Category: Travel

A couple more of Lisbon

There’s a winery in the Douro Valley of Portugal named the Quinta da Pacheca Winery.  A tour bus loaded its elderly cargo after this floating assisted living center docked early this morning and we drove about an hour and a half to get there.  The scenery is nice.  It’s hilly and nearly every backyard is a garden and/or vineyard.  Our guide said most of the vineyards produce what they refer to as green wine, that is young wine.  If she said why they don’t age it a little I missed it.  The Douro Valley is famous for its port wine and the winery we visited produces about 200,000 liters a year, I think the proprietor said.  His grandfather bought the winery and this guy had quite a few miles on him so I guess it’s been in the family a while.  We got to sample their white and red wine as well as their port over lunch.  So far, the lunch was the tastiest meal I’ve had.  Supposedly it was typical Portuguese fair but our guide also went to some length to tell us that the Portuguese eat a lot of cod.  Cod for Sunday dinners, cod for Christmas, cod, cod, cod.  We had the cod and weren’t impressed.  This lunch of cheeses, tortillas, some kind of fried bread and some fresh salad was much better.

They threw an old couple off the ship before we got underway yesterday evening.  They hold an emergency training session before embarking and all passengers are required to participate.  If you don’t show up, they  throw you off the ship.  That’s what apparently happened to this man and woman.  After the alarm for the practice drill was sounded, we assembled in one of the large restaurant areas where roll was called.  There were several people that had to be rounded up but I guess these folks had too many black marks and they and their luggage were escorted off the ship.

Tonight is a formal night.  That means I have to wear a suit to dinner.  Last night I wore a sport coat.  I guess the food and company is good enough to make it all worthwhile.

It took a little to get used to the roll of the ship once we sailed.  Joyce had a little spell of sea sickness when we got back to our cabin after dinner but I think she got over it pretty soon.  I could have slept later this morning but we  had an 8 o’clock pickup for today’s excursion.  I think we’ll have another one tomorrow morning.

Lisbon

Joyce is sawing logs.  She slept well last night but had not for several nights prior and was pretty tuckered out when we finally crashed after dinner last night.  I started out watching Portuguese TV but passed out.  The flights were all uneventful but we did spend some time on the tarmac in Madrid because the Portuguese air traffic controllers are on strike.

After napping a few hours at the hotel, we set off on foot for the tour bus depot where we caught an open air vehicle that whisked us around parts of Lisbon.  It was interesting.  Sort of.  Fatigue makes me less appreciative of most things and graffiti-coated cities look like, well, graffiti-coated cities.  We visited St George’s castle, which was more of a fort.  The accompanying literature said the king didn’t stay in the castle unless he was hiding from invaders.  It had a good view of the surrounding area, as any well-thought out fort would.  One had to step carefully to keep from tripping over the cobblestones.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a sidewalk cafe, one of many, for dinner.  Joyce, Betsy and I had the cod.  We don’t know about Betsy but Joyce and I had entre remorse when we saw the nice steak Bryant ordered.  The cod tasted OK but was a bit rubbery.

We’re going to transfer to the ship in a couple of hours.  I’m looking forward to staying put for a few days.  That is, not having to tote my bags and dig through them for my clothes.  I packed the Samsonite suitcase Dad gave me when I was a teenager (was he trying to give me a hint?) since I had to pack a suit and a sport coat so as to be properly dressed for dinner on our yacht.  It makes it obvious why they started putting rollers on suitcases.