North By Northwest And Back Again

Since we still had the car we hopped in and headed north to Porto and Braga for a fun filled Fulbright weekend. By going north and west we followed the Serra de Estrela range and were going up a hill and then down a hill, up and down, and up and down for a while. It made for a picturesque drive, being able to peek over a peak and see small mountain towns in cloud cover with intermittent spots of sunshine. It was fun until the ominous looking clouds that we were following decided to open up and rain down on us when we were only an hour away from Braga. We made it in safely to a nice dinner prepared by some of our new Brazilian friends. The weekend in Braga was full of mirth and joy.
After Braga we headed to Porto which is less than an hour away. Ah Porto the birthplace of Port - my heart was fluttering with glee and my stomach and palate were ready for consumption. Alas, my happiness was superseded with frustration and dismay. It was Sunday and we are in a Catholic country, d'oh. We had to wait until tomorrow. Mercifully we were able to find an incredible restaurant on a tip from a friend who is a local and has the same ostentatious tastes as myself. He sent us to Autentica Marisqueira which ruffly translates to Authentic Seafood Shop. It was amazing. Once we stepped in out of the rain we were immediately bombarded with the smell of today's fresh catch. There was lobster, ray, cod, sole, salmon, prawns, crayfish, shrimp and a smorgasbord of other fresh seafood. It was a sight and smell to enjoy. We sat down at a white table cloth covered table and I said right away this is going to be expensive, even before we opened the menu. I was right, upon perusing the menu we were treated to prices for a fresh catch around 100 euros for one person. Not a bad suggestion - my kind of place. We settled on a provençal dish from the Alentejano region called Açorda à Alentejana (not for 100 euros I may add). It was a bread stewie kind of dish, extremely filling and absolutely delicious. On the side was a house made piri piri (Portuguese hot sauce, they took the Mozambique and Angolan name). We paired the dish with a vinvo verde, which had a slight effervescence to it making it nice and crisp, complimenting the dish nicely. We finished the meal stuffed to our gills and actually had to skip out on some port - no room. Out the doors we went, unfortunately to more rain.
We decided to go back to the hotel and see what the morning brought us, it ended up being torrential downpour. Soaked to the skin from just a walk to the car we resolved to forgo exploring Porto and save it for another trip, one that is preferably sunny and mild. Back to Covhilã we went. Once we reached the east side of the range the sky cleared up and the sun came out - of course
The next day we were welcomed back by PM, Melissa's boss (the wonderful lender of our adventure facilitator - the car). She had been hunkered down in Lisbon for two weeks working on a paper and finally surfaced for air back in Covhilã. She and Melissa had a Fulbright presentation to give at a local high school. I was quick to announce upon our meeting that this evening was to be the culmination of the Leonid Meteor Shower and our advantageous positioning on a mountain side would enable optimal viewing. After a nice presentation, a six hour dinner/reminiscing of weeks past, Melissa and I headed back to our apartment only to fall asleep. I woke up in a a daze an hour later and managed to stumble around and piece together the camera and tripod and begin gazing up at the stars (estrela in Portuguese). I was able to only see a few meteors, but only (luckily) captured one (look in the bottom left hand corner of the picture and you will see the streak).
The meteors were elusive like my mustering up of ambition for the rest of the week. I am afraid and ashamed to say it but we have spent the last few days watching American television in the internet, damn you laziness, you wrap yourself around me and I cant break free. Perhaps a jaunt to Lisbon this week will get rid of you.

A Four Day Adventure

***NOTE: IN ALL THE POSTS THE PICTURE ORDER BEGINS FROM THE BOTTOM UP***

As I have stated before some posts will consist of a few days put together - this is one of them. This past weekend we decided to leave the country and head east to Spain. Our destination was Salamanca, an old Spainsh city which is a UNSECO World Heritage Site. We drove the 220 kilometers in our borrowed car and set our sights on the Torro (the Spanish say that Spain looks like a bull skin drying in the sun). Couchsurfing provided us with people to stay with and our hosts set us on our way through the city with some wonderful suggestions for sites. Walking through the Plaza de Mayor, which is pronounced with a stha instead of a za (like a lisp, the Spanish don't have a hard s or z sound), we were brought back hundreds of years to the 16th century. The narrow walkways made of cobblestone and hand laid brick made you lose sense of your time. No longer are you in the 21th century. All of a sudden a snap of a camera and a flash going off you are jettisoned back to reality. Salamanca is called the city of gold because the sandstone that was used to create centuries old cathedrals, (the old one and the new one, new one is five hundred years old) universities, churches, and other buildings have a golden hue which almost makes it look like marble. It was breath taking.
After our time in Salamanca we headed home to Covilhã, with a small detour in another medieval town, Ciudad Rodrigo. This is a fortified town dating back to the 12th century - it had a moat! Melissa and I walked the twisting streets and took in the site at sun down, what a great little detour.
Continuing our streak of wanderlust, on Monday we hopped in the car and took off vertically, we climbed the mountain. Halfway up our drive we came upon a carved religious shrine built right into the mountain rock. There was a waterfall and stream at its feet and about a dozen rock stairs leading up to it. I am in no way a religious nut, but it was very ethereal with the cloud cover passing right through us and playing with the light and the shrine. We twisted, turned, and hairpin curved our way up to the top of Torre to a final height of 1993 meters (6500 feet). To say the least it was cold and completely clouded up there we could not really see a thing until our descent and saw some amazing vistas and views of Covilhã.
Finally, today took us to a small little village Belmonte about twenty kilometers east of Covilhã. It was home to the marranos a secret sect of Jews who had been hiding their religion since the Inquisition. Even though there have been Jews living there for hundreds of years a synagogue was only built in 1996. It was a quaint little place with a castle and cobblestone roads. A prefect place to spend an afternoon wandering around.
I suppose my time here is not so bad, what a life I live.

Checking Out The Hood

On a little venture up the mountain I came to find that there is a whole lot more to this place than meets the eye. Apparently we have another neighborhood right above us, Berria St. Antoino. Shows how much I actually listen to Melissa. It was a bit of a cloudy day, but I got a few nice pictures in. The berria or neighborhood, mainly consisted of some small houses and then right up the road the beginning for some farms. Most of the places had their very own trellises for grape growing, which translates into wine making - ooh happy days. The air was filled with the crisp scent of cool mountain air mixed with pine and the only noises we heard was the occasional bleat of a goat and the bell and baa of some sheep. It was a wonderful walk.

My new home

I did not think I was going to get a post in today since I spent most of the daylight hours inside studying my Portuguese. Fortunately, I can now say, "the girl is swimming - a menina está nadando," pretty damn well. I was able to sneek these in right after sunset as I was walking down the Mountain to meet Melissa after her classes. What a beautiful place we live in.

An International Affair

After a long drive and a wonderful dinner some of these photos came to fruition. In itself dinner and drinks created the only game of multilingual scrabble (English, Spanish, and Portuguese) I have ever seen or heard of. I lost.

Ola from Lisboa

So I understand that the title is photo of the day, but today and perhaps some other days it will be photos of the day or even days (I could be away from a computer). Needless to say, I do and thoroughly will enjoy putting this together. I hope that you do too.

Be Well,

SET the DCBohemian