European Circle Tour # 12: Touring Outside of Lisbon

Our port call in Lisbon lasted barely 9 hours, and that was a real shame. I can think of few cities better suited to an extended two-day port call, not least because the ships dock right in the heart of the city, and not miles away as in Barcelona or (worse) in Rome or (worst of all) in London.

 

But you take what you can get. Having spent time in Lisbon on my last too-short port call, in 2022, I opted for this visit to broaden my horizons. There are many smaller towns around the city that could well be worth a visit, but two in particular draw the attention of many visitors. In part, this is because both of these places can be easily reached by train from Lisbon, so taking a day-long coach tour or paying an eye-watering taxi fare are not the only options.

 

It's also down to the differences in character between these two places, although both are fascinating. The first is the old central district of Sintra, a smaller town up in the hills. Small, old, crammed with shops, cafes, bakeries -- in a phrase, a tourist trap -- but a beguiling and lovely one all the same. Sintra has CHARACTER, all in caps and bold faced italic like that!

 

The old centre of this village gives you the feeling that it didn't so much grow as it happened by accident, with each successive builder squeezing in wherever they could get a footing. Streets that are wide enough to be used by motor vehicles are a rarity.

 

 

Yes, the alleyways in the old part of Sintra really are that narrow -- and that steep. The fiendish white and grey cobblestones which become slippery like ice when wet are everywhere too. When the alleyways get really steep, they've built in some steps -- but the steps still slope underfoot, just not quite as steeply as the alleyway would slope without steps. Truth be told, Sintra is definitely not the place for you if you are unsure of your footing or dependent on crutches, canes or wheelchairs. 

This is a good place to mention that Princess Cruises (and Holland America, my other favourite line) rate the tours they sell as Easy, Moderate, or Strenuous. This one was rated "Strenuous", and Sintra was the reason why. We had one couple on our coach walking slowly with canes, but I don't think they got far at all. The steep cobble-stoned alleyways are not for the faint-hearted or mobility-limited.

 

Among the alleyways, you can come across architectural treasures. Our tour guide started us on the square in front of the Palácio Nacional de Sintra. It's a good focal point, and was just a short distance up the road from the spot where our coach let us off. The oldest parts of the palace were built by the Moors back in the twelfth century.

 

Other architectural details and treasures pop up here and there. In order to see them, of course, you have to be able to take your eyes off the cobblestones and shop window displays. As in so many places in Portugal, brightly coloured paints and patterned ceramic tiles are popular methods of finishing the exterior of a building.

 

Oh, those shop window displays. Tempting, and in some cases downright dangerous. I've been known to gain 2 kilograms (nearly 5 pounds) just by looking into the window of a Portuguese bakery.

 

 

The people in our group who tried the Queijadas gave them a unanimous two-thumbs-up!

 

I automatically thought of a friend of mine who loves to wear colourful socks.

 

My late husband, Massi, would have made a beeline for this shop as soon as we got off the coach, not because he saw it but because he sensed its presence in some other mysterious manner -- and he probably would have bought one of these cute ceramic cats. "Cats call me, you know." That's what he used to say and it happened more than a few times in our travels together.

 

 

We had an hour of free time to explore the historic district. Then we returned to our coach and drove south, some twenty minutes or so, to the city of Cascais on the north shore of the ocean bay into which the Tagus River empties. 

Interlude: Language Lesson

Our guide took a few moments to explain to us how Portuguese uses stressed and unstressed vowels, also known as long and short vowels. He didn't mention the other key detail, but Portuguese pronunciation tends to soften many hard consonant sounds by combining them with an "h". The results sounds a bit slushy by comparison with languages that make extensive use of hard consonants. Which brings us to the city we were now going to visit.

 

"Cascais" is pronounced, more or less, as "Kesh-KYYYY-sh." That's how the guide said it, and I'm willing to take his word for it.

 

Now that we were at the shore of the ocean, Cascais was a much more level place, and that made it a lot easier to walk and really get going, which I did. The main landmarks in Cascais are the expensive seafront hotels -- some very modern, some quaint and old-fashioned but beautiful none the less.

 

Most of these hotels are grouped around the plaza in the centre of town which faces the bay and its beach. Perfectly turned towards the south, and the heat of the sun, it's no wonder that Cascais is such a popular area for a beach getaway from the big city. Even on an early spring day with the temperature only reaching 20°C (68°F), the beach had its sunbathers and there were even some people a bit later on getting right into the water and swimming or relaxing at length. Of course, the water could very well have been warmer than the air!

 

And yes, the sunshine was very warm and pleasant. As a by-the-way hint, cruise lines love to identify the tour groups on their tours with these stickers. It's best to wear utilitarian clothes which can't be damaged in any way by the stickum on the labels. I once had one become permanently glued to a synthetic t-shirt, and couldn't remove it.

 

One feature of Cascais, which you also can see in many public spaces in Lisbon, is the placement of the light and dark cobbles in this peculiar wave pattern. My guide in Lisbon back in 2022 swore that some people would get motion sickness from walking on them. 

My most lasting memory of Cascais, without a doubt, was the flower gardens. The city really puts an effort into maintaining these public gardens with their diverse varieties of colours and patterns in the blooms. Most of all, it reminds me of going to Niagara Falls during the spring and summer, and seeing the similar range of floral displays in the parks along the river. Here, the city's coat of arms is ringed by a flower display at the main traffic circle in the centre of town.

 

 

Later on, I saw these flowers bedded out at the square behind the beach.

 

Those dazzling colours were on my mind for much of the remainder of the day.

 

Lisbon was our final port call of the cruise. The tail end of the nine-day voyage was a stretch of two days at sea, from Lisbon north past the Bay of Biscay, and then up the English Channel to the port of Southampton. The Bay of Biscay and the English Channel are both names respected by sailors and experienced cruise passengers alike as notorious generators of rough weather. In this case, we had no real problems at all. We certainly encountered waves with heights of 5-6 metres (16-20 feet) but they are at enough of an angle that they didn't affect the ship much at all, just the odd moment of quivering. Of course, a cruise ship like Emerald Princess, at 113,000 tons, takes a really big wave to make it begin to shift in any noticeable way. For anyone concerned about weather and motion, bigger is better -- and time of year matters a lot too. Spring and summer are much more user friendly than fall and winter. Here is a sample white water picture from the first sea day.

 

By the evening of the same day, the sea had calmed down even more, the sky remained clear, and we got a glorious sunset at sea after dinner. I can think of no better place to enjoy a sunset spectacle. It's one of the biggest reasons I'm always looking for another cruise!

 

Once we docked in Southampton, I transferred straight up to a favourite hotel at Heathrow Airport, ready to fly home to Canada the next day. Looking forward to my next trip, and to having you join me on it!

 

 

European Circle Tour # 11: Sailing Into Lisbon

Our final port of call before the end of the cruise was in Lisboa (Lisbon), the capital city and biggest port of Portugal. While Lisboa's history is believed to date from centuries before the beginnings of Christianity, back to the arrival of the Phoenicians, there's very little to see today that's any older than 1755, except in the old hilltop Moorish district known as Alfama. That's due to the great Lisbon earthquake which combined a massive tremor with a 20-metre or higher tsunami to destroy almost all of the city.

 

All of Lisbon's long and rich history goes to make this one of the most beautiful cities in the world to arrive in by sea. This first post of two for our one-day port call takes you through the approach by the Emerald Princess up the broad estuary of the Tagus River (spelled as "Tejo" and pronounced "Teh-zhu" in Portuguese). This approach is a truly remarkable experience which land-based tourists can never share. Our sail-in was blessed by uncommonly beautiful weather in the late morning.

 

Coming in from the ocean, you pass by extensive areas of modern apartments and industries. The first notable landmark comes right at the point where the estuary narrows down dramatically. This is the famous Torre de Belém, seen from angles that visitors on land can never get.

 

As the wide river mouth narrows down, it's a natural spot for the small boat to come out to meet the ship, bringing the harbour pilot to guide us in. Here's the pilot boat heading back to shore. The modern, angled building the boat is heading towards is the headquarters of the port authority. It's slanted at even more of an angle than this view makes it appear. Take that, Leaning Tower of Pisa!

 

Right at this point, we pass the famous Monument of the Discoveries. The people  standing around and looking up at it give you a good idea of the size of this sculpture.

 

Just past the Monument, you get periodic views of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, a landmark religious site and museum.

 

 

All this time, the view ahead of the ship has been dominated by the 25th of April Bridge. The bridge was originally named after the man who commissioned it, the dictator António Salazar. The name change came after the remnants of Salazar's Estado Novo regime were overthrown in a bloodless coup six years after his death, an event now celebrated each year on the 25th of April as Liberation Day, but also popularly referred to as the Carnation Revolution. The bridge was the first fixed crossing of the Tagus, and carries both road traffic on the upper deck and trains on the lower deck.

 

As we approached the bridge, the air was filled with a strange, unearthly humming sound which got louder and louder as we drew nearer, sounding reminiscent of the weird chanting music from the light show in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

 

It's caused by the sound of car tires on the two centre lanes of the bridge, which consist of open steel grid decking rather than solid pavement. It's a feature that makes a long suspended span like this much less resistant to wind and therefore less likely to sway dangerously in stormy weather.

 

After passing the bridge, we drew nearer to the centre of the city and the dramatic Praça do Comércio, as much the monumental centrepiece of Lisbon as the Arc de Triomphe is of Paris. 

Beyond the plaza, we come to the hilly Alfama district. The summit of the hill is marked by the fortress of São Jorge (Saint George). Among the crowded streets, you can pick out what looks almost like another fortress, the twin towers of Lisbon's cathedral. The far end of the hilltop is crowned by the monastery church of São Vicente da Fora. Nearby stands the proud, tall dome of the Panteão Nacional, burial place of famous and notable people.

 

And it's right at this point, just below the Alfama, that the ship arrives at the sizable cruise terminal and ties up to the pier below the Panteão Nacional. Welcome to Lisbon!

 

I didn't actually spend any time in Lisbon on this visit, opting instead for an out of town tour to the west, visiting the unique historic town of Sintra and beach resort of Cascais. That visit will be covered in the next post. For those interested in a detailed look at the city itself, here's a link to the blog post from my first visit to Lisbon, back in 2022. Enjoy!

 

 

Major City, Hit and Run

 

Spring Nostalgia Trip Part 2: The Third Island

Back before the Middle Ages, folk tales and legends and myths in many lands spoke of a magical island somewhere to the West, an island inhabited by magical beings, an island which could appear or disappear at the will of its mysterious rulers.

The Garden of Fand, Hy-Brasil, Atlantis, and many more names were applied to these hidden lands whose existence was only revealed to certain travellers. Nor was it any accident that visions in so many European cultures of an idyllic after-life continue to be associated with lands beyond the ocean to the west. Just think of Aman, the blessed realm of undying life, and Eressea, the eternal home of the Elves, in Tolkien's detailed mythology which owes so much (but by no means all) to Nordic sources.

Once the age of exploration got underway in Portugal, it turned out that the magical island was more than one island and that it had actually been there and real all along -- the people of Europe just had to figure out exactly where to pin these islands on the map. And by the light of the early morning, here we are.

 

 

Some sources identify a Flemish ship as the first to "find" the islands, albeit accidentally during a particularly nasty storm. Other sources indicate the possibility of a Viking visitation even earlier. There are also hints at even earlier knowledge in some documents from the Gothic Age -- although those could easily have gotten muddled up with the legends which were older still.

 

Welcome to the Azores (pronounced "EH-zores" as the guide bluntly told us on my last visit). This island archipelago, perched atop the mid-Atlantic ridge and its assorted offshoots, is Portuguese territory and the islands are a self-governing autonomous region within Portugal (the other such region is the island of Madeira, much farther to the southeast and closer to Africa). There are nine main islands, spread over a sizable stretch of some 600 kilometres of ocean, from Corvo to Santa Maria, as this map shows.

Attributed without machine-readable information to Varp.

These islands may seem very distant and European to Canadians, but in fact the island of Flores is barely 500 kilometres farther from Newfoundland than Saõ Miguel is from Lisboa (Lisbon). It's not surprising, then, to find that Açoreans of all sorts have appeared and settled in widely diverse parts of Newfoundland and Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, and more.

 

The islands are all volcanically formed, and many still have active volcanic features. Earthquakes caused by the simmering magma reservoirs many kilometres below the earth's surface are a daily occurrence. Rarer, and much more dangerous, are the massive earthquakes caused by the shifting of one or more of the three main fault systems which intersect here -- the boundaries separating the American, European, and Nubian continental plates. Much of what we saw on our tour had been built or rebuilt since a 1980 earthquake, rated at 7.2 on the Richter scale, which levelled large areas of buildings on all the islands. Large parts of the "historic" districts which we visited have had to be lovingly rebuilt since then.

Last time I came here, we landed at the largest city on Saõ Miguel, the city of Ponta Delgada. This time, our port of call is Praia da Vitoria on the east coast of Terceira. It's one of two major towns on the island, the other being Angra do Heroísmo on the south shore. Terceira's name is derived from the Portuguese word for "three" and there are several theories as to why it is known as the Third Island. Take your pick.

These names of the towns ("Beach of Victory" and "Bay of Heroism") are certainly curious and demand a little explanation. Our guide neatly dodged around the rather complex story of the "Liberal Wars," fought in 1832 to 1834 between traditionalist and liberal constitutionalist factions in Portugal's population. During these wars, the people of Terceira sided decisively with Queen Maria II, the leader of the liberal constitutionalists, and the cities of Angra and Praia were granted their honorary titles by her after the bloodshed was over and the dust had settled. With even that brief sketch of the complex story in hand, it's not surprising to find that the City Hall in Angra do Heroísmo features Maria's statue above the city's coat of arms on the pediment.

But more on that later. Praia da Vitoria has by far the most spacious harbour on the island, and this was our port of call. Looking out in the morning, when it was cloudy, I was still struck by the variety of greens from the fields and forests. The Azores have a damp climate, rising in Terceira to an average of over 60% of days including rain. We got very lucky indeed with a dry and mostly sunny day.

Just north of Praia da Vitoria is the Portuguese Air Force base at Lajes Field, a large-scale runway with a long-standing tenancy by the United States Air Force, now much reduced. Because of its size, Lajes is an important mid-Atlantic emergency landing point for long range flights over the ocean. It's also the civilian airport for the island, which makes Praia da Vitoria the transportation hub of Terceira, even though Angra do Heroísmo is the official capital.

Two things came through loud and clear from the guide on our "Highlights of Terceira" tour. The people of Terceira love their Roman Catholic faith and they love their festivals. A clear sign of both, surprisingly, is the collection of small, colourful chapels of the Holy Spirit found here and there around the island. Here are a couple of examples.

Whenever a community holds its annual festival of the Espírito Santo, there is bound to be a festive procession culminating in a priestly blessing inside the chapel -- after which the running of the bulls marks the beginning of the real fun. Everyone has heard of the once-a-year running of the bulls in Spain, but in Terceira it goes on all around much of the yearly calendar as each community on the island has to hold a major festival, and that festival has to include a running of the bulls! Raising bulls for these festivals, then, is a significant part of the island's agricultural sector which also features field crops, meat and dairy.

 

All this focus on the fun of festivals, according to our guide, is unique to Terceira. That certainly squared with my impressions from a visit to Ponta Delgada a year and a half ago, where the spirit seemed to be much more focused on getting ahead and sticking to business.

 

Our tour began, naturally, at Praia da Vitoria itself which is actually across the bay from the cargo port where we were docked. We didn't spend any time in the town, driving through and up onto the ridge north of the city to visit the viewpoint ("miradouro") with its towering statue of the Virgin Mary. Passengers of the ship could readily visit Praia da Vitoria on their own, thanks to free shuttle buses from the pier to the centre of town, laid on by the municipality.

 

We then set off across country to visit the old church and the chapel in the centre of the smaller town of Saõ Sebastiaõ. The church was decorated centuries ago with beautiful wall frescoes. Then, with shifts of taste and doctrine in later years, a bishop ordered that the frescoes be plastered over. They were rediscovered, quite by accident, when earthquakes jarred loose some of the plaster covering. Efforts have continued ever since then to try to recover what can still be saved of the paintings. What can be seen today is a bare fragment of the originals, and a mute testament to the folly of any one individual in any one time period knowing for certain what is "right" for all time. Due to the lack of light, I was unable to photograph any of the frescoes but here is the exterior of the church, and a couple of other pictures in the town centre.

We continued on to Angra, then, with superb roadside views of the twin islands offshore which now form a nature sanctuary, the Ilhéus das Cabras.

Coming into Angra do Heroísmo, we passed this dramatic sculpture which reminded us all of who's actually in charge around here, especially on festival days!

 

 

It's a long steep hill down into (or back up out of) the small historic district. 

 

 

After the 1980 earthquake, this town centre was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and funds from UNESCO's budget helped considerably with the rebuilding.

 

Signature marks of Açorean architecture include contrasting colours of trim on the corners of buildings and frames of windows and doors. The Cathedral of Angra do Heroísmo exemplifies this, as well as the vivid choices of colours which set Terceira apart from the more sober dark trim favoured in, for instance, Saõ Miguel -- at least for public buildings.

Also popular are the iron grillwork balcony railings: always elaborate, but never (as far as I could see) pictorial. Moorish influence, perhaps?

The City Hall forms a backdrop to the square at the centre of town a pleasant "people place" with pavement formed from two-toned cobblestones similar to those one can see in Lisboa.

After an hour of walking time in the historic centre, we drove next to the monument of Dom Felipe IV on a hill art the back of town. The views here revealed the complex, rumpled geography of the site where Angra do Heroismo has grown, from the beautifully sheltered harbour in the lee of Monte Brasil to the other ups and downs, the various fortifications, and the visible outline of the Ilhéus das Cabras looming in the distance.

Well, enough of in-town life. We next drove up into the elevated plateau lands of the island's centre, really a series of large volcanic calderas which have eroded into each other through the ages. We saw some examples of traditional farm houses with the classic old chimney with its three points, said to represent the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As our guide told us, the chimney had to be huge because the fire was huge. After all, the one fire had to serve to heat the house, cook the food, heat water for the laundry, and smoke the sausages!

 

 

Here, too, we got a good look at the distinctive patterner of Terceiran agriculture: the drystone walls.

The walls are certainly a familiar sight to anyone who, like me, has been in the Scottish highlands. Here, too, they serve a function of defining the limits of each property holder's land. Whether they contain field crops, dairy cattle or a bull ranch (we passed a number of those), the stone walls are everywhere.

At the east side of the island, we climbed a series of long hills up onto the high mountain of Serra do Cume, where we were able to look down on what our guide described as a "patchwork quilt" of farm fields, all divided up by stone walls. In the distance we saw the peaks lining the north and northwest shores of the island. 

Then we drove around the other side of the mountain's summit -- and there was our little toy cruise ship, in the harbour far below us.

What shocked me the most at this point was the fact that the coach completed the entire descent from Serra do Cume and brought us back down onto the pier beside the ship in fifteen minutes flat. Like the streets in Angra do Heroismo, the road down the mountain saved time by just plunging down the hill in more or less a steep, straight line!

 

I could easily be tempted into a future and more extended visit to Terceira. It sounds like one of those festivals could be great fun, although I'm certainly too old to think of taking part in a bull running!

For now, though, it was time to say goodbye to Terceira and to Praia da Vitoria as our ship glided slowly out of the harbour, finally passing the statue of the Virgin Mary and the "land's end" at the island's easternmost tip before turning to the north-east for our next destination in three days' time.