Trains, “Luxury Motor Coaches” and Boats

by | Dec 9, 2023 | Photography

We are finally onboard our Viking Longship, the Gullveig. Yesterday was kind of a little bit of everything day. We woke up in Nuremberg, had breakfast, I went across the street to one of the largest train stations in Europe to take some pictures (below), and then at noon, we boarded a “luxury motor coach” (which really was very nice) and headed to Regensburg, Germany to board the ship.

Here are the photos I took before we left Nuremberg. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

 

I need to take a second here to thank someone. When you do a pre or post-extension, you have a tour coordinator who is with you the entire time. That person just takes care of you. They know the schedules; they tell you when and where you need to be; they schedule buses and organize tours, and so much more. They even wind up loading luggage. Being a tour coordinator is all about logistics. And ours was amazing. Our tour coordinator was Victoria, and she always had a smile on her face. One of the nicest and, for sure, the most organized person I may have ever met. We just want to thank her here for taking such good care of us.

We arrived in Regensburg around 2:15 and were met by our Hotel Director, JP (that’s what he told us to call him because his name is amazingly hard to say) and his wonderful staff. This being our first river cruise, we were kind of expecting that embarkation would be easier than an ocean cruise, but we never knew how much easier it would be. In the space of 10 minutes, they got us off the “luxury motor coach” and onto the ship, looked at our passports, had a crew member escort us to our room, and we went up to lunch. We could have done it in five if we hadn’t chatted so long with Natalia, who took us to our room.

The chef and his staff had prepared a “light lunch” for everyone. We were not impressed. It was sad that this would be our initiation to Viking food. Lunch was just OK. Not a lot of food. There were salads, but the empty bowls were not being refilled when 30% of the incoming guests had not had lunch yet. The food was fine but not really that great. There was a broth with very little in it, half a Rueben sandwich that was grilled but sitting out so long it was cold, and that was about it. I am happy to say that dinner was much better.

After lunch, we went back and unpacked in our stateroom. If this trip has made one thing perfectly clear to us, it is this: WE HATE LIVING OUT OF SUITCASES. This might just be the biggest reason we cruise. We like getting someplace and unpacking, and that’s our home. And it moves every day. It was so wonderful to be able to put things away. And what really amazed us is the amount of storage in our fairly small stateroom. We put all our clothes away and still had empty drawers.

Speaking of the room, it is incredibly well-designed. It is (I am sure) smaller than the room we were in last night in Nuremberg, but it is so well-designed it actually feels bigger. The lighter colors help as well. Here are some pics of stateroom 213, our home for the next week.

After our little lunch and unpacking, there was a short, free, guided walk around the old parts of the city by a guide named Hubert Koenig. He was under the impression that he was not only a guide but a comedian and Olympic sprinter as well. He made the worst (and in some cases very sexist) jokes about everything, and as soon as he would tell one, he would race off, leaving most of this group behind—the EXACT opposite of all the guides we had had in Nuremberg and Prague.

He also just walked us to the middle of the city and left us. That was fine for me, but others got totally lost and ended up taking some strange and mysterious routes back to the ship. And the spot he left us was right next to a department store. If he had walked us up a half of a block, we could have seen one of Regensburg’s Christmas Markets (which I am glad that I found). Here’s the photos I took following this “wonderful man” around Regensburg.

After getting back to the ship, we had a wonderful dinner (the food was excellent for dinner, and there was just enough of it). All the tables in the dining room are for groups of six or eight, so you always have someone to have dinner with. We were joined by Carol from New Hampshire who is cruising alone after losing her husband since they purchased the cruise. She is a hoot. We look forward to sharing more meals with her in the coming week. Our server took a photo for us, and at the last minute, the head chef stuck his head in as well.

After dinner, we were off to bed as we had a full-day excursion into Munich tomorrow. The ship was scheduled to stay in Regensburg overnight, but changing river levels forced them to move us down the river during the night, and we are now south of Regensburg. Excursions to Regensburg will still go on, but they will have to be bused back to Regensburg. Right now they are scrambling to bus folks back that way. I will see you tomorrow with a report on Munich.

You’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s old Europe.  —Donald Rumsfeld

Rainy, somber and sobering Nuremberg

by | Dec 9, 2023 | Photography

Our room was as bad as I described in the previous post. It turns out that on our floor, they had all the hallway lights turned off, so it felt like you were marching down a corridor to your cell. There are still some really tiny rooms and even smaller bathrooms. Steve and Jamie had warned us to be careful because the floor was slippery when getting out of the shower. They were worried we might fall on the floor. When they said that I was amazed because I hadn’t seen a floor in the bathroom…it was that small. And the place has only ONE elevator for guests. Talk about lines.

We did get a decent night’s rest, found out the breakfast buffet isn’t equal to the Marriott in Prague and then I even got to go out (before it started raining) and shoot a few photos. They are below in the first gallery.

We were all (as was everyone else going on our longship) signed up for the included walking tour of old town Nuremberg. So off we went with our guide in some pretty bitterly cold temps. It was a tour with a short amount of walking (you can probably see every street in the Old Town in less than two miles of walking) and a lot of just standing in the wind and the cold and eventually the rain listening to our guide…who BTW, was very good. About halfway through the tour, the cold got to Kathleen’s sore knees, so I walked her back to the hotel and used the Find My app to find my brother, and I rejoined the tour.

The tour finished at the downtown Christmas Market. Now, this was a Christmas Market. Comparatively speaking, this one made the ones we saw in Lisboa and Prague look small. And lots of things to buy as opposed to the majority of stalls just being food. I took some photos while we did this tour, which are below. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Steve and Jamie decided to hang out at the Christmas Market and get lunch at a nearby restaurant, so I walked back to the hotel and got Kathleen, and we had lunch on our own. We found a little place in Old Town that looked good…and it was. We both loved what we ordered. Kathleen got the schnitzel, and I got the Sauerbraten. Both were out of this world. Add in two really great German beers, and it was a lunch fit for a king and queen. Having lunch on our own is a big deal for us on December 8th. We call it Magic Day. It’s the day, way back in 1997, when we first met in person (after corresponding for three weeks online). We say it was “magic.”

After lunch came the somber and sobering part of our day. I had signed up for a Nuremberg’s Place in WWII tour. Some of you may not know this, but my college degree is in History and Political Science. So, I am an avid history person. Or at least I used to be. In my sophomore year in college, I had a professor named Dr. Reccow. I still consider him the best instructor I had during my college experience. He taught History, and his favorite was European History of the 20th Century. He was in his late 60s when I took his classes (I took every class he taught), and he was a survivor of the Holocaust. He was also an amazing lecturer. He taught his classes with such drama, describing the horrors, tragedies, and triumphs as well. We watched numerous documentaries about Hitler’s rise to power, the horrible things he and the Nazis did, as well as many of them getting their final justice here in Nuremberg.

To be honest, I was expecting this four-hour tour to be mostly about the post-war trials because I did not realize how much of a part Nuremberg played in Hitler’s rise to power. Our first stop was at Zeppelin Field. As soon as the bus pulled up, I knew where we were. In the countless documentaries I have seen of Hitler speaking, he was standing on the podium of this gigantic field. He held his largest rallies here. It could hold almost 200,000 people. More like 200,000 sheep listening to him spew his hatred. This was the start of his power, and he directed his master architect, Albert Speer, to build these gigantic edifices to honor him and his horrible ideas. It was truly sobering to be at the place where what I consider to be the worst evil the world has ever known all started.

We also toured an unfinished indoor Colosseum that Hitler had started constructing, but it was never finished. It was built to house winter rallies when the weather was like what we were experiencing by then—heavy rain and bitter cold.

Inside a very small part of this half-built edifice (you will be able to see the size of this space in my photos below) is an exhibit that tells the story of Hitler’s rise to power as it relates to Nuremberg. The exhibit was divided into four parts, encompassing the years between the end of World War I and the end of the Nuremberg War Crimes trial in 1946.

I almost forgot to mention that we had one of the best guides I have ever had toured with, leading us through these dark and horrible places. Werner was a guide from a non-profit organization called History For All. Their goal is to educate all people about the evil that grew, existed and was finally brought to justice here in this city. He did an amazing job of doing that, and I found myself hanging on to his every word. He knew his history, and like Dr. Reccow, he did an amazing job telling it to us and making it come alive.

After we had toured the exhibits, we were back on the “luxury motor coach” to cross Nuremberg to see the courtroom where all this hatred and horror finally got justice. On every bus ride we took, Werner would fill us in either with more history or with his thoughts on his city. It was so clear what a passion he had for his work of educating people about the Nazis. One of the reasons he said that his organization was founded is that following the war, most Germans just didn’t want to talk about what had happened. Many expressed total disbelief that the Holocaust had even happened. So they started this organization (History For All) to make sure that people knew and, more importantly, remembered what had happened. And as Werner said, today we. have the rise of the neo-Nazis who believe that maybe (in some ways) Hitler was right. Let me just state right here that Hitler was NEVER right. Not in any way. And no one should want history to repeat itself.

Another thing I fully realized (of course, I knew this prior to our visit) is how much the rhetoric, ideas and tactics of Donald Trump and his ilk around the world are very much like those Hitler employed. Only Hitler used radio, newspapers and public speeches, and today’s leaders use the internet.

Something I learned that I had never thought of before was that not only did the trials at Nuremburg seek to provide justice and punishment to the Nazis but they also established four areas of crimes that had not been considered in the same way before. The Nazis tried at Nuremberg were tried for “(1) crimes against peace (i.e., the planning, initiating, and waging of wars of aggression in violation of international treaties and agreements), (2) crimes against humanity (i.e., exterminations, deportations, and genocide), (3) war crimes (i.e., violations of the laws of war), and (4) “a common plan or conspiracy to commit” the criminal acts listed in the first three counts.” (My source for these four crimes is here.)

Before the trials, none of these were considered punishable crimes. There were no “war crimes” or “crimes against humanity.” Now there are. And now, African dictators and leaders like Putin can be put on trial for these offenses. Hopefully, that will happen to our “friend” from Russia someday as well as many other dictatorial rulers from around the world.

Getting down off my soapbox, here are the photos I took inside the famous Courtroom 600, where the trials were held, as well as stuff I took earlier in the day. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

After we visited the courthouse, we went back to the hotel to try and find someplace for dinner. IMPORTANT ADVICE: If you ever come to Nuremberg at Christmas, make sure to pre-book reservations for dinner. We could not find a single restaurant with an opening in the Old City. That meant another lousy meal (especially the service) in the hotel bar. The hotel restaurant was even totally booked.

After dinner, I went back to take photos of the lights in the Christmas Market but was sadly disappointed that almost all their lights were exactly the same color…gold. So far, the lighting award goes to Lisboa. Here the pics I took that night. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.  —Adolf Hitler

Prague—cold and icy but still interesting

by | Dec 7, 2023 | Photography

Goodbye Lisboa, Hello Prague

When I last wrote any real content, we were still in Portugal. As I mentioned briefly yesterday, the day of our flight from Lisbon to Prague was pretty uneventful. We had breakfast at the hotel, hung out in our room until 10:45, got picked up by our driver from Welcome Pickups right on time at 11:00, and we were off to the airport. Other than a long line at security, everything went pretty smoothly. 

Three hours later, we arrived in Prague. It was there that we were meeting my brother Steve and my sister-in-law Jamie, who we would travel with for the rest of the trip. They were supposed to have gotten in much earlier than us, as they were coming from LAX on KLM. Originally, they were scheduled for about a two-hour layover in Amsterdam before flying on to Prague, but the day before they were to leave, they received a note from KLM that their Prague flight had been canceled. YIKES! 

But everything worked out in the end. KLM was able to get them on another flight, but with a layover of more than five hours in Amsterdam. In what might have been fate, we got off our plane in Prague, walked up two gates to the restrooms, and when I came out, they were standing there. Their flight had arrived two gates down from ours…in an airport with four terminals, each with more than 25 gates. You have to admit, that’s pretty amazing. 

We were met by a rep from Viking Cruises because this is where our pre-cruise extension started. So now we (and all our travels) were their problem ?.

As we drove into the city, we noted that not only was it cold, but there was snow and ice everywhere. This would play a big part in the next day’s plans. 

When we got to the hotel (Viking uses a number of them in Prague—we were at the Prague Marriott), Steve and Jamie, who had been up since the day before at home (about 30 hours), were off to bed. Kathleen and I went into the hotel restaurant and split a sandwich before we did the same. 

Ice and Snow

The next morning, I had truly hoped to do my customary pre-dawn photo walk, but when I got up and saw that it was well below freezing and that the snow and ice were VERY slippery, I stayed in and wrote Tuesday’s post about our trip to Sintra.

The hotel provided a huge buffet breakfast that was part of our Viking extension, and we truly enjoyed it. My brother Steve said it passed the “Steve Test (he would eat there if it were a restaurant near his home). After breakfast, we were supposed to do a “Panoramic Tour of Prague” with Viking as part of our cruise. The tour was labeled as “challenging” in their description, but we were still going to try and give it a go with the idea that if it became too much for Kathleen’s knees, hip or back, we would bail and go back to the hotel. But now there was the problem of the ice. 

I decided to put on my boots and go out to walk around and see how slippery the sidewalks were. What I found was not good. I walked from one end of the block the hotel was on to the other. Along the way, I almost fell three times, and I saw at least four other people slip and wind up flat on their butts. On some of our most recent trips, going out for a walk has not been real fun for us. A few years back, Jamie slipped and fell while visiting us and broke her kneecaps. In May of 2021, Kathleen tripped while we were doing a shore excursion in San Francisco (on dry pavement) and broke her elbow, which meant a six-hour trip to the ER and surgery a few weeks later. I had fallen two years ago on ice a block from our old condo and really hurt my back. So only Steve seemed immune. 

Kathleen, Jamie and I elected to skip the morning tour and see if the sidewalks got any better as the day went on. Steve decided to brave it and headed out on the tour. At about 10:00 am, I decided to go and test again, and I walked for about 15 minutes and wound up in the central square of Prague, where their largest Christmas Market was going. This allowed me to get some photos (you can see them below) and to tell Kathleen and Jamie we could do our afternoon tour—a visit to Lobkowicz Palace. 

Visiting a Palace

Our morning tour (that three of us skipped) was one of Viking’s included tours. When you do their pre or post-excursion, you get a free tour every day, so skipping it was no big deal, but the Lobkowicz Palace was a tour we paid for and included lunch, a concert and a private tour of the palace. We really wanted to go. So at 11:30, Viking transported the three of us to meet Steve and the rest of the tour he had gone on that morning at the castle, where we would do some touring around before getting to the Palace. 

When it came time for the morning tour to end, it turned out that only the four of us would be going on to the palace. The rest who were finishing up the morning tour would return to the hotel. At this point, Kathleen’s knees (which she had really strained on the TukTuk ride in Lisboa) told her not to walk any further, and she headed back to the hotel with the morning tour bunch. 

Jamie, Steve and I went on and did the Palace. When we got there, after only walking about five minutes, I truly wished Kathleen had come with us. We were ushered into a beautiful room and fed a delicious lunch. Then, we were escorted to another room where a classical trio (one violinist, one cellist and one pianist) played a selection of classical pieces for us. They were very good. 

After the concert, our guide led us to a private balcony at the back of the palace where we could see incredible views of all of Prague. Of course, I took a ton of photos. The city looked like a Christmas dream, all draped in snow. 

After the balcony viewing, we were off to see the collection of art housed in the Palace. This kind of thing usually does nothing for me, but I have to say this was one of the best audio tours of a gallery I have ever heard, and I got a lot out of it. It was thoroughly enjoyable. The entire time, I kept thinking, “I wish Kathleen had stayed.” 

But then it was time to board the bus back, and we were led down what must have been a 300-yard, fairly steep ramp covered in ice and snow. It was at that exact moment that I was thankful she had gone back to the hotel. Even with a rail to hang on to, that ramp was a bit scary. And then, when we got to the bottom, we had to walk about another 150 yards to get to the bus through ice and slush. 

All this would have been a real problem for her, and I was so glad she had headed back earlier when the bus had left from where we had originally arrived—a very flat walk to get to.

To top it off, on the bus trip back, there were two sets of Viking cruisers. Some of the people on the bus were just finishing their cruise. They were doing their post-cruise extension in Prague (we are going in the opposite direction and doing Budapest at the end), and because of that, they were staying at a different hotel—a huge Hilton about 20 minutes from our hotel. Because it was closer to the Palace, we went to the Hilton first, where all but the three of us got off. The only problem we had then was that the bus driver had taken his usual route through a parking lot, and someone had parked their car illegally, and he could not move the bus until that car was moved. We sat on the bus while the hotel management tried to find out who owned the car before we gave up. We went into the Hilton and got a cab back to the Marriott. It was not the bus driver’s fault, but Viking should have done a better job of taking care of us. They said that they could get us a cab, but when we got to their tour desk, they said they would need to get the expenditure (around $8 US) approved and that might take a while. At this point, it was almost 5:00 pm, and we had 6:00 dinner reservations, so we decided to pay for our own taxi and got back to our hotel in less than 10 minutes. 

An amazing dining experience

Speaking of dinner reservations, a good friend we know from our Trilogy Travel Club back home had lived in Europe for a few years and either lived in Prague or visited often (I am old, I don’t remember which) had told me about a small, out-of-the-way steak place. Now, I am not really into steak, but I know my brother is, so I said great and made reservations. WOW! I am certainly glad I did. It was one of those dining experiences you only get once or twice on a trip. The place was a tiny, almost below-ground-level restaurant that had so much charm it spilled out the front door. It reminded me of a party mix…it was packed full of Czechs ? (I owe my granddaughter $1 for that one). We were the only non-natives in the place, and it was PACKED! 

We opened our menus and saw a wonderful option just perfect for the four of us. It was a steak platter featuring five different cuts of steak, with three sauces and four side dishes for less than $100 USD. Add that to the two excellent bottles of a good red wine we drank, and we had quite the meal. This restaurant not only passed the Steve Test for me, but if it was near our house, I might go there every couple of weeks. The food and service were top-notch, and the prices were a great value. Especially when the servers only expect a 10% tip. We had a wonderful time. If you are ever in Prague, make it a point to eat at Bila Krava (which I am pretty sure means White Cow). You will not be sorry. BTW: That platter with the sauces and sides was plenty for us. And it was totally delicious.

Of course, after that, it was an $8 Uber back to the hotel and bed. We had a big day coming up on Thursday. 

At this point, let me show you the photos I got yesterday around Prague and at the Palace. Hope you enjoy them. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Our Jewish Quarter Tour, then on to Nuremberg.

In the morning, after a repeat of Wednesday’s superb buffet breakfast, we were off on a tour that featured much less walking than the one Steve had taken the day before and a lot more chances to sit down during talks that Kathleen could take advantage of. Plus, we would be in and out of buildings all morning so that we would stay much warmer. 

Our tour was of the old Jewish Quarter in Prague. We got to visit five separate synagogues and hear about all the horrible things that had been done to the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia for centuries. 

But we also saw some true beauty in these incredible places of worship as well as some horrible sadness in the synagogue that is covered with the thousands of names of Czech Jews killed by Hitler and the Nazis. 

The tour took most of the morning, and our tour guide, Eva, was EXCELLENT. In fact, all our guides here in Prague have been excellent. Steve truly liked the very nice lady who did the morning tour, and we joined him for the end of that tour. He thought she did great as well. 

The Jewish Quarter tour lasted until noon when we returned to the hotel, got some lunch, walked out to find a piece of local artwork (those of you who have been in our home know where that’s going), and then we boarded a “luxury motor coach” to Nuremberg, Germany where we will spend tonight. As I am typing this, I am truly sitting in that luxury motor coach (no sarcasm intended here—it is a really, really nice bus. If it only had WiFi, it would be perfect) headed to Nuremberg. It’s 3:39 in the afternoon here, and we won’t be at our Nuremberg hotel for another three hours, so I thought I would do a little writing on the way. Next up for you are my photos from our Jewish Quarter tour. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

As I write this, it is Thursday morning…you are still enjoying Wednesday evening…and I am up posting this at 4:45 am. We are staying at the Grand Meridian Hotel in Nuremberg. It (like our Prague hotel) is a Marriott, but a much older and historical one that they purchased. Older and historical means…strange and weird to me. The rooms are tiny, the doors open out into the corridors/hallways, the bathrooms are minuscule with tubs with high sides, and the WiFi is slow. They are passing the hotel off as a “historic, boutique hotel.” I myself like boutique hotels. The Hotel Portugal we stayed in in Lisboa was a “boutique hotel.” This one is just depressing to me, with long dark corridors and a single (JUST ONE) elevator to cover a hotel with a capacity of more than 80 guests per floor on six floors. Coming in and out with luggage can be a long wait. And that elevator holds about five people max. Needless to say, Viking picked this hotel, not me.

We had a quick dinner (if you can call it that) in the hotel bar before retiring to our cells ? for a good night’s sleep (the beds aren’t bad). The place just seems like an expensive jail or maybe an abbey or a convent (to me). We are here for two nights before we depart for Regensburg, where we. board our longboat for our first-ever river cruise. More about our Nuremberg adventures coming up soon.  (Editor’s note: the quote below is my reaction to the names in the Jewish Synagogue in Prague. Sorry if I offend anyone.)

A thousand years will pass, and the guilt of Germany will not be erased.  —Hans Frank

 

Greetings from snow and icy Prague

by | Dec 6, 2023 | Food Experiences, Photography

As the headline says, we are in Prague. There is snow and ice everywhere, but we still had a great day yesterday. Well, half a great day. I really want to tell you about it, but we were out late with my brother Steve and sister-in-law Jamie at dinner until late in the evening, and that meant I had to process photos this morning, so I am not writing until right now. We have to meet them for breakfast in about 45 minutes, so I need to change and shower.

But I didn’t want you to think I had deserted you. I will have more about Prague tomorrow as well as the trip we are taking this afternoon as we spend three hours getting to Nuremberg, Germany, by “luxury motor coach.”

In the meantime, here’s our group eating dinner last night at an amazing restaurant that a friend from our Trilogy Travel Club recommended to us. It was a great meal and a great experience. See you tomorrow.

Our last full day in Portugal. Off to Sintra and Cascais

by | Dec 5, 2023 | Photography

Monday was our last full day in Portugal. I am writing this at 4:08 am on Wednesday, December 6 while sitting in the conference center of the Marriott Hotel in Prague. Yesterday was fly day (we flew TAPAir from Lisboa to Prague) and we are now in the snowy north. This means no report for yesterday unless you want to know about a fairly boring three hour flight.

I regret this is the only picture I took of Miguel. He is an outstanding guide and we highly recommend him.

But back to Monday when we got up early (we were meeting our guide for the day at 8:30 so no pre-dawn walk for me) had our breakfast and were driving away (another Miguel) by 8:20. We had found Miguel through what is becoming our go-to source for tour guides—Tours by Locals. He was wonderful. We jumped in his spacious Ford, and we headed for Sintra, the summer home of Portugal’s kings and queens. Sintra is located just north of Lisboa, about 40 minutes by car, in what passes for mountains in Portugal. But it was here that the kings built their summer palaces and that we would tour that day.

The drive out is a great time for us to get to know Miguel and for him to tell us about himself and Portuguese life in general. We love hearing about what is going on in a country now, as well as picking up the historical highlights. Unlike many of our previous guides in other countries, our Portuguese guides have been very open to discussing their political systems, their current problems with their government and many other topics that most guides won’t touch. We found it very open and refreshing.

Since it was rush hour in Lisboa, Miguel had all kinds of back roads he used to get us to Sintra. He is a Sintra native and has lived there all his life, so he knows all the shortcuts. He had us there and parked in no time. Once there, we got out and walked up a short hill, and he took us to a street that looked to be something only mountain goats would climb. Kathleen looked at it like Mt. Everest, but he said, “No, I just want to take you to the first shop up the hill for a little surprise.” Sure enough, we walked into a bakery that has been open under the same familial ownership since 1862. WHOA! That bakery opened in the middle of our civil war! Amazing. He insisted we try the specialty of the house—”the pillow.” So we couldn’t disappoint him (even though we had just had breakfast about two hours before) and he got us one each with a cappuccino. He described the “pillow” as a sweet roll full of the same egg cream filling as the Pastéis de Belém we had the day before but in the same form as a maple bar back home. And of course, covered in sugar. They were delicious but I could feel my teeth decaying as I took each bite.

After our brief stop at the bakery, we were off to walk around the village of Sintra and then tour the oldest palace in Portugal. This is true because the summer palaces had not been destroyed in the great earthquake/fire/tsunami of 1755. That had destroyed the palaces in Lisboa, and the royalty moved to their summer palaces in Sintra while things were being rebuilt in the city.

I have a lot of photos from this entire day, so I am going to break them up. This first group is from the village of Sintra and the palace itself. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

I need to mention here that my amazing bride climbed so many stairs to get through that palace. It seemed like they never ended, and like steps built more than 200 years ago, they were all of differing heights and widths. She did it all. I tell you this because when we were through touring this palace, our choice was to go to another palace (The Pena Palace) where there would be even more walking and climbing or heading back to Lisboa via the coast. Miguel did promise me a chance to take photos of the Pena Palace (which he assured me was much more impressive outside than inside) before we headed out of Sintra. For the sake of Kathleen’s knees (that she strained two days before getting into and out of the TukTuk), we chose the coast. But here’s the Pena Palace from the outside. Pretty impressive.

On to Cascais

After seeing the outside of Pena Palace, we headed on some beautiful backroads (where we were pretty much the only car going in any direction) to the coast. As soon as we arrived, we were blown away by the ocean. Yes, I have seen an ocean before, but where the Atlantic meets the European continent with amazing green water waves coming to the shore in one successive wave after another was somehow just mesmerizing. Check out my photos. And do yourself a favor; see them as big as you can. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

I knew going in that Portugal had some beautiful coastline but I had no idea it would be this amazing. A little further north is the city of Nazare, where the monster waves (they say they are the largest in the world) are. Check out this video to see what I mean. It is truly both scary and amazing.

After I had worn out my camera battery and filled my camera’s memory card, we hopped back into the car to head for the city of Cascais, which we thought looked a lot like the city of La Jolla in Southern California, just more charming. Here are the shots I took there.

Back to Belem

After we had lunch and walked around in Cascais, it was time to head back to Lisboa and our hotel. Our tour had taken most of the day, and we were ready to take a nap. But I still had one set of photos I wanted to take. Granted, it was not the time of day I preferred to take them, but I wanted to try it. And those were in Belem, where we had gone the day before on the HoHo bus. But it was so cold and the sky so flat when we were there I didn’t have the motivation to walk to get the shots. Today, though, was beautiful, so my plan was to get Kathleen back to the hotel to take a nap and then for me to get on the HoHo bus (our passes were still good) and go all the way back to Belem. This would have taken me more than an hour to get out there from the hotel. When I was telling Miguel what I had planned, he said he could easily drop me in Belem, and then I could take the shots I wanted and take the bus back to the city center. This was a marvelous solution, and he was so great to make the offer.

So he dropped me in Belem and took Kathleen back to the hotel so I could shoot photos of two of Lisboa’s most iconic monuments—Padrão dos Descobrimentos and the Belem Tower. The first of these is a monument and tribute to Portuguese explorers over the years. There are a lot of them, and they truly opened up the world. The monument is amazing. It stands almost at the mouth of the Tagus River, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. You will have to see the photos. I did close-ups and overviews. It is a joy to shoot. Then, I moved on to Belem Tower, a monument to Portuguese culture that sits on the river even closer to the Atlantic. Again, you will have to see the photo (that’s all it takes is one) to appreciate why I wanted to go back and shoot it in good weather. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

That about does if for Lisboa and Portugal. We had a really incredible visit and can’t wait to go back…in October. This is definitely one of my favorite cities we have been to. Every part of this stop on our journey worked great. The hotel was wonderful, the people we met were awesome, food was delicious—as always, we ate too much of it. If you get the chance—visit this place. You won’t be sorry.

I like to dream about Portugal, and it’s less easy when you are there.  —Maria de Medeiros