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Thursday April 6, 2017 - Trudeau Airport
(this part written in February) - I might be writing this in the MasterCard Lounge at Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport in international departures. The lounge is free* for us because of our World Elite MasterCard comes with a subscription to Priority Pass. This card gives you access to over 600 airports lounges all over the world. Unfortunately, there is only one lounge in Dorval and it is only for international departures. So if you are flying to Canada or the U.S. you are out of luck. Note although it's free*, there are restrictions. Firstly, it only allows for 4 free visits per year. This means that on this trip we probably will be using all 4 free visits. Two here and 2 in Lisbon on the way back. Fortunately, my membership renews in May so it is good that we are using our visits on the almost expired card. If we were to visit for a 5th time, the cost is $27.95 US per person after that. That's a lot to pay for free food, booze and internet since you can't really board a plane when intoxicated.
The great thing about getting this access to the lounge is that I am not one to arrive many hours early for a flight... but with the lounge access, being early suits me fine. It also takes the pressure off thinking too much about traffic on the way to the airport. Our overnight flight is scheduled for 9:30pm on Air Transat as you may have read in the intro. In the next paragraph, we will see when it really leaves.

Update from the MasterCard lounge at Trudeau Airport. We arrived at the airport just before 7 and were through security on no time. Our Nexus cards helped a bit but the longer walk to the end of the security checkpoints and the walk back to the gate probably came to the same amount of time since there was only a 5 minute wait for 'common' people. The National Bank Master Card lounge has moved upstairs on the 3rd level and can now accommodate 220 people. They put out one wine bottle at a time and it's empty before you can say Pinot Grigio and then they take 10 minutes to bring out another one. The food was not very good but the snacks were OK. I think we are getting fed on the plane almost right away so we didn't eat much. The packing was quite an ordeal as up until 3 days ago, the temperature was going to be around 20c/70f but now the forecast is for 28c/82f. More short sleeves and shorts and fewer layers and long pants. We won't be updating this at least until we check in to the hotel but since our flight gets in at 9am, we won't be allowed to check in for a while. Then the next couple of days will be used to get used to the 5 hour time difference. We don't usually have a tough time adjusting. We find coming back to our time zone much tougher. The other we will have to get used to is eating late. Myrna hates eating too late but we know that eating before 8pm there is considered very touristy and we don't like looking like tourists. Of course, we look like tourists and there not much we can do to avoid that.

Friday April 7, 2017 -  11:45 WEST (Western European Saving time) Lisbon

Arrived safely At Lisbon airport about 40 minutes late but got into the Metro at 10:30. Other than someone having a heart attack on the plane and another with something else the plane ride was uneventful. Myrna noticed that at least 6 women of various ages were walking around the plane with no shoes AND they were going to the bathroom. Myrna rolls up her pant leg when she goes into airplane washrooms. How can these woman go into those washrooms after 6 hours of shake rattle and roll?

The 25 minute metro ride to our metro stop (Saldanha) and the subsequent 6 minute walk to the hotel was good except for the tiled sidewalks which made rolling our luggage quite noisy. We had a great surprise when we arrived at 11:20. Our room was ready! And as an omen to something good ahead, our room # is 219. 19 is my lucky number and 219 is Miriam's birthday who we are meeting in Castro Marin and 19 is her favourite number. The good thing about getting our room is that we can change our clothes. The temperature is HOT and going around in my black jeans would have been horrendous. We are now off to explore the city. We have the Lisboa Card which includes ALL public transport and free entrance to many museums.

Saturday April 8 - Lisbon - 7:15am WEST

Our first day here was great if not tiring. We decided to go to Sintra since it would be a little less busy on a Friday then on the weekend. We actually found out that Mondays are the busy day in Sintra since all the national museums in Lisbon are closed on Mondays. Sintra is a world heritage site about 45 minutes west of Lisbon. Our Lisbon card includes the use of the suburban trains, so we eventually made our way there by train. The area is quite a contrast to Lisbon as it very green and and the castle and palace we visited were on a mountain top. According to my phone, we walked 15 kilometres yesterday on very hilly terrain. According to my back, it was more like 25 kms. Once we got back to our hotel around 7:30, it took all of our energy to walk to our hotel restaurant one floor down. BTW, we are staying at the DoubleTree by Hilton at Fontana Park. Not sure how old it is but it has a very modern look inside. Black wall and black mirrors and very noisy air conditioning. When the A/C is on, it sounds like someone in the shower all night. Note to self, earplugs tonight. I turned it off in the middle of the night and the room was super quiet. Our entire 3 night stay here with breakfast cost us $39.53 thanks to 4505 AirMiles. Supper at the hotel restaurant, Saldanha Mar, was very good but I am ashamed to say that neither of us had seafood. After 36 hours awake out of 38, our thought processes weren't very good.

Today and tomorrow, we are staying local in Lisbon. We are only 5 minutes from the Metro so it will be easy to get around.

Saturday April 8 - Lisbon - 6pm

We are back in our room resting until dinner time which is at least 8pm here. We had great day walking around Lisbon and taking the train to Belem. So far today we have walked 15K but there is more to go tonight. It's Saturday night and we don't have reservations anywhere so we are in for either a long wait or so-so restaurant. We have never been lucky finding good restaurants on Saturdays. In Chicago once we found one restaurant that we could get into. It was good the very pricey.

On our way to the hotel, we stopped at a little depanneur for some wine, beer, water, chips and 3 of the best strawberries I have tasted. They were big and I am slightly allergic! Apparently, it's strawberry season here. Back home we have to wait for July. Anyway, the pictures will give you an idea on how much we have seen today. Also, I challenge you to find a cloud in any picture I have taken in the last 2 days. I am having a little problem uploading pictures but I will try later.  You may have trouble opening the photo album, if you retry it usually works. I hope the problem resolves itself as it is giving grief uploading.

Saturday April 8 - Lisbon - 11:45pm

As predicted, finding a place to eat on a Saturday night was next to impossible. So for 2 evenings in a row, still no fish. We tried to see if we could get in to Ramero which is supposed to be good but it looked like the line in front would take 2 hours and this was at 9pm. So we ended up taking the last table at a place called Hamburgues. So you guessed it, it was hamburgers although Myrna's was chicken. They were actually very good and the Margueritas there were good too although they don't know about frozen Margueritas.

After supper, after 10pm, we went for a little walk to burn off the French fries and the total count for the day was 30,000 steps or 21Kms. I am going to keep track of our total which is now 35k for 2 days.

Forgot to mention that an elaborate breakfast is included at our hotel. First ever with live music, a guy playing a guitar and singing mostly in English.

Sunday April 9 - Lisbon - 11:00pm

Watching the Masters now while typing this. Should be an interesting last hour. Today we rode the Electrico 28 or the tourist tram as they call it. The locals hate the tourists that take their spots on tram. The line up at the Martim-Moniz end is nuts. We took the 12E and later got the 28E for the entire route and back. The line up below was at the Martim-Moniz 28E stop.

When we were finally trammed out, we thought an early supper was a good idea since the restaurant we wanted to eat at, Cervejaria Ramiro, is too busy after 6pm. At 3:30, we still had to wait about 15 minutes. This is a 'real' seafood restaurant. One meat dish on the menu, tenderloin on a bun. The rest is 'real' seafood, no fish on the menu that is just an iPad mini they give to you to point at what you want. Most items on the menu are priced by weight. It is not very big restaurant. I called it the Shwartzes of Lisbon, a must do experience in Lisbon.

After that we decided to walk back to the hotel but we ended up taking a long detour. We stopped at Dr. Wine for happy hour and a pee. Myrna forgot to go where we ate and bathrooms are for clients only in many places. Then we decided to stand in line for the 115 year old Elevador de Santa Junta. It was a 30 minute wait but the view on top on was worth and we were glad to experience the historic climb. We eventually did walk back to the hotel in the dark but on some really nice boulevards. We are both really impressed with Lisbon and could have easily spent a few more days to discover more of its charm. In the end we added 14.5 kms to our total now at 49.5K. A lot of that was when we got lost this morning scouting out the location if the Europcar rental office. When we got there, the lineup was out the door. I hope tomorrow is better since it's a Monday. I won't have time to write anything until tomorrow evening since we will be preparing to get on the road.

Congratulations to Sergio Garcia for long overdue major win. We were routing for him although I have Justin Rose in a golf pool. Justin was very gracious in his loss.

Monday April 10 - Ourem (near Fatima) - 6:00pm

Learned a lesson this morning. Don't rent a car from a downtown Europcar office. It would have been much faster to take our luggage back to the airport by Metro and rent there. The downtown counter was a zoo. Result: Almost 2 hours to get a car. At least 15 minutes per customer at the desk when you are finally called. They try to upsell you everything. I did pay extra for a diesel because I liked the car but when I got it it wasn't the Renault Megane I was promised. Believe it or not it is a Seat. It's not bad but already has 42,000km on it even through it's a 2016 model. Even after you have left the desk, you have to wait for your car from the underground garage. One person waited over a hour for their car to come up the ramp. Luckily for me, mine was already outside so it only took 15 minutes for the staff to realize it was outside. Unluckily for them, the cops already had a parking ticket on it. The other good thing is that Myrna stayed in the room for over 2 hours waiting for me to call to say I was coming back. Since she wasn't feeling 100% it was a good thing that we weren't both standing in line for 2 hours. That's where the horror story ends, fingers crossed.

Anyway it was after noon before we got on the road. We were going to take it somewhat easy on the road since we didn't have that long a drive to Ourem. In the end we decided to take a toll road. That was mistake #1. We have a speed pass for the tolls and didn't notice but the second cost about $7 (4.75 Euros). It wasn't long before we put the GPS in 'Avoid Tolls' mode. The good thing about that is that we get to see more stuff on the road. The tolls are so expensive, the large 50' truck in front of us even turned off before the toll and we followed him for a while.

When we finally got to our Pousada in Ourem it was a little adventure. I haven't driven a standard since Greece 2 years ago. The Pousada in Ourem is on top of a hill just below the Ourem Castle. The streets are one way and are very narrow. On top of that there are cars parked in the streets. The car we rented has sensors on every side to tell you that you are near things. The sensors were having a field day. Once we parked, we didn't want to move although the girl at reception said that Fatima is open 24 hours a day and that her favourite time there is after dark. So after we have dinner at the Pousada, we will attempt the 15 minute drive to Fatima and the eventually drive back up the hill in the dark. Can't wait.

Our upgraded room wasn't ready, so we decided to go to Ourem Castle to check it out. As you will see in the pictures, we were alone in the place. There was one car in the parking lot that usually fits about 50 cars. The other thing that is peculiar about Portugal so far is the weather predictions. Yesterday, the forecast was mostly cloudy and today was the same. The only clouds we saw yesterday were vapour trails from jets flying above. Knock wood, the weather has been great although I saw videos that my nephew Kevin of Shit creek in St-Eustache. That was scary. Look up Kevin Goyetche on Facebook and check out the videos.

Go Habs go, we will say a little prayer in Fatima tonight. They need all the help we can give them.

Monday April 10 - Ourem - Midnight

Fatima is open 24 hours a day and there are people there. There was a service going on when we got there in the outside chapel. The place is immense. There are countless chapels and and the basilica which was closed. The pope will be there in 32 days to mark the 100th anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary to 3 young children who may have eaten mushrooms or something. Don't get me started. Based on the amount of people there at 10pm on a Monday night, I wouldn't want to be there in 32 days. They will probably fit 100,000 people in the square in front of the Sanctuary. Fatima is just over an hour from Lisbon so I am sure many will make the pilgrimage. We drove back into our little town on the hill and by some luck we made a wrong turn and ended right below our room in an available parking space. There are only 8 of 30 rooms occupied in our Pousada. During peak season we would probably have had to park in another town.

Tuesday April 11 - Porto - 11:00pm

We started the day with a good breakfast at Pousada and then started driving towards Porto. At first, the GPS was set at avoid tolls. Then when we saw we were going nowhere fast, we decided to change the GPS to allow toll roads. When we got on the toll road things started to move fast. If you check out the pictures, at one point I was going 145 km/h and was getting passed but all kinds on cars and even a little utility van. Before you knew it, and another 9 Euros later, we were in Coimbra. The university at Coimbra is one of the oldest universities in continuous operation in the world and the oldest university of Portugal. In 2013, UNESCO designated it as a world heritage site. We walked around the town but cheated by using the Elevador De Mercado to get up the hill to the University. The Cathedral just was quite a site too and a welcome place to cool down.  Jesus Christ, it was hot in the Plexiglas elevator. As us about this in person, it's pretty funny. We kept walking around town but our destination was Porto so we could only stay so long. J.C. it was hot in the car when we got back.

We left Coimbra around 2pm and headed on what should be a 1 hour toll ride. We chose the scenic route and thought it would be a great idea to stop at a super market to buy a few snacks and refreshments for our 3 days in Porto. The good news is that I bought 10 cans of Super Bock beer at 49 cents. That's 70 cents Canadian and Myrna bought 2 bottles of white wine that cost a combined 5 Euros or $7 Canadian. The bad news is that we are staying in the oldest hotel in Porto. That means no fridge and not an ice machine in sight. The beer and wine is going back to the car in the morning.

I will give you one guess on what else the oldest hotel in Porto doesn't have....how about parking? They have an agreement with the public parking that is underground. We had 2 choices, the one at 12 Euros a day they told us about in an email (which we found out was very far away) or the one that's only a 5 minute walk away which is 19 Euros a day. That's over $80CAD for three days of parking not really anywhere near the hotel. Our hotel, by the way, is called the Grande Hotel de Paris. It has good online ratings but those ratings must be from people who don't have a car.

Even getting to this hotel in a car is absolutely nuts. With a GPS and the phone GPS, it took us well over a half hour to find it. At one point we had the 2 GPS's on at the same time and we were getting complete different ways of getting there. It was a cat fight like you would not believe so we should one off fast. Google maps on the phone ended up winning this one. My advice to anyone trying to navigate the streets of Porto is to buy a transit pass and park outside of town. The money you will save on parking will easily pay for the 24-48 or 72 hours transit pass. The Metro and tram system here is fairly new and therefore very efficient and clean.

Porto seems like a nice place though but there a many abandoned and condemned buildings around. Portugal is not in best of shapes economically and what we hear is that the government is not really on the up and up. The Charbonneau Commission here would have its hands full according to our Elevator 'driver' in Coimbra.

We are making the best of the no ice situation in our hotel. The front desk guy turns into a bartender at will and we had 2 white Porto nightcaps to take back to our room.

Even though it was a driving day today, we managed 14kms of walking in Coimbra and Porto which brings the total walked to 70kms which is almost 43 miles in other currencies.

After today's excitement on the streets, we may not move the car tomorrow, We are still not sure what we are doing but it will probably involve Port wine and a river.

Wednesday April 12 - Porto - 7:30pm

TRAVEL TIP - I usually put some travel tips in my notes. I will post one now about whether or not to bring your smart phone to Europe and whether or not to get roaming service. The next one will be documented later but you can see today's pictures and involves electricity.

Do you bring your smart phone? The definite answer is YES even if you don't activate roaming services. The following information is based on an Android phone but it probably is relevant to an iPhone. First of all, even without activating roaming, your phones GPS is always there (if turned on in settings) and you can always connect to Wi-Fi to get emails and do searches on the internet. There is Wi-Fi everywhere here, even on our hop-on - hop-off bus. If you have Google maps, the one thing you want to do before leaving home is to go into options and use the offline feature. This will download portions of the map (zones) and you will not need internet access to at least view where you are at any time. The 'directions' feature will not work if not connected to the internet (or roaming service) but at least you will get a dot on where you are. If you have a data package and ask for directions remember that you will use a lot of data. I have prepaid (from Bell Mobility) for 200mb of data. I used over 40 on the first day so I have turned it off and only turn it on in an emergency like looking for our hotel in Porto. Be very careful about data charges once you used your limit. Bell charges $8 per meg after the 200mb limit. That means looking at ONE picture (or simply refreshing email) could easily cost you $25.

Another app that is a must when the country you are in is using another language is Google Translate. Once again, if you download the languages you need, you will be able to use the app offline. You can even use it to automatically and instantly translate text that you see through the camera. Simply point the camera to the text and your language is superimposed on the screen. When you ARE online, you can simply talk to the app and the other language shows up and you can even hear how to say it in the other language. If you are not sure what I mean by the camera thing, check out the beginning of this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/0zKU7jDA2nc

END OF TRAVEL TIP #1 - Stay tuned for #2

We started today by climbing the Clerigos tower (Torre dos Clérigos). If you are claustrophobic (by being in a closed area with people) or if you have acrophobia (heights) you probably want to stay away from this tower. Also, if your pant size starts with anything more than a 3 definitely take this off your to do list. When you get near the top of the staircases, it's a one-way affair. They tried to have an electronic arrow system to direct traffic but people are completely oblivious to the arrows. You also have to be able to climb (and 'unclimb') 225 steps in this 75 metre tower (250 feet). No elevator in this tiny spire.

The good news/bad news story for this visit. - Bad news is that there are many kids off school this Easter week so there are lots of rug rats in the attractions. The good news is that they aren't very big although there was a young lady in front of us for a while that seemed to be having digestive issues. Cabbage might have been in the on the dinner table last night if you get the drift. The view was great but there was a little haze due to been close to the Atlantic. Back in 2010, we climbed the church tower in Christchurch Catheral in New Zealand. It was about the same height but almost exactly one year later to the day, it collapsed during the big earthquake that hit the South Island on February 22nd 2011. I had to stop myself from thinking about that when I was up there.

After our towering adventure, we decided to buy a hop-on/hop-off 2 day pass that included a boat cruise on the Douro and a Porto tour of the Calem caves. I will document the pictures later as we are going out now after resting for the last few hours.

Thursday April 13 - Porto - 10pm

Last night, we went to restaurant called Steak and Shake. It's a hamburger joint that apparently opened on the U.S. in 1936. It was good and a Heineken was 2.50€ and a glass of white wine was 2.40€ so we couldn't go wrong as we didn't want to eat to late or too much.

Today, the first thing we did is go get money at the bank. Our BMO plan allows for 10 international transactions a month for free. When in Europe (or anywhere else really) we only take a little bit of cash with us and rely on ATM's to withdraw money every few days.

Here is another travel tip. When you do want to withdraw money from an ATM there are 2 things to remember that could save you a little money. First of all, the ATM macine that you see standing by themselves either built in to a wall or standalone are usually run by a private enterprise that makes its money by charging a fee. I have seen a $5 fee and if you add the fee that your bank may charge it adds up. Many countries have passed laws that 'real' banks are not allowed to charge fee for using their own ATM. In Portugal, that seems to be the case. My recommendation is to use ATM from a bank. Usually, these can be found inside the bank doors. Since they are inside a bank, they are safer as people have less of a chance to look over your shoulder trying to get your pin number and not likely hacked machines that could steal your pin code.

Once we got money at the ATM (the maximum was 200€ which is low), We decided to hop on the Purple line of our Hop-On-Hop-Off bus that we had paid for 48 hours. We sat on top of the Double Decker bus and we froze. This was the coldest day of our vacation. The high in Porto was 19 degrees and with the wind on the bus, it was cold and for the first day, the sky wasn't blue.

We then decided to do a side trip to Guimarães by car.  Wikipedia says: Its historic town center is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001, in recognition for being an exceptionally well-preserved and authentic example of the evolution of a medieval settlement into a modern town in Europe....The city is often referred to as the "birthplace of the Portuguese nationality" or "the cradle city" (Cidade Berço in Portuguese) because it is widely believed that Portugal's first King, Afonso Henriques, was born there, and also due to the fact that the Battle of São Mamede - which is considered the seminal event for the foundation of the Kingdom of Portugal - was fought in the vicinity of the city.

It's a very nice place and a little warmer than Porto since it's away from the Atlantic. The highlight for us was taking the Teleferico to the top of the mountain where there is a park with lots of hiking trails amongst huge boulders. It was also a little cooler up there and since I was wearing black jeans and a black long sleeve shirt for the first time during the day, I was wasn't too warm. We decided to take the toll road back and it took us 45 minutes to get back instead of the 2 hours it took to get there.

Tomorrow is our biggest driving day of our trip as we are heading to Evora which is at least 3.5 hours away using toll roads which we will be using quite a bit. The temperature is heating up again over the next few days. The forecast for Easter Sunday in Beja where we will staying is 30 degrees. The black jeans are being put away for the rest of the trip I hope.

Friday April 14 - Evora - Midnight

We left Porto this morning at around 9:30 and decided to take the toll roads to get a head start. The weather was cool and very cloudy. I thought that maybe there was a chance we could get out of the clouds by trying to go through the Estralla National park since it has some of the highest mountains in mainland Portugal. Well I didn't think they were that high but halfway up the pass, we were over the clouds and we had blue sky once again. The road are really well kept on this mountain pass but there was a lot of traffic since it was Good Friday. At the top, there is snow and many parents brought their children to experience sliding on it. It was quite funny as they were all dressed in winter jackets while we were just wearing our regular clothes. It was about 10 degrees at the top but with the sun shining brightly we were not cold. The drive through the park is only 50 kilometres but you can stop in many places. If we had all day, it would have taken hours as we stopped many times to admire the views.

We finally made it to Evora (pronounced ever ah) at around 5:15. The hotel we are staying in is the complete opposite of our Porto hotel. It's modern, even futuristic, and very comfortable. It's just outside the walled city which is a great place to walk around. For dinner we had a local dish of pork and seafood at a restaurant called Mr. Pickwick's. It was good and topped with a local bottle of wine at 9.50€ we couldn't go wrong. When then came back to our hotel, where there was live entertainment in our bar, today and tomorrow which is a Friday and a Saturday. We will probably eat in our hotel tomorrow as the menu seems pretty good and it seems to be a popular place.

Saturday April 15th, - Evora - 9:00am

Happy Birthday Gertrude Scully!

Today we are going to take it slow after driving a long time yesterday. We slept in as the bed was very comfortable and the curtains were good at stopping sunlight. This hotel is the complete opposite of the Grande Hotel de Paris in Porto. Of course it's not 140 years old and it was built during a time where there was electricity. Here there is even a plug inside the safe in case you want to charge something while you are out of the room. In Porto, there was one spare electrical outlet. We had to unplug lamps in order to charge our phones and cameras and plug in the computer. That is why, as you saw in the pictures that you should bring a three way plug so that you only need one European adaptor and then you can plug in more than one thing at a time.

Nowadays, most electric charges will handle 240v in Europe. Check on the charger and see if it says 110v-240v. If it doesn't leave it at home as it will blow if you plug it in here. There is really no need to buy a converter that will reduce the voltage to 240v. You make want to bring car chargers if you have are renting a car. Our car has as USB output so we are using that to charge phones while on the road. One thing you may notice here it that your phone battery takes a beating if you are roaming. My phone barely lasts a day here while at home I can go 3 days between charges.

Anyway off to the races and great game for the Habs with 58 shots on net. Hope Henrick calms down a bit.

Saturday April 15th - Evora - 8:00pm

Just getting ready to go for supper one floor up in our hotel. Took it easy today but walked into town to see the Chapel of Bones. We actually walked all around and came back to rest in the room. After that we drove to visit 7000 year old rock formations that supposedly are 2000 year older than Stonehenge. The car feels 2000 years older as they were at the end of a dusty and bumpy road. Couldn't see through the back window after the drive. The windshield was full of bug splatter from the previous 5 days of driving. The weird thing is that gas stations don't have the squeegees that we have back home. We stopped at the local grocery store to get an abrasive sponge thing and used water from the car that was too warm to drink.

We didn't do too much walking today but here is the daily tally so far in kilometres. Tomorrow we should hit the 100km mark which is more than the distance we need to drive to Beja, our next stop. BTW, unlike in Spanish where the J is pronounced like an H, the Portuguese pronounce the J as we would in English. I am still trying to get used to that. The other thing that I am finally getting used to is saying thank you. The first few days I was saying gracias, but now abrigado comes naturally. Actually, people shorten it here to brigado. The accent is on the ga and you barely say the last syllable.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 8 day Total
14 21 8.5 14 8.5 13 5.7 10.5                           97.2

Easter Sunday - Beja - 7:00pm

We managed to stretch a one hour drive to about 3 hours by visiting small places on the way to Beja. We started by going north of Evora to a hill top to see the view. We then took some back roads to Beja. We even went through Cuba. Being Easter Sunday, we thought things would be busy. That wasn't the case as Friday was the busiest day in these parts. Our pousada went from 100% occupancy of Friday, to 80 on Saturday, down to 15% today. Beja is not a very touristy town but the Pousada we are staying in is great. The common areas are massive and the dining room is large. They are offering a special menu for April as the pousadas celebrate their 75th anniversary. A full course meal for 2 with wine for 75 Euros (About $105). We are having that tonight.

This morning was quite eventful in a way. At around 5:30am in our hotel in Evora, nature called and I got up to expel some fluids I had imbibed earlier in the evening. Myrna did the same however did not turn on the light as it was very bright and she didn't want her melatonin to stop. When I got back to bed, I couldn't sleep right away so I started reading some e-mails on my phone and checking out the NHL playoff situation. I couldn't get back to sleep because our room was just below the kitchen that was preparing breakfast.

For almost an hour, I was hearing what I thought was the toilet flushing or the kitchen people upstairs running some water. Finally, I decided to get up and see if the toilet flushing mechanism had jammed. As I walked into the bathroom, there was water all over the floor. The sink was overflowing. I had noticed the previous day that the tiny sink didn't drain very well. In the dark, Myrna had not shut off the tap and therefore water had been spilling on to the floor for a little while. I got out all the towels and cleaned everything up and other than some very heavy towels there was no other damage.

After that excitement I finally got back to sleep and because the curtain in our room blocked so much light, we were astonished to wake up at 9:30am. Since we had a short drive to Beja it was a great day to catch up on sleep.

Easter Monday April 17 - Beja - 5:00pm

Today we decided to take it easy and just go for a little drive around Beja. Last night, we ate dinner in the Pousada. It was a special local menu for 75 that included 4 courses and wine and our waiter even gave us some porto. It was LOTS of food and some that was questionable. As a main course Myrna ordered a cod plate and I ordered Kid Goat (that's what was written on the menu). Anyway we were stuffed when we got out of there and it was too late to go for a walk. The dining room in this Pousada is the size of a church, so the two waiters had their work cut out for them as they were walking back and forth. Although this Pousada is called a convent or Convento, convents here were occupied by all males that belonged to the Order of Friars Minor. Not sure how many lived in here but there are only 35 guest rooms.

In our little car ride today, we went to a marina hoping to rent a small boat to go around a huge man made lake that was created by the Barragem do Alqueva (a dam big dam). Of course being off season, they only had big boats that fit 8 people and were 300 Euros a day and no half day rate. In the summer, they have electric boats that you can rent by the hour. So instead, we drove around and ended up in a little town called Serpa. It was dead in the afternoon, but tonight is the second to last day of their Easter festival. If we knew we could get parking there, we would take the 20 minute drive there as it looks like there are thousands of lights above the streets. There was a huge castle there, and the entire time we were there (45 minutes), we saw one other person.

Then it was back to the hotel to relax by the pool. I even got into the pool as a dare since it is only supposed to open in June. It was cold so I didn't stay in it long. Myrna put her feet in only. Here is a funny story. There was a couple at the pool when we got there. An older guy with a somewhat younger Asian woman. They both spoke English, he, with a pronounced Germanic accent and she with an Asian accent, Thailand would be my guess. After a while, they said that they were enjoying the pool because they would be in the snow back home. They travel from November to mid May to avoid the snow back home. When we asked them where back home was, they said Canada. Then we asked specifically where they were from, they said North of Montreal. We eventually learned that they live in See-Marguerite. This morning at breakfast he said he was going back inn the middle of May so he could play golf. He is a member at l'Esterel. Small world!

Wednesday April 19 - Estoi - 9:30am

Yesterday, we arrived at our accommodation in Faro. We are in Faro county but in a little town called Estoi. It's about a 10-15 minute drive to the ocean. Our hotel is called Palacio de Estoi. It is quite the place. Without asking for it, we got room, you guessed it, 019. Since this hotel is on a hill, reception is on floor 3 and we are in the basement on floor 0. Floor 1 would have been better as there is a view but the balconies are in the open sun. We have a ground level balcony with shade from the upper balconies. Yesterday was hot but since we are on the Atlantic coast for the next 7 days the weather will be around 22 degrees. This is fine as yesterday, when walking in the sun, it was hot. Estoi is a tiny town but we were told it was better than Faro itself. We were also told to go to Olhao instead of Faro if we wanted to have dinner. We had a nice little dinner in a small restaurant and drive back to the palace in the dark.

Today we are going to take it easy. First we will be going to a nature park where there are lots of birds. On the way back, it's laundry time as we are just over halfway into our trip. The are not laundry facilities in Estoi except at the hotel but Myrna doesn't want everything put in the dryer so it's do it yourself day at the Laundromat in Olhao. If we have time and it warms up a bit, we will probably laze around the pool later in the afternoon.

Tomorrow is the big day when we meet our friends Miriam and Mark. The airport where we will pick them up is 15 minutes away from here and then we have a 45 minute drive to Castro Marim which is right on the Spanish border. The next four days should be a blast and there might not be much time to write but I will post some pictures.

Speaking of pictures, if you read my website, Phanfare will no longer exist after May28th. I will have a massive job of transferring the links on the website to the new one. The presentation will look different but should be better as Phanfare had not had any improvement in the last 5 years. The new website is called SmugMug (hate the name) and after filing income tax and hopefully watching the Habs in the quarter finals, I will be tackling the Phanfare migration.

Wednesday April 19 - Estoi - 9:45pm

Today, as predicted, was a slow day. We started with a walk around a nature reserve that nature seemed to have abandoned like many buildings in the town. It was a nice walk, but the birds did want any part of it. We saw lots of crabs but as soon as they saw us, they scampered into their holes. We didn't see any else that was special. What we did do is find a Laundromat and washed our clothes. It was quite clean and very modern. The wash cycle spun the clothes so well that the dryer cycle only took 15 minutes.

After that we return to the hotel and tried sitting on the pool deck. The wind was cold so we didn't stay long. We ate dinner at our Pousada. We had a special surprise with a complimentary dessert and Porto. The reason, today the 19th, is the 75th anniversary of the first pousada to open in Elvas.

Friday April 21 - Castro Marim - 9:03am

Yesterday, was the coolest and windiest of our trip. We picked up Miriam and Mark at the airport around 2pm. We checked out of the hotel near noon and visited some Roman ruins only a kilometre  from Estoi. We thought it would be one building, but it was an entire village. You could still see the tile work from 2000 years ago. It was quite impressive that some of these tiles had weathered the years and stayed in fairly good shape. After that visit, we still had an hour to kill before the plane landed in Faro, so we went to the Praia de Faro (Faro Beach) on the shore near the airport. The wind was blowing and 10 to 15 foot waves were crashing on the shore. Some kite surfers were on the water, but no one was even sitting on the beach as they would have been sand blasted.

We then greeted Miriam and Mark around 2:30 and continued where we left off 6 years ago on the European river cruise. It was great to see them again. When we arrived in Castro Marim, we checked in to our B&B where hosts Andrew and Rupert showed us around the house and the beautiful gardens in the back. There are only 3 rooms in this B7B and we are the only guests. Castro Marim is a sleepy little town within a 5 minute drive to Spain and to a Vila Real on the Portuguese Atlantic shore. We took a cab to eat at a restaurant called the Naval de Guidiana right on the shore. It felt like we were back on the Rhine or Danube on the Viking Pride having dinner with friends. The wind prevented anyone from eating outside on the terrace as things were being tossed around

We haven't quite made firm plans for today as we were up with Andrew and Rupert until 1:30am talking about a plethora if subjects and none having to do with our agenda for today. I think that we may head into Seville in order to get away from the wind that is supposed to subside some time today.

I am having a little trouble uploading pictures. Obviously, Phanfare's last days are affecting the site as the uploads are taking longer than usual.

Friday April 21 - Castro Marim - 11:00pm

Today we went into Spain, twice actually. We drove to Seville which was about a 90 minute drive on the toll-less highway. Spain does not have toll roads and the speed limit is 120km/h. We found an underground parking spot right by the exit in Plaza de Cuba. Then we walked around the town for a few hours. It was very busy but Seville (or Sevilla) was really impressive. We were especially amazed by the Plaza de España. It a large crescent shaped building with a huge 'square' in the middle. It was built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. After 8kilometers of walking, we drove back and then took a taxi back Spain for dinner in Ayemonte just across the Guidiana river. We changed our clocks 4 times today as Spain is in the European Time zone.

Sunday April 23 - Castro Marim - 6:35pm

Haven't had much time to update the blog. Last night, we have a wonderful meal in our B&B, Casa Rosada to celebrate Myrna's 60th birthday which is today. Our hosts, Rupert and Andrew served up a outstanding culinary experience that we will remember for a long time. Spending an evening with Miriam and Mark in such a setting, made the evening so special. We continued the celebration with mimosas in the courtyard for breakfast.

Tonight, we are taxiing back to Vila Real for our final dinner with M&M as they are returning to Wales tomorrow on an 11:30 flight out of Faro. We will drop them off at the airport and continue on to Sagres where we will spend the next 2 nights in the Pousada there. Sadly, we will only have 2 more nights in Portugal after that.

Monday April 24 - Sagres - 6:45pm

Our time with Miriam and Mark came to an end this morning as we dropped them off at the Faro airport on our way across the country to Sagres. Our 4 days together flew by and we made a promise to meet again in 2 years. May 19, 2019 is our target and God willing it will happen. We had a short but great time together in an amazing place, the Casa Rosada and its surroundings. A shout out to Antonio, our cab driver for 3 of the 4 evenings that we went out to have dinner.

The Pousada in Sagres that we are staying in is not a luxurious as our past Pousadas but makes it up in Spades with the view from our balcony. We went on a little hike to the fortress that had incredible view. We now have seen the real Algarve coast line and although the weather is not what it has been for the last 2 weeks, it is still beautiful.

Tuesday April 25 - Sagres - 6:00pm

Today we went to Cabo San Vincente or Cape Saint Vincent. It's the most westerly point in continental Europe. It's 3,719 km from the most Easterly point in Canada, Cape Spear Newfoundland. The weather has turned a bit cooler and cloudier since we are in Sagres. I guess the first 14 days of pure blue skies had to come to an end eventually. Tomorrow we head back up the coast road to our final Pousada in Alcácer do Sal. The drive is supposed to take 2 hours and 40 minutes. We are planning at least 4 hours as we know we will stop many times along the coast especially if the clouds go away.

In Sagres, we found a good Italian pizzeria called D'Italia. It has very reasonable prices and we are going back tonight. The food is good and the desserts are amazing and you get a small Porto when you ask for the bill.

Tuesday April 25 - Sagres - 8:30pm

We had an early supper at D'Italia so that we could enjoy the sunset on our balcony. Unfortunately, there were clouds on the horizon so we only saw the red sky. Instead of pizza tonight, we had pasta which was good. The special cappuccino I got after the meal was the nicest presentation of a coffee we had ever seen. I will definitely post a review on Trip Advisor for this restaurant. The picture above is a view from the balcony but I did use the zoom feature of the camera. The lighthouse you see is actually 5.83 kilometres from our balcony. Don't ask.

Thursday April 27 - Alcácer do Sal - 8:30am

Yesterday, we drove up the coast of Portugal but actually were never really on the coast until we reached the town of Sines. We had the first rain of the trip but only for about 5 minutes and not enough to activate the automatic windshield wipers. The drive was interesting with lots of big trucks in sections where they were trying to avoid tolls. The was a lot of motor homes on this drive also. At one point, we were in a town where we could barely get around the corner with the car. If that ever happened in a truck or motor home that would be it because even in the car, backing up would have been a challenge.

The area we are in, Alcácer do Sal, has had people living here since the Mesolithic Period, 40,000 years ago. The Pousada we are staying in is built on ruins of an Iron Age village. They found tools dating back 7000 years when digging underneath. Because it's at the top of the hill, the fortress has been settled by Romans, Moors, Vikings and eventually taken back by Manuel the first in 1495.

The river's water level is very high right now probably because of the spring*. The waterfront buildings need a little work as you can see that the economy isn't great in Portugal as a whole. There are some signs of improvement as there seems to be a program to improve things called Portugal 2020 which is part of Europe 2020. The program has 5 facets of improving the economy and life in general. To be seen if it works.

*Update about the river. From our room we just noticed that the water level in the river has dropped many feet. Forget the spring theory. Although we are 43 kilometres from the ocean, the tides seem to be affecting water levels here. Duh!

Friday April 28 - Lisbon - 7:45am

Yesterday was a short drive from Alcacer Do Sal to the Lisbon Airport but we managed to stretch it to more than 4 hours. We went to Sebutal which is only 20 minutes from Lisbon but we made a lot of stops on the Atlantic Ocean. When we finally got to the Star Inn at the airport we checked in and I brought the car back. From the hotel, bringing the car back and walking back took all of 20 minutes. If you have an early flight out of Lisbon, the Star Inn or the Tryp are literally a 5 minute walk to terminal 1. They have a shuttle but Why bother?

In our hotel, we packed everything to prepare for our flight and we were all ready to come back but it was before 5pm. We decided to give downtown Lisbon another visit. So we walked to the Airport Metro station (4 minutes away without luggage) bought tickets to downtown and walked around (a lot) and finally got a bite to eat at Brown's hotel. We thought the appropriate last supper in Portugal would be, as we started, a hamburger. We were kind of seafooded out after 21 days. Lisbon was hopping compared to just 3 weeks prior. April 25th is a big day in Portugal. It's called Freedom Day and it commemorates both the 25 April 1974 military coup, and the first free elections on that date in 1975. The military coup ended the Estado Novo (New State) which was basically a dictatorship. The coup was called the Carnation Revolution as virtually no shots were fired and when the population took to the streets to celebrate, they put carnation in the muzzles of the soldiers guns and on their uniforms.

Portugal has been a great adventure highlighted by celebrating a milestone birthday in the company of good friends. Our flight home leaves at 9:15 and should arrive just after noon in Montreal. It will be great to be back home but the memories of this vacation will last a lifetime.

If I find time in the next weeks, I will do my usual wrapup and start my SmugMug conversion which will be a major undertaking.

I have already converted my photo albums to SmugMug and it WILL be a major undertaking as lots of stuff changed during the migration.

Here is a little wrap-up. We drove just over 2800kms during the trip and since we had a diesel car the gas wasn't a huge expense. I haven't received the bill for the tolls yet and that will be interesting to say the least. In all we ended paying $200 worth of Diesel which is called Gasaleo here not to be confused with Gasolina which is regular gas.

As far as walking is concerned that varied quite a bit because some days we drove and rested. Below is the day by day picture.

 

Lisbon   Porto Evora Beja Faro Castro Marim Sagres      
Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 21 day Total
14 21 8.5 14 8.5 13 5.7 10.5 5.7 9.1 8.1 6 8.9 10 3 5.6 10.8 6.5 9.8 12 5 248 Kilometres*

*Two-Mountains - Quebec City is exactly 250 in a straight line