The end is near . . .
OK - the end to our trip. That is scheduled. No one has informed me about other more universal conclusions.
We are scheduled to fly out of Lisbon in a couple of days. So, we're trying to make the best of the time.
As I look over this account this morning, I realize that I am several locations behind. We arrived in Lisbon on Friday night, after spending a couple of nights in Guimaraes, Portugal and Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Sometimes it is hard to keep track.
Impressions:
Santiago de Compostela: A strange, but pleasant vibe through the downtown. Yes, a strong tourist element - but it's really overall a joyful and diverse element. Old people. Young people. Spaniards. Americans. Germans. French. Japanese. (OK - not a lot of Japanese). All united in some way with the objective of completing a pilgrimage to a holy site. Sometimes, the atmosphere was a bit like a soccer match - but most of the time it was just joyful. Yes, lots of tourist trinkets for sale in the old town. And we did stay in a wonderful place right in the old town, about a five minute walk from the Cathedral.
View from our balcony in Santiago
We went to the Cathedral the first night, saw the silver box containing the relics - the bones? - of St. James. Craned our neck to look at the intricate gothic arches.
The following day, we went through the museum, a wonderful collection of art and history. Wandered around and around the old town, stopping in the very vibrant city market. Notable lack of olives in the north of Spain. They're available - but not in the big vats that you find in Madrid and Barcelona.
On July 3, we headed for Portugal, arriving in Guimaraes in the evening. Slight fumbling at the entry process. Where was the key? When we found it, we learned that the key that didn't work well. An elderly neighbor came down to help (this is about 11 p.m.) to help - as we communicate with sign language and she gives us advice in Portuguese. In the end, we entered that apartment - which was fine. And again - the location was unbeatable, right on the perimeter of the old town.
Guimaraes was a very sweet, ancient city. Clean. Quiet. A real sense of civic pride suffused the place. This was the location where Portuguese independence was first secured about 900 years ago.
Of course, over the subsequent centuries, that independence has been threatened and shaken by the Spaniards and the French, but essentially its borders are roughly what they were after its own Reconquista.
On our first full (and very hot) day in the city, we toured the wonderfully restored palace of the Duke of Braganza, which had been taken over by the French army when that country occupied Portugal during the Napoleonic period.
Saw the castle of the first king who established Portuguese independence. Walked around the old town a lot.
We did explore the newer section of the city as well, and it was impressively clean and just civilized. Traffic pausing for you as you cross the street. Cafes filled with a mix of people - many of them older than 60 - drinking coffee. Just quiet and really feeling quite livable. In its modern times, the city had been a center of the tanning industry, but that industry seems to have closed down.
On the 5th of July, we took a long bus ride to Lisbon.
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