January 14th, 2017

We had our monthly coffee talk a couple days ago...gentleman by the name of Michael Hurst talking about Allied POW's held by Japan on Taiwan during WWII.  While not a vet himself, he was interested in the services based on the experiences of his family in WWI and WWII, and he has devoted his life to preserving the memory of the POW's, especially in Taiwan.  Quite a guy...while aware of the hideous treatment of POW's by the Japanese, Mr Hurst made it more vivid  and opened a few eyes about Taiwan's place during this time and learned some new things.   If you want to read more, his website, while not slick, is certainly powerful.  POWTaiwan.org

I am sure that I have used the term "Shithole" in this space before.  I know that I've used it forever and likely within the last month.  One day will go through this thing, but it feels like I have called bothTaipei and Palo Alto a shithole.  Betty said that I have called Taipei that and it was bad cause I am a guest...I pay taxes here don't I?  I say it partly out of love.  I am also the guy that says the Beatles suck and even worse things about Bob Dylan and am the type of person that will make comments to provoke a conversation.  Sometimes an argument, but it is really meant to stir the pot.  I don't think 45 said it with the same intent.  Thanks Donald for screwing up a perfectly fun word with your racist hatred of the brown folks.  Please don't utter the term  Crap Shack cause I like to use that one too.

OK...before moving on, found some more photos and most importantly, the place where they served the "best" Portuguese  pastries.  They look absolutely glorious but only tasted just fine, and certainly not as luscious as everyone wants you to believe.

Betty corrected me saying that they were brought to Macau by the Portuguese and not the other way around as I said last time.  Same diff.  Who brought what tasteless food where is beside the point that both need some help cuisine-wise.  That Hong Kong/Macau were colonized by the Brits/Portuguese seems to have had a negative lasting influence.  Compare to the legacy left by the more culinary  creative Spanish in Latin America.  Too bad the Italians took the pasta one way but were unable to make a dent on the return.

A Starbucks was right next door....someone got a shot to the arm

Movin' on.

December 23rd, 2017 - Lisbon

Our first full day and arranged a morning walking tour of the city.  Our guide was Paula Moreira and she was quite good.

We retraced our steps from the night before and started in the Barrio Alta neighborhood.  It was a foggy morning and us Taipei types welcomed the moist cool air.

 As this was the party neighborhood, signs of the previous evenings revelry were in abundance.

 Saw a couple of churches that were nice.  Sao Roque is a big saint in Lisbon and his church is an ode to him being the patron saint of dogs and lottery contestants.

If you go to Lisbon, try to be there on June 13th as that is their big day...party in honor of Saint Anthony, who is the patron saint of marriages and is a celebration of the sardine.  Or don't.

Unlike Spain, Portugal doesn't have the same storied history with killing off the Jews, but they did slaughter their fair share.  A memorial to a particularly gruesome mass murder of them in 1506 is in the main area downtown.  While they take responsibility, our guide kinda let the Portuguese off the hook by saying this was a time when the Spanish had a large influence in the country and they forced their hand in the matter.  Not buying it.

The other hill that commands the city center is the Alfama neighborhood which has a Moorish castle at the top.  The Muslims weren't in Portugal as long as other parts of the peninsula and the 1755 earthquake took out many of the places they built, but the castle and tight streets from their time are still around here.  We took a tram, which they are mighty proud of as symbols of their city, up the hill side, but I was still bitching about all the climbing.  The trams are charming.

We were warned multiple times about being careful of pick pockets in town.  This was the only place on our journey where that was the case.

So was complaining about the hills as she was telling the story of when the Christians stormed the castle in 1147 to end the Muslim rule and said I woulda been a lousy medieval warrior if I had to fight up this hill.  Then she told us about a hero of that battle, Martim Moniz, who threw himself in the door of the Alfama, thereby keeping it open so his fellow troops could get inside.   Thought that even I could have a role in a battle as doorstop would be something I am qualified for.

We parted ways with Paula and she directed us to the tram that goes up the river Targus to the Belem neighborhood.  On the way, you pass under the April 25th bridge, which was built by the same company that did the Golden Gate and bears a striking resemblance.

Belem is where the above pastry shop was located, which was a draw, but the main reason we went was to see the Mosterio dos Jeronimos.  A very nice monastery/church...

 But the draw for Babydoll and I was seeing the tomb of Vasco de Gama.  I as a history buff and she for some reason that remains unclear.

On the way back for our afternoon nap, took a couple shots of the downtown train station.

It is very nice, especially with the Moorish inspired doorways, but what I found cool about it was the WWII history behind it.  Portugal was neutral during that war and Lisbon was the gateway for people fleeing the Nazi's.  They refer to it in the movie Casablanca as the place that Viktor Lazlo and Ilsa were trying to get to to flee to America.  Ian Fleming based his early Bond novels here and the legend is that there was a secret door connecting the 4th floor of the hotel to the train station where they would sneak people across to get them out of town. 

On the way to dinner that night as we're walking down Avenida de Liberador, people were hanging clothes up on lines.

Thought it was a bit cheezy in a flea market sorta way, but we were told that it was the locals bringing out their used clothes for the less fortunate to take if needed.  Very neat and was emblematic of the vibe that I got from Lisbon and Portugal in general.

December 24th, 2017 - Sintra and coast

Was told that Sintra was a sight not to be missed while in Lisbon.  About an hour outside of town, the main draw is the Palacio de Pena.  A 19th century palace described as having an "eclectic medley of architectural styles".  Very Disney/Vegas-esque

Was fun to climb around the walls.  And you could look into the valley and down the hill was a house that Madonna just bought for 8 million euros.  Did you know she is shacking up with some Portuguese soccer player and spends her days there?  I didn't either but the Portuguese are real keen to let you know about it.

The inside of the palace was decked out in fine décor.  

Near the end was a photo of the Queen that was a big part of the design at the time.  Woof.  This era was near the end of all that royal blood intermarriage and it showed.

As it was Christmas eve, Betty broke out the goofy Christmas wear for us to take a family photo.  Notice how she only brought three things and see who is not wearing one?  Total bullshit.

We could have driven to Sintra but opted to go on a tour.  Thought it was gonna be in a big bus with a lot of people, but was in a van with another couple who were from Florida but were originally from Goa, India, which was a long time Portuguese colony.  Will get into the end of Portuguese colonial rule a bit later, but one thing I noticed around the country was the decent amount of brown people that were part of the Portuguese empire.  With Macau, India, Brazil and a few African countries, the ethnic mix in Portugal seemed relatively wide.

The van tour was all day and the palace was the morning stop.  After, we popped into the town of Sintra for lunch.  As you can guess, the food wasn't great, but the town was nice for one whose main economic reason for being is tourism.  After lunch, we had a 30 minute drive to the coast and we stopped by the side of the road to examine a cork tree.  Cork is a huge deal there as they produce 50% of the world's supply and is a major source of the country's revenue.  Asked our guide what he thought of the trend of twist off wine tops and the Florida dude bailed him out by saying corks were superior.

Another stop was made at Cabo da Roca, which is the westernmost point of continental Europe.  Not a huge deal I thought but it was a bigger one back in the days when they thought that you'd sail off the edge of the world if you went any further.  Will get into that more when we hit Santiago in Spain.

 After that, we meandered down the coast, stopping for a pee break at a surf beach.  While not a surfer, do appreciate the ethos and was surprised to learn that they have world class events there with some of the best breaks.  Current record of a surfer riding a 100ft wave was off the shore nearby.

Another stop at a rock formation called Boca do Inferno (Devil's Mouth), which is locally famous as the place where Aleister Crowley filmed his own fake death.

If you don't know of the life of Aleister Crowley and you enjoy reading about freaks, this guy invented the genre.

Our last stop was a stroll around the resort town of Cascais, where the hoi polloi of Lisbon retreat to in the summer and is only a 30 minute ride from town.  If you squinted so as not to read the signs in Portuguese, you'd swear you were in Carmel.

A nice day and would recommend it if you visit although I would probably skip the palace and hug the coast if there in the summer and on limited time.  We were all pretty gassed when we got back to the hotel.  After snacking all day, with it being Christmas eve and knowing our already limited desire for the local food would be even more restricted, we ate some beef jerky we brought along for dinner and called it quits early.

December 25th, 2017 Lisbon - Coimbra

As it was Christmas Day, planned one around the inevitable closures.  We slept in, picked up our rental car (a smelly Ford Focus wagon) and hit the road for a two hour ride to the town of Coimbra.  Our real desire for visiting Portugal was to visit Porto, but flights were tricky getting there from where we started from which is the main reason we started in Lisbon.  Do not regret it as it was a fine town with an interesting history and really great people.  As the train network wouldn't get us to all the places we wanted to go, making it a road trip was the way to go and took the opportunity to check out a couple other spots in the country.  Decided on making Coimbra a stop after reading about how it was a college town with one of the oldest universities in the world perched on a medieval hilltop.

It was a rainy afternoon hen we arrived and the town was dead, but had arranged to see a show at 6pm.  Am a huge fan of Brazilian music and thought that there would be some of its origins in Portugal.  What they have as their national genre is called Fado.  I don't want to crumb too hard on it, so will let the Wikipedia description take care of that for me.

" In popular belief, fado is a form of music characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea or the life of the poor, and infused with a sentiment of resignation, fatefulness and melancholia. This is loosely captured by the Portuguese word saudade, or "longing", symbolizing a feeling of loss (a permanent, irreparable loss and its consequent lifelong damage). "

Sounds hot.  There were a bunch of Fado bars in Lisbon but decided to sample it in Coimbra as their "style" was said to be unique.  Found an hour set that was done by ex-Coimbra University graduates that was on for the night we were there.  A crowd of about a dozen of us were treated to a nice set that was as much history of fado as a proper concert.  It wasn't half as bad as the above description would have you anticipating and think it helped we didn't speak Portuguese.

 The dude playing the guitar on the left was quite good and am a sucker ripping guitar chops.  He played the Portuguese guitar, which is a 12 string unique to Portugal.

 I think we all got something out of the show and while music with that kind of heaviness isn't my thing, vowed to look into it more and plan to make Luiz Goes my first foray

We managed to find the one restaurant in town that was open this night and had a typically lackluster meal.  We managed to still have fun and walking through the deserted streets was neat.

December 26th, 2017  Coimbra - Porto

Planned to spend the morning walking around the town and read that it was not easy to see a couple of the sights without a guide, so booked one the day before for 9am.

But first, had to deal with the car.  We rented a GPS with the car and the place to plug it in the smelly Ford Focus didn't have any power.  As the Avis was closed on Christmas, I made an early morning run to exchange vehicles.  I showed up just as they were opening and without prior warning, they swapped cars with us and we got a Seat Leon.  It was much nicer, and way less smelly, than the Focus, so was delighted.  And the rental car folks were so pleasant and helpful that I made a note for the 4th consecutive day as to how great the disposition of Portuguese people is (are?).

We met our guide Sara at 9am for a three hour walk about town.

Quaint and compact.  This was the first place we saw signs for the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.  I had never heard of this until a couple summers ago when a friend took it.  You walk for hundreds of miles to get to the church in Spain where the apostle James body is said to be kept.  Will detail that more when we get there in a couple days, but I had thought there was only one road on the pilgrimage, but we learned there are several and that they go through Portugal as well.  Throughout our trip, we'd see markings of the route...from formal yellow plaques like this

 To painted yellow arrows.  Apparently, there is another pilgrimage destination to Fatima in Portugal, marked in blue.  In Fatima, the Virgin Mary made an appearance to three orphans in 1917.  I thought that there sure were a lot of apparitions before cell phones.

 The obligatory stop at the church.  This one was auspicious for some reason, but I am starting to lose track, or maybe interest, as to why.  And have seen a lot of European churches and we still cannot discern between Gothic, Baroque, etc.  We try to guess when we walk in and are always wrong.

 I did notice that many of the alters in Portugal have this Stairway to Heaven look to them.

 And have got to get me a pink bible next time I'm in the market for one.

 Another must of any hill town city is a discussion of their walls.  Note to our members of Congress, these things were way thicker than our proposed border wall would be and they were breached every single time.

 Liked this piece of art celebrating the Portuguese guitar.  Very sexy

 Portugal seems like it is still a deal.  As we walked up the hill we saw a bunch of big buildings that were empty and in dire need of repair.  Coimbra's downtown was recently named a UNESCO site and Sara told us that it is now easier to get funds to repair the old buildings.  As we walked past a giant one, she told us that it would probably cost 500 thousand euros to buy and another 500 thousand to restore.  That sounds like a lot, but when a two bedroom apartment in Seattle goes for the same amount, having a giant palace in Portugal sounds like a steal.

 Great views across the valley as we meandered up to the university

 Coimbra U was the draw for me.  Sara told us about some of their traditions.  The students still wear cloaks like the Fado dudes were wearing above.  At the end of their life at the university, they gather at the steps of the library and shred them, tying the pieces of cloth to buildings and run around naked.  I so enjoy a college tradition in the buff

The chapel was bright and had a whimsical ceiling, which is a nice departure from all the nasty imagery most of the churches have.  And that step alter is visibly attractive and makes you sing a little Led Zeppelin too.

 An unexpected highlight was a visit to the room University's Grand Examination room,  Not only visibly striking, the tradition that PhD students must sit and defend their thesis here for several hours gave the room an ominous feel.

 The student sits in that chair in the middle while the professors sit around and grill them on the merits of their work.  The stuff of nightmares.

 The closer of the tour is the library.  Tickets are limited and entry tightly restricted both in number of entrants and time allowed.  You start in the basement where there is a jail for really ornery students.  Another recurring dream of mine.   Obligatory toilet photo.

 Then you go to the middle room that is musty and lined with books.  The vast majority are in Latin and are hundreds of years old.

Then to the main room...bats are allowed to live in the alcoves as they dine on the bugs that would eat the books.  The room is straight out of Harry Potter (I imagine as never having seen anything but a Harry Potter trailer).  Photos are strictly prohibited, but here is a YouTube video someone snuck during their visit.

As we walked down the hill to finish our visit, we got to talking to Sara about life and such.  I was interested in her telling of how her family were Catholics (Portugal is very Cathiolic) and how she bristled at the religion by seeing it as a tool that the dictatorship used in controlling the people.  She also said that she learned that her ancestors from centuries ago, like many Portuguese, were Jews that were forced to convert and that many of those families changed their surnames to ones that were nature themed to avoid detection.  

I didn't really know my recent Portuguese history and this discussion prompted a deep dive into the dictatorship of Antonio Salazar.

The story of the Spanish Civil War and Franco is more well known.  In Portugal, they had a similar bout with Nationalists v Communists in the early part of the 1900's that Spain did with the Generalissimo Franco winning the day and ruling Spain as a near hermit kingdom until 1975.  

In Portugal, there was no such conflict...Salazar (a Coimbra U grad that received legendarily high marks) was a genius economist and he seemingly singlehandedly turned around a failing state as Econimic Minister within 1 year.  He parlayed this success with a takeover of the government by totally peaceful means in 1932.  He stayed "neutral" during both the Spanish Civil War an WWII, but as his hatred for communists far outweighed that of the Fascists, he tipped the scales in that direction whenever he could get away with it.  He was commonly grouped in with the Fascists like Franco and Mussolini, but his rule was far more benign.  Portugal was the only one of those regimes allowed into NATO in '49 and they participated in the world economy far more readily than did Spain during Franco.  His record of rounding up the communists in jail, and unwillingness to let go of the Portuguese colonial possessions by using force are areas where his record of benevolence falls apart.  And like Sara indicated, as a devout Catholic, the severity of the use of the church to retain control over the country can be debated but not denied.  He fell in the bathtub in 1968 and suffered a brain injury that incapacitated him.  While he survived till '72, the people that took power let him think he was still running the joint while he was drooling into a cup during those 4 intervening years.  Democracy prevailed in '74 with a bloodless revolution called the Carnation Revolution as the populace put those flowers into the army's guns during the standoff.  Obviously not a scholar on the topic, but on the scoreboard of dictators, Salazar seems like one of the good ones?

Grabbed a bite of some lackluster pastries and made the 2 hour drive to Porto.  Fairly uneventful, but as we pulled into town from the southern side of the Duoro river, the city opened up in front of us in  one of those WOW moments.

See you tomorrow.