A Tight Squeeze

You didn’t think I was going to let the day go by without another Portuguese story did you? No, I’m sure you were waiting to see what else awaits an intrepid traveler.


One of the things that you see in guidebooks are admonitions not to drive in Portugal. Various reasons are given for the stated warnings. The main warnings focus on the insanity of driving in Lisbon where the streets change names, the drivers are said to be crazy, and where the lack of street signs to offer an...y guidance leave you doubting the GPS.

There are other reasons however not to drive in Portugal. Take the city of Coimbra as a for instance. Just down the hill from the ancient university located in Coimbra is the old cathedral, the old Se. There is a one-way street that runs from just below the glorious and ancient library of the University down to a square where the old cathedral and several sandwich shops are located.


On the day that we were exploring the University we discovered the challenges of navigating that street. A car had come down to the Square from up near the university. It was something small like a mini Cooper or a Fiat 500. When the car reached the corner where the cathedral is located the driver about freaked out. The distance between the cathedral and the building on the opposite side of the corner was so small that the tiny car’s mirrors had to be folded in. One of the passengers had to step in front of the car and act as an air traffic controller waving this way and that to navigate the car through the narrow slot. The driver was making adjustments centimeter by centimeter. If you look at the walls on the building across from the cathedral you can see that that process has not always worked well.


After watching several cars being navigated through the space we headed back up to the university. About 10 car lengths up from the passage, and at a point well down the one-way street that leads to it, a nine passenger van was just parking. Jokingly, but not really, we told the driver of the van that to exit the area he was either going to have to back up the hill, or simply walk away from the van and tell the rental agent that the van had been stolen.


Much laughter ensued. The driver was basically giving us a manifestation of a no sweat attitude. The passengers were Brits, French and English. As we watched them walk down the hill we started to hear words that we were familiar with. Merde stood out and I believe there was a bloody f&@king hell as they actually saw the space. Wonder if they filed a police report?

Coffee and Water and a Panorama

Seasonal transition is in full swing this Michigan October morning.  Last night’s air grew cold. The morning remains cold. Early last evening the weather people advised us of frost and freeze dangers.  Luckily, I had harvested the last of our basil a night earlier.  Picked the volunteer peppers, too.

Preparing to leave this morning, leather coat (check), thick sweater (check), I did find the canvas bag filled with gloves. So right now, there are on my hands a matching (!!!-true surprise at finding mates) pair of black snug hand covers sufficient to warm my hands.

Gloves were the last thing on my mind when I spent the last week of September in Lisbon. Every single day the temperature reached the 90s. The sky was absolutely clear, there was virtually no humidity. In such spectacular conditions I walked about 8 miles each day. Lisbon is built on a number of fairly steep hills. I think at the end of each day my Fitbit application would be telling me I had walked 14 or 16 flights of steps.

Unexpected joys prevailed more times than not. We didn’t mean to, but we did end up on the number 28 tram. All the tour books talk about this tram.

Yellow and ancient and jerking along it paused where we were standing and decided, why the heck not. Having taken the flyer of that ride I can tell you without question the guidebooks are right, get on the tram at the first stop and grab a seat. We got on the tram at the second or third stop, thus we stood soon for the entirety of the ride.  Still, it was not comfortable.

Craning our necks and scrunched in the center aisle as more and more people boarded, we did see a great number of the sites the ride offers to visitors of Lisbon.

We got off tram 28 early because we had seen a park with umbrella covered tables that had wine and beer and what looked like a quite beautiful overlook of the city. Believing the end of the line was soon we overshot the park by a couple of stops.  When we got off we tried to walk back to those enticing tables but alas we got lost. Hopelessly lost.

Eventually we decided to sit down in one of the infinite numbers of pastry /coffee shops that are omnipresent in Portugal. The smell of flaky, fluffy delightful pastry mingled with fresh espresso scents can be found everywhere. The beauty is these little corner spots also serve beer and hard liquor. “Uma becca (sp?) e uma agua, faghe (sp?) favor”, espresso for the lovely lady and water for the old sweaty dude please.

We asked the proprietor for directions back to the park we had passed. Nao, she wouldn’t give us directions to park. She without reservation stated to get the most beautiful view of Lisbon we had to go up the hill. So, after purchasing our coffee and water, the ever present ever needed agua we headed out. Three blocks up the hill she said. Three blocks at a 45° incline we said. Sipping our water, no guzzling, panting, sweating, we made our way up the three blocks. The senhora at the coffee shop was right, it was a magnificent view.

Off to the side of the park was a small chapel. The park had a small cluster of trees and some benches.  In the shade a man was playing a guitar for the  tips his hat sat waiting to catch. Guitar man's sound was pretty good. What a joy it was to view the city from side to side as we listened to some laid-back jazz noodling.  Eventually we sat and sipped ice-cold water. The panorama was a delight. Serendipity.

Two Photos of Portugal with Narrative



Lisboa Morning Light

Walking in this morning there’s a slow steady rain. Light precipitation not enough to stop me from putting in the work to get five miles in a day, but it is a pain. About a quarter of the way in I walked by about 10 middle school age kids standing huddled together waiting for the bus. These pre and early teens are subdued today. Usually they’re joking, pushing, laughing, jostling or staring at their phones but nary a smart phone light is to be seen in this black misty early morning. Further, they are silent as monks.  The drizzle today tamps down life.

A couple carrying two golf umbrellas are walking their pooch. He’s decided to relieve himself. I don’t look back to see if they use the little blue bag is required here to pick up his waste.  It is bad enough they must get up to take the dog out, on a day like this, they don’t need silent judgment.

I’m thinking about the next post I want to do for my blog. I’ve been silent for so long. When I’m not writing experiences and thoughts out, things seem to drift out of focus. Writing clarifies my mind. Writing purifies my thoughts. I’d say purifying in the sense that putting the words down on paper strip away the little bits and pieces that attach over time to the story as a memory fades. If I get my thoughts down now close to when something is happening, later when I look back I see a much more real vision of the experience.

Right now, I am thinking about two photographs that I must pull off the role on my iPhone. One shot is the view out of the apartment I stayed at in Lisbon. It’s a sunny day, (every day I was in Lisbon was sunny and hot). The particular picture was taken in the morning light before things got toasty. My mind tells me that what I saw and photographed captured the promise of a new day. Much of my trip to Portugal carried with it a morning promise of something new, of something interesting.

There is a second picture which comes to my mind. Captured within was the sun fading over Coimbra on the second night of the trip. Francie and I were having dinner of boar stew and wild deer loin when the sky just took on the most amazing shades. I struggle for the descriptive terms;  the faintest orange-pink, the growing indigo of evening, these covered the horizon. A couple of college girls giggled and worked their way through shared entrée and then a shared delicious looking dessert. Their talk was animated, and their hands were circling and flying about. What they were doing was irrelevant. The sunset at that day’s end was as beautiful as any I’ve seen in years. Maybe it was travel euphoria, or maybe the light at that time of day, at that time of year, in that place part way around the globe is just special.

Normally when I walk in the work I cut across a pocket park to get away from traffic on Harrison Road in East Lansing south of Grand River Avenue. The people from Glencairn fly down the southbound stretch of this rain-soaked road on their way to Michigan Avenue, where they turn heading to downtown Lansing. I don’t mind walking up this hill in the evening because traffic is coming toward me. However, the walk down is scary because people are flying in their haste to get to their desks. It always seems like I’m one second away from a pickup truck jumping a curb and shuffling me off this mortal coil.

Life is very short. I want to savor every bit that I have left. Maybe I have 10 or 15 good years left. Maybe I have four months. I don’t know, and it is not for me to know. But let me appreciate the good that is around me. Let me feel the rain on my face. Let me walk putting one foot after another from point a to point B with purpose and enjoyment.

Coimbra Evening Light

The Wrong Train, The Best Result

When you begin it all seems so simple, you have bought a ticket and you ask the train station staff, “Where do you catch the train down the coast?”  The representative of CP (the Portuguese rail system) tells you that although you bought the ticket there at the fancier than heaven Sao Bento station you must leave from a different station.  He tells you to get on the next train south and change two stations down the line. 

 

With trust you follow his direction.  Sure enough, there is a train that has the name of the end point of the local you want, but it is coming in six minutes early.  You are unsure so you waiver for a second and then jump on.  The train’s door closes, and the cars picks up speed. 

 

Very quickly you discover something is amiss.  You have downloaded the stops for the train you want, and this train is blowing right past them.  Zoom, zip there is a station you should have stopped at and the trains just flies by.  You pull up the app on your phone and you see the train is going toward a seaside town about 10 miles south of where you want to be. 

 

Hells bells, you better get off at that next stop and figure out when the next local coming north will swing by.  (By this point you figured it out.  You wanted a local.  The train person gave you directions to get on the regional line which makes fewer stops.)  When the train pulls into Espinho you get off.

 

Unlike the 8 days you spent in Lisboa and Coimbra, all at 90 F or hotter, Porto the city you came from today has been hovering about 68-70 F.  The whole coast is fogged in with a grey clammy mist.  As you get off the train you walk down the seaside promenade.  You look left and see nothing.  (This is funny because there is a big casino there, but the fog has obscured it).  Then you look right, and you see some fishing boats pulled up on the beach.  There are nets drying 

 

Small boats on the sand, this is the stuff you have been looking for. 

 

Grab out the iPhone and start snapping the photos.  Your wife goes for the arty shots.  She is really good at composition, hell, she took a course in it once.  You just shoot whatever trying to get a contrast of colors. After about fifteen minutes of this you suggest walking through the town. 

 

You are barely two blocks away from the beach and you start to smell it.  These is the distinct odor of seafood grilling.  You start to salivate.  It is a smell from your youth spent in the tidewater of the eastern U.S.  The smell grows stronger and then you turn a corner and see a gentleman over some coals turning an octopus, some sardines and some filleted white fish on the grill.  The smell is sooooo inviting, so alluring. 

 

The place appears to be an old house converted into a restaurant.  The line is short, so you queue up.  Pretty quickly you get seated and with a smattering back and forth of broken English/broken Portuguese your order a ½ liter of wine, a small beer, some octopus, a seafood stew and a white fish of some unknown variety. 

 

And the seafood stew is delightful.  It tastes light, warm and golden and there are mussels in it and shredded fish too. The wine is delicious, and the beer is cold.  And then the octopus so delicate with the texture of a scallop is served.  And the white fish (sorry I can’t tell you what kind) is flaky and mild.  The smells, the textures, the experience is just a serendipitous delight.

 

Sometimes you just must take a wrong train to find the right place.