people with a plaque about the person. You could tell by the photos that it was current times. No, the person is not famous. The person is just someone that has lived in that neighborhood for many years (and probably their whole life). Apparently, Portugal suffered greatly between 2008–2012 in the financial crisis. Unemployment was 55% for new graduates. The president even went so far as to suggest that new graduates should just leave the country. Beginning around 2014, tourism was highly promoted. Many unemployed Portuguese people realized that they could use their homes as Airbnb rentals. Although the tourism helped bring the economy roaring back, it also brought new issues. These same very small apartments that had been €200–300 a month were now €1200 a month. If you owned your home, you probably paid between €30,000 and €50,000. Now, some were going for half a million. So, to preserve the history and the integrity of the neighborhoods, they are honoring local people by doing these photos/plaques on residential street corners.

After the tour, Robin and I were on our own and we spent a lot of time looking at our phones trying to figure out where we were. The GPS doesn't read you exactly, but instead jumps around due to all the hills and the narrow winding streets. Nothing runs east and west or north and south. It's easy to get lost quite quickly because the place you may be looking for is either above or below where you are.

Turns out that "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" are a real thing. Who knew?

The first of MANY stops for pastries.

But when your day looks like this... I'm hoping to justify all the pastries.

We decided to take an Uber over to an area called LX factory. It’s an old warehouse under a bridge and is now a trendy area. The Uber driver was very interesting. He studied English literature in Austin, Texas. I’d describe him as a very well-informed, well-read philosopher. We talked politics the whole way there. Once again, I'm not surprised that the world thinks that democracy as a whole and the US is in trouble. In fact, this guy thinks the US is headed for a civil war and I don’t disagree with him. He said that while many people in the US think that Donald Trump was just an anomaly, others around the world do not. Once again, people that travel can find out what the rest of the world really thinks and not believe what they watch on Fox News.

The LX Factory was quite unique. The stores were very different including this one that is just all tins of sardines. (However, we ended up seeing these all over Portugal. Portugal is very famous for their sardines).

The women's restroom door in the public bathroom had caricatures of Hillary Clinton

While you-know-who was on the men's room door

Street art is everywhere. This fox is made from recycled materials.

We caught an Uber back to Time Out market. It's a giant food hall and this was the first time we had to show our vaccine card to get in. Robin wanted to try goat cheese croquettes recommended by one of the ex-pats on YouTube. However, they were sort of gross. We didn't end up eating anything else there because nothing really grabbed our attention. Probably because of too many pastries!

We walked home down major shopping streets with many colorful Christmas lights and THOUSANDS of people. Supposedly it's a very busy night because there is a futbol game that our Uber driver told us is equivalent to our Super Bowl. However, what we didn't know then is that it was this packed every single night we were in Portugal.

December 4, 2021
Today was our first day trip. After avocado toast once again at Copenhagen Coffee Lab, we headed to our meeting point. It ended up being seven of us total on the tour… Two people from the UK, one beautiful, well-dressed woman from Afghanistan (Robin looked up her shoes online - about $700), and a couple from Dallas. The drive to our first stop (Fatima) was about 90 minutes. Our female driver drove extremely fast and would sing Fado music quite loudly. So, we've had a philosopher/Uber driver and a tour guide/Fado singer. By the time we got to Fatima, it was raining hard.

I don't think anyone else on the tour knew anything about Fatima or why we were there. I've been interested in the story of our Lady of Fatima for many years. It's a very holy site and pilgrimage for Christians where the Virgin Mary presented herself over a period of five months to three peasant children in 1917. She warned of world wars as well as something happening to a Pope.

It's no longer a big field of olive trees, but instead a giant square and expanse of concrete with three completely different churches. The older church is massive and has long columned walkways on either side of it. There is a smaller church on the actual site with a constantly burning fire for people to light candles and pray for healing.

At the far end is a very modern church with a giant Jesus on the cross that Robin said looked like it was made from copper gutter materials. Anyway, it was quite miserable with the rain and the wind. Both my feet were soaking wet and all I wanted to do was get back to the van. The others on the tour must have felt the same way since all of us were back at the van 20 minutes early.

Of course, there is always the mandatory stop at some touristy souvenir shop. No one bought anything (but I do know it is a way to support the locals).

The next stop was the fishing village of Nazare. This town is famous for the highest surfable waves on earth. The world record was set in 2017 - a wave was surfed that was 80 feet high! We were told to go have lunch somewhere and seafood was recommended… Robin and I ended up having pizza. The town is cute and the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean were quite massive.

Our singing guide drove us up to the top of these cliffs to take photos but I thought the better pictures were from the shoreline.

But the views from the top were also quite nice

Our next stop was this amazing monastery called Batalha. I had seen pictures of it online before our trip and thought it was quite spectacular, but I think it's way more dramatic in the rain. The outside was way more interesting than the inside!

The best part of the tour was going to the town of Obidos. It's quite touristy but very cute. It was absolutely packed because they are having their annual Christmas festival. Our guide dropped us off at the front and then drove around forever to find parking.

You can also walk along the top of the wall since it's an old walled city

They're known for their cherry liqueur that you drink from a chocolate cup. Everyone on our tour was given a free one when we arrived.

No, I did not ruin my 30+ years of sobriety. Both of ours had kids fruit juice instead.

Religious statues for sale and... what's that in the top left corner?

We then drove what seemed to be about 95 mph back to Lisbon…only to get stuck in the absolute worst traffic in the extremely narrow streets. It literally took us 45 minutes to go two blocks. By then, I was just over it and wasn't sure why the racecar/Fado lady didn't just let us out of the car because we could walk faster. We walked back to the same restaurant we went to the first night for dinner since it was so good. Once again, there are thousands and thousands of people out in the streets. Lisbon is a very vibrant city but we do seem to be older than 95% of the people we see. It would be a city that you would want to live near but not IN. We're back at our Airbnb at 8:30 and I am so exhausted I can hardly type this. We walked nearly 20,000 steps as well as another 35 floors!

December 5, 2021
We got up early and headed over to the metro station to buy our tram and train tickets. We paid seven euros each for what we thought was an all-day pass on all transportation. However, it only was good for the tram and that kind of fell through too because there is a marathon today and the tram can only run a 15-minute loop. Everyone said we had to do Tram 28, but it was nothing spectacular. It may have been better had we been able to go further… but I guess we can say that we made the effort.

We walked a long way for breakfast to a place called Fauna and Flora. We ended up eating outside because I didn't feel like digging through the backpack for our CDC vaccine cards. Although all restaurants are supposed to be asking for our vaccination status, it's been about 50-50. Breakfast was just fine and right across from the train station where we were catching the train to Belem.

Our first stop in Belem was at the original pasteis bakery called Pasteis de Belem. The line was quite long but moved quickly.

These were the best pasteis we had so far because they were served warm. However, I won't be having any more because they are too eggy for me. I think many of the other pastries are much better! This is the Jerónimos Monastery in the background.

Across from the Monastery is the famous Discovery monument… a monument to all the discoveries of new lands and distant places that the Portuguese were famous for. It was built to honor the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator (who was openly gay in the 15th century!)

As we continued down the waterfront, we came across Monumento aos Combatentes do Ultramar which translates in English to “Monument to Overseas Combatants". The monument is intended to specifically address the losses suffered in the Portuguese Colonial War, known in Portugal as the Overseas War. During the conflict, the country’s forces fought in three African theaters from 1961 to 1974, and more than 9,000 Portuguese soldiers lost their lives.

Next up was Belém Tower... a 16th-century fortification located in Lisbon that served as a point of embarkation and disembarkation for Portuguese explorers and as a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon. The inside is currently closed due to the pandemic.

We made the last-minute decision to continue on the train and go to Cascais. Robin thought we were not going there on our day trip tomorrow. (However, we checked our itinerary later and will be going there.) I'm not unhappy about that at all because I think it's been my favorite place. It's a beautiful coastal town known for its beaches and is one of the most expensive places in all of Portugal.

The little beach had a ton of colorful boats anchored in the bay and people were playing volleyball on the beach in shorts and T-shirts.

The streets are done in a different mosaic pattern than Lisbon that almost looks like it's moving in waves as you walk along.

Our favorite place was a beautiful park with peacocks, roosters, strange looking trees, and some kind of screaming bird.

We had lunch at an Asian/Indian restaurant that was probably the best Indian food we've ever had.

We walked along the coastline and through a residential neighborhood. If we were living in the Lisbon area this might be the place! However, it's very touristy and once again there was a very long line of cars bumper-to-bumper. That's the one thing we will have to say so far... it is very crowded.

We then took the train ride 15 miles back to Lisbon and still had to walk a few more miles to get to our Airbnb. I'm at 27,000 steps for the day. We went out one last time for empanadas in our neighborhood and met three women that we could tell were Americans and it turns out they are expats living in Porto. One from San Francisco, one from Denver, and one from Minneapolis. They said they have absolutely no regrets leaving the US and recommended that if we were thinking of moving to Portugal, that we should do it sooner rather than later. It would've been nice to talk with them a little longer but maybe we will find more people when we are in Porto. It was really a fabulous day!

December 6, 2021
We did our second and final day trip today to Sintra and Cascais. Sintra is amazing! Our first visit was to Pena Palace. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal. It’s also one of the world’s best expressions of 19-Century Romanticism. All the walls are bright yellow and red. Other walls have thousands of mosaic tiles and very intricate sculptures. Every direction seems to have another great photo. There are many archways with great views. I took many pictures at Pena Palace.

Our guide changed our order up by having us go to Pena Palace first instead of last. Apparently, the lines for the last several days were off the charts in the afternoon and so he got us there as early as possible. He did a very good job because there literally was no line when we walked up… but by the time we left they were probably 200 people in line!

The next stop was Quinta da Regaleira. Most of the day tours do not go here but Robin specifically picked this company so that we could see it. I'm glad she did because it was our favorite place of the day. Our guide called it a “farm” but what it is instead is a giant estate with beautiful gardens. The gardens consisted of hidden caves and passageways, as well as a grand house with separate servant’s quarters. Had we gone on our own we would not have learned anything about the colorful history of this place. The owner was a wealthy Brazilian mining owner, and he was quite a character.

They had bacchanalian orgies with outdoor slab tables where he could watch various sexual acts from his grand stone chair. (Our guide telling us the story).

Although there was a chapel on the property, he affixed this small sculpture of Lucifer to one of the outside walls.

The inside of the castle home was quite grand - floor to ceiling - with no expenses spared.

But by far the most interesting thing was Dante's Inferno well symbolizing going to hell. Supposedly they did actual sacrifices at the bottom. The line to get in was at least a hundred people long. In fact, I didn't even see the end of the line when our guide announced that he had a bright idea for our little group to skip the line. One of the tourists in our group was a woman in her 70’s with her granddaughter. He asked her how old she was (76) and he told her he was going to pass her off as 85 years old. He also discovered that one of the Spanish women (we had two Spanish couples) was pregnant and based on those two people he was able to slip us into the front of the line. I didn’t feel particularly good about this… the granddaughter called it our “Karen moment”. I agreed with her. However, it probably saved us 35 or 40 minutes.

Although I was really grateful for the guided tour… I also wished we could've spent time exploring on our own because it really was an amazing place.

Afterwards we made a quick stop at Cabo Rocha which is the western most point in all of Europe. The area is still called the End of the Word. When people still believed that the earth was flat, they thought this was the actual end and at some point, you’d drop off the flat earth.

Our last stop was the town of Cascais. This time, we only had enough time to have lunch and walk around a few shops.

The chocolate pyramid dessert looked better when we saw it on a YouTube video than it actually was.

On to Porto!

December 7, 2021
Our MyDayTrip driver arrived promptly at 9 AM for our trip to Porto. MyDayTrip uses local drivers to drive people longer distances with possible stops in between. (We've used it in Lithuania and Bosnia). Normally, they show up in a nice car... but this time it was a Tesla!

The weather turned nasty and the wind kicked up. We arrived at our destination - Coimbra - at the exact moment it started to pour.

He dropped us off at the University which supposedly has the best views in Coimbra. However, any view was obscured by dense fog and pouring rain. We also wanted to see the library - a tourist attraction - but I did not buy our tickets online ahead of time and were shocked to find out it was €25 to get in. We stood in the doorway with the pouring rain and the wind and thought “what the hell are we going to do for two and a half hours in this kind of weather?”

We walked through the narrow streets that are very similar to what we had seen in Lisbon, and it slowly stopped raining. We finally stumbled upon the main street and the sun was trying to come out. The mosaic tiles really pop in the rain but are also quite slippery.

We found a cute place for brunch that was our best breakfast yet. I love being able to sit outside in December!

When it was time to meet our driver after 150 minutes, we had a hard time finding him at our designated pick-up place. Turns out, it was only because he was late. All our guides have mentioned that they are Latinas and they run about 20 minutes late. In fact, they say that people from the US and Germany are the ones that are always on time and sometimes have difficulty with the lateness of people from Portugal and Spain.

We arrived in Porto at our hotel which is quite nice. It's in the city center and has been completely redone. The young woman at the front desk told us we needed to get our Covid situation straightened out as soon as possible. Apparently, because sporting events and other venues require that people get Covid tests to enter, it can get backed up and you aren't able to guarantee a scheduled time. Fortunately, one of the labs is in the same block that we are in, so we walked over there in sideways pouring, drenching rain. It seemed as though they would not let us make an appointment and told us to “just show up” Saturday morning so that we are within the 24-hour window that the US requires for us to get back into the country. (It was hard enough pre-Covid with things being lost in translation, but now we have a mask and plexiglass shields to deal with in addition to the language barrier.) That didn't feel very safe to do… so I did get online and downloaded the app and was able to schedule an appointment for both of us for €60. The crazy thing was that that little trip around the block was a complete soaking. Although we had a lot of rain the entire trip (and almost the entire time in Porto), that little trip halfway around the block was the worst. We felt quite disappointed that this was going to be our weather for the four days we were in Porto. We have since found out that it can be drenching rain for 15 minutes and then sunny for the next several hours and then back to the drenching rains. So, we just must keep our umbrellas handy or tuck away under some kind of an awning and wait for it to pass.

PORTO

December 8, 2021
Breakfast is included at our hotel. Although they were strict about masks amd wearing plastic gloves to get your food, the room was quite crowded with other hotel guests. So far, the day was looking promising for cloudy skies instead of rain.

Porto is known for its azulejos (blue tiles). You can hardly walk a few blocks in any direction without coming across another building or church with them.

One of the more famous locations for the azulejos is the São Bento Train Station

We met up with our walking tour and then the drenching rain came again. Like they said, 15 minutes later it was sunny. We had our best guide of our whole trip (so far). He was quite funny and gave us just enough history. He told us more about the dictatorship and I was surprised to learn that until 1974 (when it ended), many people still did not know how to read or write. Salazar wanted to keep them dumb. Most of them were not schooled beyond the 4th grade.

Another fun fact: Spain and Portugal produce 90% of the world's cork. They have cork items everywhere - Cork shoes, backpacks, hats, wallets, etc.

Our guide told us not to bother going in the famous Majestic Cafe (circa 1921) and paying $6 for an espresso.

Behind the walls of the fort in the picture above, there was a lookout point where we got our first view of the famous Dom Luis Bridge. It’s a double decked metal bridge that was the longest in the world at its completion in 1886. The top deck is for pedestrians and train travel to Gaia.

We then walked down to the water level of the Douro River. (I should've known that descending down 150 steps meant that we would have to go back up!)

On the way down, we stopped in a residential neighborhood where an older Portuguese man opened the window so he could say hi to our guide and our group could wave to him. Apparently, this happens every day with the groups that our guide does.

The tour ended at the Douro River. Earlier, we made a 2pm lunch reservation at Nola Kitchen and now only had 30 minutes to climb all those stairs again.

These two 60-year-olds kicked ass and we were only a few minutes late! We love their sign on the front door. That’s one of the things I've loved about Portugal is that it's very progressive. It’s a country that still has a fresh memory of what right-wing fascism can do.

Our vegetarian lunch was great… I had a beetroot burger and Robin had a quinoa bowl.

I have appreciated that everyone wears their masks and no one is complaining about their "freedoms". Plus the vaccination rate is 89%!

The Chapel of the Souls Church was very close to our hotel so we walked by it often

Our walks also took us by this building several times. Loved the contrast of the Gingko tree against the green tiles.

December 9, 2021
We started our day by going to the Livraria Lello otherwise known as the Harry Potter bookstore. It’s a bookshop that's been there since 1906 with a fabulous red spiral-type staircase, wood paneled walls and a stained-glass ceiling. It was never a famous place until supposedly J.K. Rowling used it as an inspiration for her Harry Potter books (more on that later).

There were probably 60 people in front of us in line waiting for them to open. You must buy your tickets online and it was €10 for both of us. Although the bookstore is stunning inside, there are just WAY too many people to make it worthwhile.

You wait in a long line to take a picture of the red staircase and all walkways are quite narrow.

Robin managed to get a photo of me with very few people.

This little place has certainly capitalized on the Harry Potter story because the line is usually 50+ people ALL day long. I think once we actually got into the bookshop, we were there for about a whole 10 minutes. Although I'm not sorry that we went inside, people can certainly skip it and not really miss out.

By now, it was once again pastry time. Robin had read about a nearby place that had the best eclairs. OMG! The caramel eclair that I had was about the yummiest thing ever! We might have to go back there for another one.

In the afternoon, we were trying to walk across the bridge to Gaia. We wanted to walk on the upper level, but we couldn't find the entrance.

It kept raining off and on despite the Weather Channel app telling us it was just going to be cloudy all day. As we walked down the 100 steps to the riverfront, a bird pooped on Robin. It was all over… her jacket hood, the front, and the backpack. Gross. She had to stop several times to clean it.

The other side is Gaia... which is very famous for Port wine.

We had to stop again to clean up the bird poop

Much easier to find the entrance to cross the bridge on the lower level!

On the Gaia side, it certainly is much quieter.

However, the views of the Porto side are amazing

Great street art on the Gaia side. This 3-D rabbit was made from old auto parts and other junk.

Lunch was at a medium sized food hall with great food choices

One of many Port wine tasting rooms

We decided we could cross back to the Porto side on the top level if we took the Teleferico up to the top of the bridge.

The ride was much quicker than the last one we took in Bolivia. I love riding on the Telefericos... it's so quiet with amazing views.

The view of the Porto side from the top of the bridge. At this point, we had already walked about 16,000 steps and were still going on a three-hour walking tour at 3:30 PM. So, we went back to the hotel for only 30 minutes before we had to leave again. We used the same free walking tour company that we used yesterday morning, and today's tour was going to be the west side of the city (the "newer" side - probably still centuries old!)

We had a wonderful female guide named Joanna. She was 26 years old and working on her PhD in medical biology and does cancer research. She was the best guide of all. I really liked this tour because it was less about ancient history and more about recent history and facts that I was interested in.

We stopped on the street that had headless female mannequins in frilly skirts hanging above the street. Turns out that this quiet unassuming street is apparently the center of all the nightlife for Porto. If we’d been down there at midnight on any night of the week, you’d have to elbow your way through a dense crowd to get to the other end of the street. This whole area was very rundown for a long time and one lonely little bar dared to be the first and it ended up changing the whole street. Anyway, it is something we won’t experience since it’s about three hours past our bedtime!

Joanna also explained about the Harry Potter thing… J.K. Rowling lived briefly in Porto in 2017. She has since denied that Libraria Lello had any inspiration in her books, but the people of Porto see many parallels. Since I don’t know the book, apparently the long black capes that the University students wear (a tradition for many years) are similar to something in the book, the bookshop is similar, as well as some of the creatures (in the book) that resemble the lions-with-wings sculptures out in front of the university. So the people of Porto apparently disagree with J.K. Rowling.

Next, we visited a wonderful park with London Planetrees that had large grafted bases. The sculptures were called “Thirteen Laughing” and the artist declared that it was in honor of the older people that used to come to the park and laugh and have a good time.

The time in the park was short-lived, as we once again had to scramble for cover under the courthouse roof and get out of the pouring rain. We learned more about the years under Salazar. Apparently, he was this young economist in the 1920’s and the people originally thought he was going to be their savior. But very slowly over time, they lost their freedoms including the ability to congregate in groups. People were encouraged to spy on and report their neighbors for infractions. Now the country is very afraid of anything that resembles fascism, and the rise of nationalism across the world is quite alarming to them. Anyway, it was an excellent tour despite the very shitty weather, and I learned a lot. If we ever move here, I will go on the tour again so I can remember all the things that I've learned.

Johanna had recommended an excellent very authentic pizza place for dinner called Muti

...and it did not disappoint!

December 10, 2021
We started the day by going to breakfast at a nearby café rather than eating the same food here at the Holiday Inn. Although the food at Café Negra was quite good, we ordered à la carte items and ended up with nearly a $40 breakfast bill! Not sure how that happened.

You'd never get a fruit bowl like this for less than $4 in the US

Then we walked to the neighborhood of Bonfim to check out as a possible place to move to when we need to escape the civil war in the United States. Our first destination was a park and the entrance that the map directed us to was locked because it was under construction. Robin talked to a construction worker through the locked gate, and he said another entrance was open but we never could find it. Same as it is in Lisbon… The streets amble off in every direction, winding both up and down and sometimes your destination is above or below you.

So, we decided to walk to our next destination which was a cemetery.

After walking Bonfim, we headed back towards the main part of town. Our destination was the Torre dos Clérigos (tower) in the middle of this photo.

A closer shot. This is one of the most famous landmarks in Porto.

Near the tower is the building that housed the former prison and is now a photography museum. It was free to get in and interesting enough.

One of the photography exhibits was an Italian photographer that was allowed to document very sick people at the beginning of the Covid crisis in Italy. I know we're not even out of this thing yet… but it was quite sobering to see his photos with many people that didn’t make it. This pandemic will be well documented and talked about for many years to come. It seems like a lifetime ago that we were all watching Italy on the news with great despair. It also seems like a lifetime ago that we were all banging pots and pans in support of healthcare workers and now they're being attacked in the US by anti vaxxers.

This part of the building was the old prison where some very famous people had spent time including a well-known Portuguese writer charged with adultery. He wrote a book called "Doomed Love" in 1861. Our guide told us it's still required reading in school today.

Afterwards we decided (one more time) that we had to go to the eclair place so that I could get a caramel eclair. OMG… It is so delicious! We were back in the room by 6 PM and exhausted once again. I think it was another day of 17,000 steps and 40+ flights of stairs. I think I just reached my limit and could not go any further. Now just to get through the Covid testing requirements tomorrow morning so that we can fly out on Sunday morning. We had already changed our flight to Lisbon once and ended up canceling it today and booking the train instead. The train doesn't require the test and it's so hard to fill out all the TAP Airlines required forms on an iPhone and are unable to print anything, so it just seemed easier to switch to the train instead. Plus, it leaves later (although we won't be getting into Lisbon in our hotel until 10 PM on Sunday night). Fingers crossed this all works out!

December 11, 2021
We had our Covid-19 test scheduled for 10am but were able to do it earlier. With the exchange rate, it costs us $71 total (for two) and we were told we’d get the results in a few hours. It ended up taking seven hours which did worry us a bit!

The only reason this is empty is because it's 8am on Saturday morning...!

After our covid tests, we headed over to the Jardin Palacio Christal - a large, beautiful park with amazing views of the Douro River.

After the park we still had several hours before our train. So, we descended the giant hill one more time and bought tickets to the Six Bridges Boat Tour. It was certainly another one of those cheesy touristy boat ride that was made worse by four very loud and obnoxious males from some Eastern European country. They were joking and laughing with their masks off while the rest of us followed the rules.