the wavy streets of Lisbon

Lisbon has STEEEEP hills...but when you get to the top you are rewarded with beautiful views of the city.  Visually, Lisbon is stunning to look at  Multi colored houses and buildings with terra cotta roofs of different heights because of the hills. It looks like a painting, especially with the harbor in the background. 

Down at street level, most of the sidewalks in the central areas are made of black and white small tiles called called Calcada Portuguesa or Portuguese tiles. They have different patterns and have all been laid by hand. There is no other way to do it. 

They are in danger of disappearing because they are somewhat dangerous- slippery when wet and can be uneven and cause a tripping hazard. Also installing them, keeping them up, is labor intensive and few young people want to learn the trade. 

What you find is that Lisbon streets are wavy. A lot of the time there is no consistent flat surface. In Lisbon, I feel like I am often walking at an angle up a hill or down a sidewalk that slants downward so you are walking on the side of it. 

On narrow streets, there is barely a sidewalk on either side of the street. There is room for one person to get by.

It makes walking challenging, but the tile designs  are charming and pretty. 

Like all of Europe people live in row after row of apartment buildings with retail on the first level. Like Spain, the architecture is ornate and there are Juliet wrought iron balconies on most apartments.

When the sun came out today, the blanket men appeared! Selling scarves, fake purses on plazas. Restaurants have hawkers with menus trying to persuade you to come to their restaurants. There are "tuk-tums", 3 wheeled vehicles that offer a menu of tours around the city for a price. They are decorated with flowers and art.

The sun brings everybody out.

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November 17, 2022 at 08:00PM

The 100 foot waves of Navare, Portugal

Navare

 

  
It was one of those Susan off the beaten path.   days today. It was gray, gloomy, looked like rain but we had to go. We had done it in Scotland at North Berwick to see the North Sea, at Greystones to see the Irish sea near Dublin. Again at Tramore to see the North Atlantic near Waterford. I could watch to the beach in Valencia and Barcelona. 

We had to go see the ocean. Where I wanted to go would take us an hour by bus and train.  I wanted to go to Carveletos beach.

Like most port cities, Lisbon is not on the open ocean. it sits at the mouth of a river that empties into the ocean. The open sea is 15 miles away. I wanted to go to a beach 23 miles away. That was the nearest places with the biggest waves. They were up to 15 feet today. 

I knew that Portugal has some of the best surfing and biggest waves in the world. At Navare, 2 hours away from Lisbon, waves can get 100 feet high. So even though 15 feet seems paltry compared to that, it's good enough for me.

We got off the train  and walked the half mile to the beach and it was deserted. It was deserted except for surfers running to the waves, bobbing in the ocean or walking out of it. 

 The waves were beautiful. Yes they were big. Another unforgettable moment on the trip for me. I could be persuaded to leave Minneapolis for living by the ocean, that's how much I love it. 

Navare waves average 50 feet high in the winter months. A few times a season they can reach 80-100 feet. I'll definitely be back to see that.

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November 16, 2022 at 09:56PM

Ten things I have learned traveling in Europe

pay toilet

Ten things I have learned traveling in Europe and the UK:

1) Air conditioning is a very good thing. None of the airbnbs had air conditioning, many had no fan. One hotel had no air conditioning. Most homes, stores, restaurants have no air conditioning. 

2) Window screens are a very good thing. I have honestly never seen an apartment here with window screens. Open windows = bugs and that's just the way it is.

3) I don't actually mind not having a dryer. The vast majority of homes here have no dryer. People hang their clothes on drying racks or on balcony railings or lines. Your clothes last longer.

4) You should always have change because there are lots of pay toilets. Frustrating but true. I always looked for a McDonalds. They always have a free toilet. 

5) Most grocery stores here are small, especially in Europe. There are not the big stores we're used to. 

6) In the bigger stores there are large sections with fresh fish of many different kinds. Some are very large. It smells of fish throughout the store. In bigger places there may be be big pig legs hanging in the meat dept or they may have it in a holder where the hoof sticks out and will cut you bacon right there. A little disconcerting. 

7) Restaurants may not open until 8 or nine at night. People eat late here. Lots of people out and about in the evenings. You don't have to tip here if you don't want to. 

8) The car is not the center of the universe. Every city here usually has at least two forms of transportation be it subway, bus, tram, train. It is cheap in 90% of the countries. In Lisbon it is 1.50 to ride the bus or subway. Buying a book of tickets in most countries it is discounted even further.  The public transport  goes everywhere in the city.

9) Airfare is so cheap between countries. From Paris to Lisbon was 40 dollars. There are trains that go to practically everywhere in Europe. Imagine having that kind of system in the US.

10)  It feels like so many more people here smoke.Not as many people speak english as you think. Toilets all have button flushes and very little water. Lots of places closed on Sunday. There is no Target type place where you can get a variety of stuff. Lots of places close early. It is so weird how many shirts, sweatshirts you can buy here with American city names or American colleges. People here don't hate American.  In fact it's just the opposite.

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November 15, 2022 at 09:57PM

What they don't tell you about Europe and the UK

I think that when you take a trip anywhere and you post on social media or write about it, you want to paint a pretty picture. Oh it's all so wonderful! Better than I ever expected! Just like in the movies! 

I mean who wants to see or hear about the not so nice parts of somebody's vacation.  So I've kept that whole vibe going for the most part. It's about to get real folks. I've seen some things, had some experiences that you wouldn't see on a travel poster. 

Let's start with accommodation (what a nice word for it). Our first place was decent in London. There was that fox fight outside the first night that sounded like something out of a horror movie. We got used to hearing and SEEING our new fox friends. 

Next fun accommodation was in Lyon with the fruit fly problem. The place that required five keys, five doors to get to the apartment. It was like going into a dungeon. Then the narrow, death defying staircase to get up to the bedrooms. You went through the first bedroom to walk across a bizarre glass walkway to the second "bedroom". We really tried to tough it out, but the fruit flies were too much and we left early.

Unfortunately there were no hotels in Lyon for 3 days so we had to divert to Macon, France where we stayed in another old building with a stone staircase that let to a weird inner courtyard where the apartments were. We came back after dark one night: absolutely no lights in staircase or courtyard. That was the place where there was no hot water 2 out of the 3 nights. "Quaint" old building ain't always what they are cracked up to be.

Then Valencia, a very nice Spanish city with a very bad sewer smell problem. The place we stayed in, the bathroom smelled like a sewer all the time. When I asked the airbnb "host", I was told "there is nothing that came be done about it". 

Out of the 10 airbnbs we stayed in, there were two I would consider staying in again if I were to stay in an air bnb again, which I never will. 

The UK and Europe are old and the neighborhoods reflect that. If you aren't in a bougey or tourist area, they are gritty and dirty a lot of the time.  That is just the way it is. There are homeless everywhere, shaking their cups for money, sleeping on the street. We have seen them take their daily constitutional on the street.

Yes, they are interesting cities with beautiful areas, stunning landmarks, but the neighborhoods are like New York City. It always has struck me how you have these big glamorous cities, with people walking around in these fancy clothes down a dirty sidewalk with garbage bags piled up. 

This, along with the stunning Eiffel tower, beautiful Alps of Lausanne, Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, wonderful parks of Valencia and Madrid, beautiful beaches and landscape of  Spain, Ireland, Scotland is the reality of the UK and Europe. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done and an education.

My advice: Stay in the tourist areas. Visit the neighborhoods.

One veterans perspective on Veterans day

Veterans day felt different over here. I think that it is acknowledged in a similar way to the United States. It's a public holiday with a day off for a lot of people. It feels more personal here. 

People who are older remember the days of war here. Not so much the young people. Just like in the U.S.  It means a lot more if you had relatives who served in war or you yourself did.  It means more if you lived in a place where the war was real every day.

Many of the cities we have visited had up close and personal experiences with both World Wars. Their cities were bombarded, their homes destroyed. France lived under German occupation for 4 years. People in London lived in the underground during the war.  Will the people in Germany ever forget what happened there? 

The history of  warfare here, the direct effects it has had on peoples lives,

gives a different perspective. When you haven't had bombs dropping on your city, lost loved ones, friends, known the horrors, it's not quite as real. 

When it doesn't feel personal, when no one you know dies or is wounded terribly, it easier to sit back and let your country involve itself in many wars. After all, there are no bombs dropping on your house. Your brother didn't die. That far off war isn't real to you. It's real to those in the middle of it.

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November 13, 2022 at 07:18PM

Did the revolution start without me?

I walked where I was going today which wasn't that far. I didn't realize there was a metro/train strike going on. 

I didn't  even realize it when a big march started at the Place de la Republique, near where we have been staying.  It took me a while to figure out what the march was about. I couldn't read the signs in French. I didn't know what the lettering on the balloons on top of trucks stood for. Someone told me it was against the Ukraine war. Not true.

It turns out it was a march led by unions for wage hikes. This centered around the transportation unions wanting wage hikes. The letter CGT on the balloons stood for the Confederation Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labor). 

I wondered st the time how all these people could be marching during the day. Didn't they have jobs? Well it turns out they were on strike!

There were loud bangs periodically and I honestly thought at first it was the police setting something off to disperse the crowd. People also had flare devices that produced lots of smoke. Apparently it's all part of the march. Lots of singing and chanting. There were thousands of people. 

The same kind of march had happened in mid October involving a lot more people. I read that the union head said today that if they didn't get what they wanted, the transport union would go on an indefinite strike bringing the metro/ trains to a grinding halt across Paris. 

It really something to see working people out in the streets by the thousands marching for their rights. It's something you never see in the United States.

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November 10, 2022 at 09:10PM

I meet my idol and soul sister

The minute you enter the Louvre you know this is going to be a completely different experience than you have had before.

We entered a section that had somewhat low lighting which only made the beautiful paintings stand out even more. Beautiful doesn't even describe it. The painters you see here are all the ones you have heard about:  van Gogh, da Vinci, Manet, Cezanne, Matisse, Monet, Botticelli. The paintings were like nothing  I had ever seen. I was honestly stunned at their beauty. Moved even. 

It's really something to see paintings by by such famous iconic painters.

That was just the beginning . There was room after room of paintings, some so big you wondered how they ever did it. They depicted people, animals, religion, war, kings and queens, moments in history, everything you could think of. 

There were beautiful Roman and Greek statues including the Venus de Milo, two by by Michelangelo. There was Egyptian art, Asian Art, Islam art, African Art. Just about any of the world is represented. 

Of course there was the most famous painting of all, my idol, my sister in the struggle, etc., etc., the LADY HERSELF, the Mona Lisa. You come into the room where she is and there is a roped off section to get up close. You have to stand in line, you can't get really close up like the other paintings. She is covered in glass with two guards. But I got to see her and it was really something. I think she winked at me.

Then to top it all off, there is part of the museum is called the Galerie d'Apollon. This was built as a reception hall for Louis 14th. Some of the greatest sculptors and painters of the time had a hand in its completion. It is so opulent that it gives you an idea of how royalty really lived. No expense was spared. This hall houses some of the French crown jewels including  140 carat Regent diamond (said to be cursed). 

This visit to the Louvre was one of the highlights of this trip. It's something I'll never forget.

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November 09, 2022 at 07:11PM