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

Food! Glorious Food—the Top 5 things I ate this year

by | Dec 27, 2022 | Food Experiences

As the year comes to a close, I have decided to make my Top lists again. Today—the top five things I ate in 2022. Later this week, the top things to remember (good or bad) and finally, the top ten photos I took this year. Let’s get started.

Number 5—The french fries at The Grand Dutch Cafe onboard Holland America’s Nieuw Statendam

One January day on our “Sail with Seth” cruise, we returned after lunchtime from a very nice shore excursion tour of Grand Turk island. We really didn’t want to go up to the buffet because it was less than four hours until dinner, and let’s be honest, buffets are just too tempting. I know, I always say I will “just get a salad,” but then, “Oh, that pizza looks good—I’ll just have one piece,” or “I’ll need a roll with this salad.” You get the idea.

As we were getting back on the ship, we walked by the Grand Dutch Cafe, which is located directly across from the Guest Services desk on deck three. They do sandwiches, croquettes, soups and desserts. We decided that would work best because we could each get one thing, and that was it. Besides, they had a superb selection of Dutch and Belgian beers. So I ordered the veal croquette and Kathleen a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, and we sat down at a table (You order at the counter, but they bring the food to you at your table.)

A few minutes later, the server brought out my croquet and apologized to Kathleen that her sandwich wasn’t ready yet, but he wanted me to have my croquet while it was still hot. And to make up for it taking so long, he thought we should try their French fries, so he brought us a dinner plate full of nothing but fries. Well, we really didn’t want to eat that much, but we had to try them, so we each bit into one…gave each other looks of incredulity, and then ate another…and another…and another. In the meantime, Kathleen’s sandwich came, and we finished her sandwich and my croquette…and all the fries.

A few minutes later, our server came back over and asked if we would like something for dessert, and we looked at each other, smiled, and I told him, “YES! Could we have another order of those fries?” They were that good. I need to add that we had a week left on the cruise, and we had those fries (as a side dish and as a dessert) at least three more times.

Number 4—Lunch in Athens, Greece, with our guide George.

On our full day of touring Athens before we departed on our Viking cruise, we did a six-hour tour with the amazing George from Tours By Locals. George took us to a bunch of places, including the Acropolis, the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldiers and the original Olympic stadium. But the best place George took us was…lunch. Early in the day, he asked if we wanted to have lunch or tour all day. We all voted to finish up our tour with lunch; if he would recommend someplace wonderful to eat.

Our incredible guide—George.

George (that’s him at left) said he knew just the place. He took us to a wonderful, family-run restaurant in a working-class section of Athens and said this is the place. We sat down at some tables pretty much across the street from the restaurant, and the owner came out and told us what was available for lunch. George recommended letting the owner bring us what he thought would be good. So that’s what we did, and that’s what he did—brought us some amazing Greek food. And he brought a TON of it. He kept bringing course after course after course. All of it amazing, all of it delicious. I wish I had photos of everything that he brought, but either we ate it too fast (at the start), or it was in another course that we forgot about. If you are ever in Athens and you want the ultimate Greek food experience, tour with George.

Number 3—Beer and pretzels at Valley House Brewing in Duvall, Washington.

This one happened by accident. My brother Steve and sister-in-law Jamie were here in June so Steve could help us do some stuff around our new home. One afternoon we decided to drive east to the little town of Duvall for lunch instead of into downtown Redmond. Duvall is a cute little town that is actually closer to our place (in the amount of time it takes to get there) than downtown Redmond is. We had looked online and found a winery that we thought would be great for lunch, but when we got to Duvall, we could not find the place, nor did we see anything else that looked interesting. One of the four of us found Valley House Brewing on their phones (not me, I was driving), so we went there.

Like the french fries I wrote about in Number 5 above, we found the world’s best pretzel. The beer itself was really great, but the pretzel was worth going back for. It came to the table HOT (burn your fingers hot ?) and had just the right amount of salt. It tore apart perfectly and almost melts in your mouth. To top it off, it comes with two different sauces to dip it in; an outstanding honey mustard (my favorite) and a superb beer cheese. This is the kind of pretzel that you want to go back for again and again, and we have. But it’s been a while. Now I really want one. Guess I will just have to wait a couple of days/weeks/months.

Number 2—Pizza in Europe.

I was going to try and pick a specific place we got pizza, but two really stood out. First, I took a tour (Kathleen was too tired from COVID to go along) in Naples that was all about pizza and the pizza there was amazing. Of course, it should be; that’s the birthplace of pizza when we stopped at Solopizza, which has been in business making pizzas in Napoli since 1977. To be honest, I would have preferred we stopped someplace that had been there since 1797 but no such luck ?. I did get to go into the kitchen and watch them make pizza which was eye-opening, and it changed the way I now make pizza. I also learned that in Naples, the rule is “one pizza, one person.” Everyone at the table for eight I was sitting with thought this was crazy, but when we finished the meal, we counted the pizza pans they had brought ours out on, and there were seven empties, so we got close.

After Naples, I thought that would be it for great pizza mostly because that’s where pizza was born but also because the pizza on our cruise ship was just OK. Nothing wrong with it but nothing great either. Was I ever wrong? About a week later, we docked in Monaco and were off on our longest tour of the cruise. We started in Eze and then went to Nice and finally wound up back in Monaco, where it was now almost 2:00 pm, and we still needed to eat since we left on tour at 8:30 am. Kathleen and I were famished, so when the guide stopped in front of the Monaco cathedral and just kept rambling on, we headed up the street to find food. There we found the simplest pizza you can buy and easily the best of the trip. We topped that off with our favorite beverage of the trip, an Aperol spritz, and we were in heaven. I can’t begin to describe how great this pizza was. It truly has changed the way I make pizza.

Honorable mentions:

Before we get to my number one food of 2022, I want to honorably mention these dishes that didn’t quite make it into the top five: the incredible anchovies in Monterosso in Cinque Terre, Italy, the soft-shell crab, Norwegian waffles and seafood buffets on Viking Sky, the lemon-basil gelato in Vernazza, also in Cinque Terre, the lobster rolls at Tamarind restaurant on Nieuw Statendam, the pintxos open-faced sandwiches we had for lunch in Barcelona with our guide Olga and lastly, the ratatouille at Rudy’s Sel de Mer restaurant, also on Holland America’s Nieuw Statendam.

My sister-in-law Jamie read this, and since they travel with us most of the time, she nominated some additional honorable mentions: Soppressata sandwich from Molinari’s deli in San Francisco (this was from our SF food tour—which was on a day I had completely blocked from my mind because later in the day, Kathleen tripped and fell on a bad sidewalk and we spent six hours in the emergency room), cannoli from the same SF food tour, the Peruvian chicken we had in the Club Orange Dining Room on Nieuw Statendam and the spicy arancini from Victoria, BC food tour. My brother was nice enough to include my Grilled Antipasto Vegetable platter (one of my summer specialties, pictured above).

Number 1 has to be the Dark Chocolate Amarone Cremoso onboard Viking Sky.

Let me first state here that I have never been that much of a dessert guy. I prefer carbs to dessert any day of the week. And when it comes to dessert, I (unlike my daughter) prefer fruit in my desserts. I love pies and crisps and cobblers. And I have never been that big a chocolate person—until now.

On our second night onboard Viking Sky, we went to their Italian specialty restaurant Manfredi’s. The food was fine. I was not too fond of the calamari appetizer, I thought the steak was poorly cooked and much too thin to be a true Florentine bistecca, but I did like the risotto with escargot. But then we got to dessert. My normal choice would have been the lemon cake they had on the menu as I love almost any lemon dessert but the name of the one chocolate dessert caught my eye.

One of our favorite types of wine is a deep, rich red from the Veneto region of Italy—Amarone. When I saw that word in the name of this dessert, I thought it must be an ingredient, and I had to try it. This turned out to be both a great and a bad thing for me to do. Great, because it was the best thing I have eaten this year and bad because I fell in love with this chocolate dessert and soon discovered that pretty much anything the pastry chef on Viking Sky did with chocolate was amazing, so I had to try it all. A few nights later, I found it on the buffet, and that’s where the photo came from. Suffice it to say; I had to have it again.

How much did I love it? So much so that when we got home, I did Google search after Google search until I found the recipe on another cruiser’s blog. She had begged the pastry chef on another Viking ship for the recipe (as I should have done) and was nice enough to share it. Since we got back, I have made it three times and still have two pieces of it in our refrigerator. It is incredibly thick and rich. Almost like a fudge (but definitely not!), it is very expensive to make. To do it right, you have to invest in some fairly pricey 70% cacao chocolate and a few other wonderful ingredients. But if anyone reading this wants to try it, I will happily send you the recipe. It’s going to become my go-to chocolate dessert for the rest of my days.

That’s it! My culinary adventures in 2022. Watch out later this week for more Top of 2022 lists. I hope to have the other two done by New Year’s.

All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.  —Charles Schultz

Incredible Iceland— Reykjavik-Day 1

by | Jun 16, 2019 | Uncategorized

Birkir

Birkir, Reykjavik’s best tour guide

After our Titanic foray into Belfast, we spent the next day and a little more at sea heading to Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital. After a cool sail in (see the photos—we passed a huge iceberg), we arrived around 1:00 pm and after a quick lunch we set off on an 8 hour tour with our guide from Tours by Locals, Birkir. Now normally we would never start an 8-10 hour tour at 1:30 pm because within few hours all we would be able to see is darkness. But this was Iceland and we were within 2 weeks of the longest day of the year so we could tour until midnight and it would never be totally dark. That meant we could see what the tour books refer to as the southern Iceland Golden Circle. 

It included the edge of continents, incredible waterfalls, exploding geysers, volcanic craters, Icelandic horses and some of the most amazing natural beauty we have seen. Our first stop was the Þingvellir Icelandic National Park which has significance for two reasons. It is a historical site where the Icelandic parliament first met in 930 AD. And it is the intersection of two continents. Seriously. The plates that form the North American continent end in Iceland and run directly into the plates that form the European continent. In a way we were walking between North America and Europe the entire time we were in Iceland. In fact, two days later just outside Akureyri in the north, I was able to stand with my right foot in North America and my left foot in Europe. Pretty cool. 

After our visit to this beautiful (in its own way) national park, we drove onward to ice cream. Yes, ice cream. It seems that there is a world-famous dairy and ice cream factory in almost the middle of nowhere. We had some amazing ice cream and even got to meet the cows that had done the original work on it. It was a fun and delicious experience. 

Next up was Kathleen’s favorite part of the tour, a visit to feed some very cool Icelandic horses. As you drive through the wilds of Iceland, you see thousands of these Icelandic horses (never call them ponies). They are everywhere. Of course they are owned by someone but you do see some wild ones as well. Birkir knew of a place where a farmer allowed his horses to be petted and fed (he even provided “horse candy” you could buy) and so we stopped and everyone who wanted to got to feed the horses while the rest of us took photos. See mine to see how incredibly beautiful these animals are. That said, it is sad to say that Icelanders eat horse on a regular basis. It is a staple of their diet. Birkir offered to find us a restaurant that served horse but we said we were content to pet and feed them. 

After that it was on to the absolute, drop-dead highlight of the day—the Gullfoss waterfall. We have been to Niagara Falls but I have to tell you, this was so much better. In my opinion the reason for that was that these falls are still in a very natural setting and incredibly cool. Also, the water is totally unpolluted and blue. When you see the photos, just realize that I didn’t do anything to those pics at all—the water really is that blue. Seriously. The pictures tell the story. 

We thought we had seen it all but now it was on to geysers. Compared to Old Faithful that goes off once an hour, Iceland’s southern geysers go off every five minutes or so. They smell of sulfur but they also are very cool. Check out the photos below. 

After our geyser experience and a brief stop at a volcanic crater (sorry, this one didn’t come close to Crater Lake and just not impressive enough for pics), we made a brief stop for dinner (by this time it was around 8:30 but outside it looked like the middle of the day) and then it was on to our last stop of the day, The Blue Lagoon. 

If you have ever been to Iceland you have heard of the Blue Lagoon. It is so popular that people flying from the US to Europe will do a five hour stopover just to hit the Blue Lagoon (which is located between Reykjavik and the airport). If you have never heard of it or seen photos, just imagine a giant, blue hot tub with hundreds of people (maybe more) swimming around, drinking and rubbing mud on their faces. And the strangest thing was that we arrived at the lagoon just before it closes at 10:55 or so. But you would never know it. The sun was up and there were (see the pics) hundreds of people still in the lagoon. Birkir told us they stop letting people in at 11:00 pm in the summer but they don’t start kicking people out until midnight.

I should add that sunset that day was at 11:58 and sunrise the next morning was at 2:15 am. It never really got dark and when we finally got back to the ship at almost midnight, we were very thankful for the blackout curtains in our staterooms. 

Our first day in Iceland was INCREDIBLE! Birkir was an amazing guide and got us everywhere in a fun and beauty filled day. It was just outstanding.