And Now the Photography—My Top Ten

by | Dec 28, 2024 | Photography

I admit it. I have more than ten photos. But I just could not make up my mind. First, I sorted about 3,000 photos to find my favorites. Then, I broke them down and consulted my wonderful bride and my grandson. Both gave me some good advice. I got down to 28. Six of those were puffin photos from the Isle of Lunga in Scotland. One was easy because it was one of a kind, but the others were really good. Kathleen liked one to add to the top ten and Mason another, so with that, I give you my puffins.

A special note (and I will only say it once, I promise): Don’t forget that if you click the first shot, you can scroll through it with your arrow keys or by swiping. And please don’t look at my photography on a phone.

 

And now for the honorable mentions that aren’t puffins. I will put the locations I shot them in the captions. Again, please click the first one and view them in full-screen mode.

This brings us to the Top Ten. Let’s count down to #1. I have set them up as a single photo gallery, so you can click them to view them full-screen.

Number 10—Djupevatn Lake above the town of Gearanger in Norway. I did a quick pano to get the full wide angle. I heard from someone who was on the cruise before ours and, therefore, had visited this lake two weeks before us. They told me it was still frozen over with tons of snow. You really need to click this one to see it in full-screen mode.

Number 9—Eileen Donan in Dornie Scotland from above. This is Kathleen’s family castle. You see, her mother’s maiden name was McCray, and this is the ancestral home of the McCrays. You may recognize it because it has been in many films and is commonly known as one of the most photogenic castles in all of Scotland. I took a ton of photos of it from ground level, but I knew there was a way to get a shot of it from above. As we were leaving the grounds, I asked one of the parking attendants how to get to the ridge above the castle. He swore me to secrecy and gave me exceptional directions that enabled me to get this shot.

Number 8—Lisbon below the Hotel Portugal. We were having our last dinner with our good friends we travel with every October (Steve, Jamie, Mike & Cathy) in a restaurant on top of a nearby hotel when I took this shot of an open-air market about a block from our hotel. It isn’t often that I get two almost aerial shots in one year.

Number Seven—A political demonstration in Lisbon. I don’t think I have ever taken a newsworthy photo before. Something that covers the news that is happening wherever we are. I was walking back from Lisbon’s Pink Street when I crossed a bridge and saw this march below me. It was so unusual for me that I had to include it in my Top Ten.

Number Six—The Tulip Stairs in the Queen’s Castle Greenwich, England. This beautiful photo is all about the angle. I took about 20 shots of this staircase, but the best of them was looking up its spiral.

Number 5—A pastoral scene just outside Plockton, Scotland. We were driving down a very remote but beautiful road headed to Plockton, Scotland, where we were looking for highland coos. We had seen a YouTube video that there were coos in Plockton (if you don’t know what a highland coo is, wait until my number one photo shows up). But there were no coos. But there was a cow on the other side of the bridge over a creek that just grabbed me as I glimpsed it while driving by. Seriously, I had to jam on the brakes (thankfully, no cars within a mile or so) and back up until I could line up the shot. This shot has grown on me since so many people who have seen it told me they really liked it.

Number 4—Incredible Glencoe in Scotland. Besides being the scene of a terrible massacre of Scottish families by British soldiers in 1692, Glencoe is maybe the most beautiful place I have ever seen. As we were driving from Fort William back to Glasgow, we had two routes we could have taken. One was the quickest and easiest, but we had driven up that way a few days earlier. The other way was longer and went through Glencoe. We were tired from our week in the Highlands, but at the last minute, we decided to do Glencoe. On that route, there is a stretch of road with pull-outs for photographers like me to jump out of their cars and shoot the glorious scenery. I think I stopped at all of them. And the weather cooperated with an amazing combination of sun, clouds and blue sky. These mountains are magnificent in every way, and this would have been my number one shot, but like the puffins, I couldn’t decide between the hundreds I took that day. This one is my favorite. One more thing. Please click it to see it full screen—it needs the space to really understand why I love it.

Number 3–Puffins in action on the Isle of Lunga, Scotland. As I mentioned above, when I wrote about my puffin experience, I took a TON of photos that day. I want to say the total was in the high hundreds or low thousands. The hardest part was getting a decent shot of them flying. I lay or sat on the ground, focused on a particular area and shot at least 200 shots. In all of those, the flying puffins were either blurry or so fast that I missed them completely. This was also one of those times when I didn’t know what I had until I got back to our Bed and Breakfast that night and could look through the shots. I had no clue if I had that shot I wanted or not. It turns out I did. Out of those hundreds of attempted action shots, this isn’t the best puffin flying shot I got…it is the ONLY puffin flying shot I got, but it’s a good one, and I worked hard to get it.

Number 2—Isle of Staffa, Scotland. This is one of those photos that makes people gasp when they see it: This guy is so high on this cliff. I love it because it teaches me something as a photographer—you need humans for scale. I have two versions of this same exact shot. One with a human and one without. The one without is boring. The one with a human catches your eye and pulls you right in. Also, please note the naturally occurring basalt columns at the bottom of the cliff. That’s the reason that Staffa is so famous. You should see the cave below the cliff—WOW!

Number 1—My favorite Highland Coo on the Isle of Skye. This guy just called out to me. Actually, he is kind of tired of me. I have an entire series of shots of this guy posing, but this is my favorite. After being disappointed in Plockton when we didn’t find any coos, we were driving by a farm on the Isle of Skye with a small herd right near a fence. We pulled over, and I took quite a few shots. Our forever neighbor Lisa thinks it should be framed and hung in our house or maybe in hers. Either way, I agree. I love it, and I love pretty much all Highland Coos. They are glorious creatures.

Please let me know in the comments what you like or how you would have rearranged the order. I love discussion. 

Which brings us to the end of 2024. This will be my last post of a pretty darn good year with lots of travel, lots of memories and lots of photography. 2025 looks interesting but with a little less travel. We have nothing scheduled until July, when we head to Southern Africa to fulfill my one remaining photo milestone—shooting a safari. BUT…In the meantime, I do have a photographic project coming on January 1, but you will just have to wait until that day to find out about it. Thanks for sticking with me all year long. Travel safely.

That’s all, folks   —Porky Pig

 

 

Once again…Let Me Sum Up

by | Nov 5, 2024 | Uncategorized

Whew! We are home, but to be honest, I am still having a hard time remembering what day it is. Hopefully, I will get over that soon. Jet lag is pretty much over, but real life is intruding into my travel life. It’s so much fun (sarcasm here) getting home to more than 200 emails I had been just throwing into a folder in Mail to be read when we were home. Now, I have to read them and respond to them. I want to go on vacation again.

Our trip home was pretty decent. The airports got the wheelchair stuff for Kathleen correct this time. British Airways surprised us with two decent Indian meals on two flights. We stayed overnight at a Terminal 5 hotel (Sofitel) and found that we liked the Terminal 3 hotel (Hilton Garden Inn) we had stayed in last June a lot better. Our flight was on time, our luggage showed up quickly, we looked at the camera in passport control, and we were out of there in less than 15 minutes from when we got off the plane. Our Welcome Pickups guy grabbed us, and with the light traffic after 7:00, we were home in no time. Kathleen was off to bed. I got the mail, watched the Dodgers win the World Series and then hit the hay. A good end to a great trip.

Madrid

Going back to the very beginning, we liked Madrid a lot. We stayed at the Hotel Preciados in downtown. As you may recall, we toured for three full days: one in Toledo (our best day), one in Segovia (another great day), and one in Madrid itself, which could have been better. Read all about those in previous posts. The summary of Madrid was that we had a great time, and we’ve now been there and done that. It’s now crossed off our list, and we won’t be going back. A nice city, but it was no Edinburgh or Amsterdam for us—but we are glad we visited once.

Lisbon with Viking

The next stop was Lisbon before our Douro River cruise. As soon as we got there, we met Marianne, who was amazing. She was not only the person directing our pre-cruise stay in Lisbon but also the Program Director on our entire river cruise. She proved to be one of the best parts of the whole 10 days we spent with Viking. Her laugh, her sense of humor and the fact that she was always UP and always FUN made her someone we will remember for quite a while. More about Marianne later.

Sadly, as you have read, when we were touring Lisbon with Viking, Fatima, the worst guide I have ever experienced, ruined the entire experience for me. Not only would she not shut up, but she insulted me, too.

Our Douro River Cruise

OK, this is what you have been waiting for—how was the cruise? In a quick word, it was awesome. We love river cruising. We really didn’t discover how much we liked it with our Christmas Market cruise on the Danube last winter because it was so darned cold. So, if you have done a Christmas Market cruise, go back and do a warm weather cruise like the Douro and see what you missed.

One of my absolute favorite things about this cruise was seeing the cruise. By that, I mean that on our Danube cruise, most of the movement on the river was accomplished either at night when we were asleep or during the day when we were on an excursion. My absolute favorite part of our Douro River cruise was sailing on the river. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I could do this cruise again and never get off the ship. Seriously, my favorite days were the ones where we spent the majority of the time sailing on the river and watching Portugal go by.

Shore Excursions

Don’t get me wrong, the shore excursions were just fine. If I had to rate them, I would put Salamanca, Spain as #1 because it was like going back to what Europe used to be in the early 2,000s before over-tourism started. I also enjoyed the short visit to Castelo Rodrigo. I mean, the castle was nice, but the best part was that it was brief. We sailed most of the day and then did about a three-hour excursion to a somewhat interesting place. Probably my third favorite was the second half of our first day when we visited the Mateus Palace. What snoozer. But the second half of the day was to visit the Sandeman winery, where they make their wonderful port wine, and be shown around by a guide who really knew what she was talking about and made the tour fun. That was it. The rest of the days, the excursion was either blah (Favios), or we didn’t go (Lamego).

The ship/boat

I really have yet to spend any time discussing the ship itself. Unlike the Viking Longship, we sailed on the Danube, the Douro River boats (you can put a boat on a ship, but you can’t put a ship on a boat, and I think you could put a Douro River boat on a big ocean-going vessel) are smaller due to the smaller locks they must get through. So, instead of carrying up to 190 passengers like the Danube boats do, the Douro River boats carry a maximum of 106, and ours only had 99. That makes so much difference. It’s much more intimate. You get to know most of the crew because there are only 36 of them. And they all do all sorts of jobs. One of our favorite people onboard was Mitra. His official title (on his name tag) said, “Bar Chef.” He was the best bartender on board, and he really kept things going in the lounge. But he was also the sommelier in the dining room and helped out waiting on tables or restocking the buffet as well. Our favorite server in the dining room, Ovi, not only served us dinner but also was the crew member who walked us to our stateroom on embarkation to show us how everything worked. She often worked in the lounge serving drinks. The lady got around.

Embarkation/Disembarkation

Speaking of embarkation…those of you who have suffered through a three-hour embarkation as we did in May 2023 to get on Koningsdam in Vancouver or anything like it will LOVE embarkation on a river cruise. Especially this one. Since we had spent two days with Viking in Lisbon before we boarded the boat, they had everyone on one of four “luxury motor coaches,” and they staggered their morning departures, which meant that each of the “luxury motor coaches” made it to the ship about 15 to 20 minutes apart. So when we arrived, we went up the gangway, and they asked us our names. We were escorted (us by Ovi) to our stateroom, and our luggage arrived minutes later.

Disembarkation was just as efficient. We were given a list of when every stateroom would be getting off (we had been asked in advance how we would be leaving the ship) and told to put our big luggage out in the hallway outside our rooms 15 minutes before we would get off. Then, at our appointed time, we got up and got off. Simple as that. It really pays to be on a smaller boat.

Our stateroom

Our stateroom was a suite. There, I said it. We splurged and booked a suite. It wasn’t that much more, but it got us some things we really wanted. The first was an actual extra room. We had both a living room and a bedroom. Not to mention a walk-in closet and a smallish bath (smaller than on our Danube cruise). So when I would wake up really early, I could sit in the living room and work on photos or on a new post without waking up Kathleen or needing to get completely dressed and go to the lounge.

The other reason we LOVED this suite was…free laundry. Yes, folks, we could send out as much laundry as we wanted, and it was included. On our Danube cruise, we had sent out a few things because we had already been in Lisbon for a few days, and then we did Prague and Nuremberg as a pre-cruise extension, so when we got on, we needed to have some things washed. But the prices were OFF THE CHARTS! As I recall, I got one pair of jeans, two pairs of socks, and two shirts, and it cost me $20. On Viking Torgil, we got to the ship with lots of dirty laundry from four days in Madrid, two nights in Lisbon and a single suitcase each. We immediately sent out all our dirty laundry (they gave us two really nice-sized bags to send it out in) and had it back early the next day. From that point on, I pretty much sent out laundry every day. Whatever I wore the day before, send it out! And it got to the point where it would come back on the same day.

If you would like to see photos of the suite, you may have to wait. I suddenly realized when we got home that I had never really taken any pictures of the suite. I had a couple (the bedroom and bathroom) but missed the living room. But never fear; you will be able to see a whole bunch soon because Mike and Cathy had the same type of suite we did, and Mike always does an awesome job of taking ship/boat/stateroom photos. His review of the cruise with all those photos should be out soon (HEY MIKE—is the review done yet? ?). When it is done, I will post about it, and you can find it right here at www.thepreismans.com. In the meantime, here are a few photos I took of our room.

The Food

Everyone wants to know about the food on a cruise. We have found that Viking does a “fine” job of food on its ocean and river cruises. By that, we mean we like the food. It’s not gourmet, and it doesn’t hold a candle to Oceania. But our most memorable meals on this trip came when we were off the boat (lunch in Toledo and lunch in Cascais come to mind).

On board Viking Torgil, we had a wonderful British chef named Michael Bee Venet. I say he is wonderful less for his culinary skills than for his wonderful personality. Every night, he would preview the meal at our pre-dinner destination talk. He was hilarious. He also regularly stopped by everyone’s table. At breakfast, he would often come around with a special baked good and serve it to us himself.

But we thought his food was oversalted. Sometimes, it was just finishing salt. Some soups were fine when you got down below the surface, but those first three spoonfuls were very salty. We also thought the food was better at the beginning of the week than at the end. It wasn’t bad, just not as good. On a scale of one to ten, it was an eight when we started and a six when we finished.

By the way, when you take a Douro river cruise, you eat all your meals in the dining room. It is totally casual. I think we only saw anyone in anything dressy twice. OMG— people wore shorts in the dining room. We wore jeans and tennis shoes. On our Danube cruise, there was a small buffet area at the front of the boat, but not on the smaller Douro boat. It was the dining room or hunger.

All in all, the food was good and plentiful, and we had nothing to complain about…or wait! I want to complain about the bread. It was too good. Seriously, it may be the best bread I have had on any cruise. Delicious—and I ate way too much of it. Oh, and there were fewer veggies than we would have liked as well. Kind of like our ocean cruise on Viking Venus in June; there was a lot of red meat, which we try to avoid at home. Here’s a gallery of some dishes we ate on this trip. I will try to tell you where we ate them, but if you like great food, check them out. All were shot with my phone, so feel free to look at them on yours. Remember, you can click them to enlarge them and scroll through. I’ll start with some photos of where we all ate.

I almost forgot the “Steve Test.” For those of you unfamiliar with the Steve Test. I call this the Steve Test because my brother Steve came up with it. I think it’s brilliant. This is the entire test: If you eat in a restaurant while traveling, and if that restaurant is near you once you get home, would you go there again? If it were in your hometown, would we eat there regularly? For this trip, the places that passed the Steve test were Clandestina in Toledo, the Lebanese restaurant behind the TimeOut Market and a few of the meals on Torgil, but the ultimate A+ on the Steve Test went to the Chicken restaurant in Cascais on the day we toured Sintra. I know my brother believes it’s the best chicken he has ever had.

Entertainment

If you have been reading my stuff for a while, you know we have kind of given up on shows. Besides, they really don’t have shows on river cruises. However, they did have some great entertainers come on board while we were in ports, and Mike will have photos of those, I am sure. He can stay up later than we can. But I did want to mention two of the best entertainers I have ever seen on a ship—river or ocean.

The first is not really an entertainer but a server in the restaurant. He was kind of in charge of singing Happy Birthday to anyone celebrating one. He also was a total clown. He has a great voice, but what really makes him GREAT is his face. He can turn it into the absolute funniest looks you have ever seen. Here are a few shots of our buddy Agus doing his thing.

He was so special that I am going to try to add a video I took of him. If it works, it’s right here. IT WORKED!

[videopress UVzEfu7W]

The other amazing performer on the ship was our wonderful, incredible, marvelous, fantastic Program Director, Marianne. We had heard that she was going to sing one night after dinner in the lounge. We were both pretty tired, but I persuaded Kathleen to go, and were we ever glad we did. She was all those adjectives I put up above and more. It might be the best show I have ever seen on any ship or boat. For sure, it was the most fun. And now that I got the Agus video to load, here’s a little bit of Marianne’s show.

[videopress or6hDDlg]

Besides being the best Program/Cruise Director we have ever sailed with (35+ cruises), she is one of the nicest and most caring people you will ever meet. We would take a cruise she was on just to sail with her.

To Sum Up

How much did we enjoy this river cruise? For the first time in more than twenty years (since we took our first Panama Canal cruise on Celebrity’s Infinity in 2004), we don’t have an ocean cruise booked, and we don’t think we will take one in the foreseeable future. We have booked a Chobe River cruise in Africa, a Columbia River Cruise, and a Great Lakes cruise, but that’s it. We can’t think of anywhere that big-ship ocean cruises go that we still really want to see. We aren’t saying we wouldn’t go if friends wanted to go together, but we have been there and done that just about everywhere ocean cruises go. I guess we are now river cruise people.

WAIT! I almost forgot the best part of the entire trip—getting to travel once again with Steve, Jamie, Mike and Cathy—our October gang. We will all do it again next October when we cruise the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.    —Heraclitus

Scintillating Sintra, Cool Cascais and The End of the World

by | Oct 30, 2024 | Uncategorized

Yesterday (our last day in Portugal), we (everyone except Kathleen, who was still battling her cold) woke up early and were met by our guide, Alex, from Top Ten Tours.

We tried to tour with Alex when we were here in December, according to Mike’s recommendation, but he was booked. Since Mike was with us this time, he set it up, and we were so glad we got to tour with Alex on this return trip. He met us right on time and drove us to the Pena Palace in Sintra. He had everything prearranged, and we were in the first group through the palace. His knowledge of his subject was outstanding, and his delivery was fun but informative.

Sintra was the summer home (even though it is less than an hour from Lisbon) of the Portuguese Royal Family (when they had one), and it is at a higher and more humid elevation, so it was cooler in the summer. The palace is incredibly colorful. I will say that the further away you are, the more beautiful it looks. That’s because it really needs a paint job. Two hundred-year-old buildings have gutters that really leach out onto the paint. You will have to see my photos to see what I mean. No matter if they are dirty, the Palace is magnificent, and I hope you like the images. BTW: I was amazed when I started processing them because of the blue sky and the incredible light; these are right out of the camera. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

We spent almost two and a half hours at the palace, and then he dropped us in the village for some shopping and photo time before picking us up again to take us to lunch in Cascais at a local restaurant that served basically the best chicken I have ever eaten and french fries. What more could you want? We were obviously the only non-locals there, and Alex made us promise not to name the place. He said if you’re going to find it, you will have to tour with him. Suffice it to say that we would all do this tour again just for that lunch. Here are a few photos I took in Cascais.

After lunch, we were off to The End of the World (where Europeans originally thought the world ended or you fell off the edge), a beautiful place. See the pics. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

That about sums up our tour with Alex. He was an excellent guide, and he knows where to find the best chicken I had ever eaten and could never replicate.

Back at the hotel, Kathleen was awake and feeling better, so we all went out for one last farewell meal together at the rooftop bar of the hotel next door to ours. The two hotels are under the same ownership, so we got a discount for dinner, but it still wasn’t worth it. I forgot the old adage that if you get a view, the service and food probably aren’t that great…that was the case here. But I did get a few great photos of Lisbon at night to close out the trip.

And that concludes our 21-day journey all over the Iberian Peninsula. We had an awesome time, and I will be back tomorrow with a breakdown of our flight home, our night in London and all the fun stuff that happened in between. Then, I promise by the weekend, you will get a full report on the cruise and the trip, highlighting the best parts.

An Editor’s Note: If you like reading about traditional ocean cruising, please check out my British buddy Wansbrough’s cruise blog, which you can find by clicking here. He and his lovely bride (who is a vegan, so you get a new perspective on cruise food) are currently doing a circumnavigation of Australia, and I am loving reading about it. He blogs every day, and you will like it if you are into traditional ocean cruising.

There’s a great tradition in storytelling that’s thousands of years old, telling stories about kings and their palaces, and that’s really what I wanted to do.   —Aaron Sorkin

 

Two days in Lisbon

by | Oct 28, 2024 | Uncategorized

After the cruise (besides the day it took to drive down), we planned to spend three extra days in Lisbon. Each day had one major planned event or tour, and the rest of the day was spent either seeing sights or nursing a cold. I have decided that since we were in Lisbon before (if you missed it, just search Lisbon) last December, I didn’t need to take as many photos. With daylight savings time here in Portugal still in effect until Sunday morning, taking an “early morning, pre-dawn photo walk meant missing breakfast and being late for a tour.

Before I get into what we did, I want to say a couple of things about the hotel we are staying in: the Hotel Portugal. We stayed here last December and really loved it. I can honestly say that after four nights here this time, I don’t think I would come back. The first time we were here, we had their basic room, and it was on the first floor (the lobby is on floor zero, as in most European countries). This time, we are on the third floor but at the very end of the hotel. This is an upgraded room. A little bigger and nicer. The only problem is that this hotel sits on top of the subway. So, about every 15 minutes, a train runs under it. In the first-floor room, we were in the center of the hotel, and we barely felt the train. In this room, at the end of the hotel, even in a third-floor room, we are truly feeling it. You would think a 737 was taking off next door every time a subway train runs by. They have also changed their superb (and included) breakfast from a table service to a buffet. I liked the old way better. I can still recommend this hotel, but they should have a warning on the rooms at the end that the noise would be much louder. By the third night, we had gotten used to it, but it was still a pain. Right now (I am writing this at 5:00 a.m.) no cars. They don’t start until around 6:00.

Day one—Lunch at TimeOut Market and a Fado Show

Our only plans for our first full day in Lisbon were to have a late lunch at the TimeOut Market and to attend a Fado show that night. In case you weren’t around for our first Lisbon trip, Fado is the national music of Portugal. Think of it as historical blues performed by two guitars and a singer. When we were here in December, we did a show that did not turn out well because of circumstances we weren’t prepared for. This time, we thought if everyone else wanted to try a show, we knew how to work it this time.

First, you have a big and late lunch. Because a Fado show is a dinner show, you will not even get in until 8:00 p.m., and by the time they take your order, get you wine and bring the appetizers, it will be close to 9:00. In December, we had done lunch at noon, and by the time the food came we were starving. Also, we didn’t plan well on our previous trip because we had done it our last night in Lisbon when we were flying out early the next morning, so we spent the entire show looking at our watches and finally cut out early as we had to be up to go to the airport a few hours later. This time, we went on a night when we didn’t have anything to do the next morning until our food tour at 11:00 a.m. (more about that later) so we could sleep in. We tried a different Fado Show at a place called A Severa. It was better than the other place but not by much. The service was better, but you are really paying for the show (which is free, but you must buy at least $45 of food and drink per person). The performances were good. You got your appetizers; they sang four songs. You got your entrées, they sang four songs. You got your dessert, and they sang four more. We made it through the entrée group before we had to bail because two of our party had those nasty colds and needed rest and to stop coughing. But it was just fine. It’s the kind of thing you need to experience once when you are here. So if you come, I can recommend this place.

But I forgot to tell you about lunch. We decided to go for a 2:00 p.m. lunch at the TimeOut Market. Think of this market as a HUGE mall food court. Restaurant booths with all kinds of food are all around a gigantic room with tables in the middle. Sounds great, right? Well, not so much at 2:00 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. After Ubering over in two cars, we walked all the way around the perimeter of the room and found not a single place to sit for anyone, let alone six people together. The entire place was packed. You could barely move. We bailed. Crowds are no longer our thing. No food was worth fighting that. But the lunch gods were with us. I looked on Google Maps for a restaurant nearby, and it showed me a Lebanese restaurant called Mankooche. We all love Lebanese food, so I said I would go and scout it out while the others waited.

The only problem was I couldn’t find the restaurant. I walked back and forth on the street where it should have been, and Google Maps kept telling me, “You have arrived,” but I hadn’t. I could not find it. Finally, I walked a whole block past where Google Maps said it was, and when I returned to meet up with the group, I saw a small signboard with an arrow that said, “Secret Lebanese restaurant through this door.” Really. So we went in, and the food, service and ambiance were perfect. Just incredible. One of our best lunches of the trip. So, if you come to Lisbon and get knocked out of the TimeOut Market due to the crowds, this is the place you want. Hard to find but amazing. Here are some pics I took during that day. Captions will explain. No phones, please.

Day 2—A food tour with Fred

The one thing we couldn’t wait to do when we came back to Lisbon was to do another food tour with Fred from Eating Europe. We had done a different tour with Fred last December (he is a little scruffier now), and we had LOVED IT! So, we wanted to take the rest of our group on a tour to have a chance to experience Fred. His real name is Frederico, and by day, he is a humble food tour guide who has a vast knowledge of Lisbon and true culinary expertise. However, his real secret is that at night, he works as a stand-up comic. This means that besides great food and great info, you get hilarious laughs. I could tell you a lot more, but why bother? This is a MUST-DO if you come to Lisbon. Contact Eating Europe, choose any of their tours and specify that you HAVE TO TOUR WITH FRED! You will not regret it. That’s all I need to say. The food was great and included five stops for some of the best food we have had on the trip. Most voted at the end for the grilled chorizo at the first place we visited as their favorite food, not counting the pastries we had as dessert to finish the tour. But forget the food—this tour is about the amazing Fred, who loves food and his city.

That covers our first and second days in Lisbon (except I forgot to mention that Kathleen missed Fred because her cold was so bad ?). Our third and last day will be in the next post because we visited the amazing Pena Palace in Sintra, and I have a BUNCH of photos. Stay tuned. We are off to London for the first leg of our trip home and I will probably get that one done tonight.

Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end.   —Sid Caesar

Heading South to Lisbon

by | Oct 27, 2024 | Uncategorized

You know, after we were here last December, I tried to never type Lisbon again and go with the local Portuguese version, Lisboa. But since the s makes a sh sound in Portuguese, and Fatima (the worst guide in history) kept saying it again and again…so often that I can still hear her in my head…we are back to using Lisbon.

But that said, our last day on the Viking Torgil came all too quickly, and we wished her amazing crew goodbye and headed south to Lisbon. Mike has arranged a driver and guide who would take us south and give us a tour, all at the same time, which we thought was an awesome idea. The only problem was that the guide Mike arranged it with got diverticulitis and wound up in the hospital two days before they were supposed to pick us up. But the guide let Mike know that the driver would pick us up and take us to the two places we had planned on going to and get us to our hotel in Lisbon.

Our driver, Samir, met us at EXACTLY 8:30 a.m. just outside the ship, and we loaded up our bags and headed out to Batalha, the site of a massive battle in 1385 that was a major force in Portuguese independence. So after the war, in a tiny little village next to the battlefield, they built a vast cathedral. It’s really a big one. Since Mike had never met a cathedral he didn’t love, we had to see it. I have to say that I was genuinely impressed. Especially considering the size of the town it is in. And it is very well preserved. Here are the pics to prove it. Oh, one more thing. There was a group of kids (probably 8-10 years old) waiting for a tour at the front door of the cathedral. My first thought was, “How boring is that going to be for a kid that age.” Then, out stepped a docent/actor in medieval dress who started the tour. Once inside, it was picked up by another actor wearing a costume from the 1700s. Both of them kept those kids enthralled. Their faces were so wonderful that I had to keep shooting them, so I apologize in advance for so many photos of them. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

After we visited Batalha, we returned to the van and headed to Nazaré. This charming little beach town is the site of those monster waves you may have seen in YouTube videos. Click the link to see a 100-foot wave recorded there a few years ago. It is truly amazing. You can search for others. Just know they are huge. But don’t get the impression that we saw one of those. They are only around in storm season (later in the year) and we were there on a beautiful, sunny day. But we did get to stop in the original village and then headed down to the seaside resort for a delicious lunch. Here are photos I took while in both places. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping.

After our lunch in Nazaré, it only took Samir about two hours to have us just outside our hotel (Hotel Portugal) in downtown Lisbon. We stayed there last December and have fond memories. Great breakfasts, comfortable rooms, etc. More about the changes at the hotel will be discussed in tomorrow’s post. In the meantime, after we grabbed something in the bar to snack on, Kathleen (whose cold was getting worse) went up to bed, and I went off to take sunset photos. Here are a few of the best I took. Enjoy…

That pretty much covers our day, which started in Porto and ended in Lisbon. It was a great but very long day of travel for us older folks. I hope you enjoyed it. I’ll be back tomorrow with more from Lisbon.

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