Portugal, Part II

I am sitting on an EVA bus, Faro to Lisboa. This trip has come full circle: we are back in Portugal. We went from home to Portugal to Spain to Morocco to Spain to Portugal, and in a couple days we will make the last trek of the trip through a flight from Lisboa to Boston. This is the last bus ride of the trip - a trip that has featured countless busses, car rides, and trains. I wondered this morning how many hours we have spent in busses over the course of the last 3 months, and I actually don't think I want to know. 

View from the EVA bus.

That's all I have for now. I'm not going to write a long reflective post (not now anyway) because I think the content of my trip, some of which has been conveyed in blog posts, is not something that deserves to be condensed into a few sentences or paragraphs and summarized with a few solidary adjectives; each individual part, and especially the travel as a whole, is much more complex than a few words - as with every experience. 

And for now, I'm going to enjoy my last few hours in Portugal by eating the world's best bread with my favorite cheese on the Iberian peninsula, drinking wine and coffee for half of what it cost in Spain, and trying to reconfigure my language skills to avoid the mistake I just made in response to the bus attendant ("Obrigada," not "Gracias"). 

Southbound

"Our growth depends not on how many experiences we devour, but on how many we digest." - Ralph W. Sockman

(Thanks for sharing the quote, mom!)

As I mentioned in my last post, we left Barcelona over a week ago and were relieved to arrive in Valencia without an agenda. We wandered aimlessly and leisurely for a few days, then regretfully moved on. We spent a few nights in Granada, where we braved the rain mostly just to walk to a nearby café/local grocer we adored (Al Sur de Granada), and secondarily to spend a couple hours wandering through the Albayzín (historically Moorish neighborhood) and Alhambra (old Moorish fortress). 

Pictures of Granada, in and from the Albayzín:

Most of what we experienced of the Alhambra, though, was by sampling the beer named after it.

The rain stopped the day we left, and after a ride to Tarifa bailed on us, we quickly reassessed bus routes. We caught the next bus to Algeciras, then switched immediately to get to Tarifa. As in Valencia, we had no plans and no expectations and were pleasantly surprised upon arrival. We wandered through the white-washed old town and down to the coast. The town is mildly touristy but very low key and relaxing. At the coast, you can look across to Africa (specifically, Morocco) - our next destination and the reason we were in Tarifa to begin with. But more of that later.

If you have ever heard of the westernmost point of Europe, Portugal's Cabo da Roca, you probably know that you can be the last person in Europe to see the sun set if you visit, and you probably have also heard that it is swarming in people wanting to be that last person. We skipped that stop in Portugal as we didn't want to deal with the crowds. In Tarifa, though, we accidentally found out we were on the southernmost point of Europe when we stumbled upon a sign indicating it was so. It was a humbling experience. We stood on a breakwater built less than 50 years ago; to the right was the Atlantic, to the left the Mediterranean, straight ahead the Strait of Gibraltar and across the Strait was Africa. The righthand side of the breakwater was choppy and green-grey-blue, while the left was calm and more of a bright blue or teal. There was a clear division between the two seas with the presence of the breakwater. It was one of the most powerful experiences I have had in my travels.

The next morning, after a breakfast of churros and coffee, we took a quick 35-minute ferry across the Strait and got off in Tangier, Morocco. We experienced a change in time, cities, countries, and continents in just the short time it took the boat to get across. We spent our evening wandering through the medina (Petit Socco, Grand Socco, Kasbah), wandering through twisty streets, ignoring people trying to sell us souvenirs of all kinds, and soaking in the vibrancy of the culture. Everyone speaks Arabic, but much of Tangier's population also speaks French, Spanish, English, and the native Berber language (all to varying degrees). Tangier was a dose of much needed culture shock, to summarize. We spent the next two nights in Chefchaouen, a city 2 hours east of Tangier, in the heart of the Rif mountains. We strolled through the medina again. Chefchaouen's biggest attraction for tourists are the buildings lining the pedestrian streets that make up the windy medina - they are virtually all painted in various shades of blue. Set against the backdrop of the Rif range, it is an astonishingly beautiful town. We drank Moroccan tea (spearmint with a bit of green tea and loads of sugar), wandered through the maze of blue, hiked, and tried a little bit of haggling with local shopowners (primarily in Spanish). Yesterday, we made it back to Tangier and spent a leisurely night in the same hostel we stayed at our first night. 

View of Tangier's rooftops from the terrace of the hostel:

This morning we hopped on a ferry and got back to Tarifa just 5 minutes behind schedule. Now, we await arrival in Sevilla and will then go to Lisboa, then back to the other side of the Atlantic.

The last thing I would like to share today is some food for thought that I have also found constructive, courtesy an anonymous graffiti artist in Tarifa:

Dalí (Figueres) & Valencia

Yesterday, we took a two hour train ride from and then back to Barcelona to visit the Dalí museum in Figueres, España. The museum is itself a work of art. Dalí personally designed and decorated it to best present work from every stage of his life and artistic career. He painted ceilings and placed sculptures perfectly in order to make sure his talent (and ego) was not only preserved but kept in its purest, most Dalí-esque (there's really not other way to put it) form.

We left Barcelona this morning for Valencia, Spain's third largest city. It is sunny, coastal, and full of beautiful old architecture. It has it's own language as well, Valencian, a dialect of Catalan. I had no expectations upon arrival, and have been incredibly pleasantly surprised by how beautiful, charming, and full of character it is.

España / Valencia

Andalucia soon, then Morocco.

Salamanca, Madrid, Barcelona

Early last week, we arrived in Spain. We spent a few lazy days in Salamanca, with its college-town ambience and sun-soaked sandstone old city. We strolled the streets for the 4 days and nights we were there.

Since the city we wanted to go to, Santiago de Compostela, was an 8-hour-and-70-euro-detour, we decided to visit Madrid instead. We had amazing tapas and churros con chocolate and enjoyed the public gardens more than those of any other major city we have been to.

After a few days in Madrid, we decided it was time to move on and took a 6 hour ride to Barcelona, where we have been walking the streets with thousands of other tourists and soaking in the modernist and gothic architecture. The Sagrada Familia has progressed quite a bit since the first time I was in Barcelona which was incredible to see, in addition to the crazy houses Gaudi designed and built decades ago (one of which, the Casa Milà, was undergoing construction so we only saw a false front over the scaffolding).

We aren't sure where we are headed to next, but we will make our way down south and eventually to Morocco in the next week or two. 

Photos all credited to Brendan

Porto Pics y España

We arrived in Spain late last night after another day walking around Porto, and have spent the day exploring Salamanca and all of its beautiful old buildings, including old churches and the university, which was founded in 1218. We arrived a little before midnight and even though it was late on a Sunday night, there were students, parents with babies, and a variety of other locals drinking, smoking, and walking near the Plaza Mayor, which was beautifully lit up. With that kind of liveliness on a Sunday night, Spain has made itself clear that we are in a new country.

I don't have any photos of Salamanca yet,  but I have a few from Porto that I haven't posted yet, and I think my favorite city in Portugal deserves some recognition.

And one more that's just a lot of fun from Coimbra:

Rapid Adjustments

Last week, we planned to stay at Quinta do Luzio until the end of the first week in April. Unfortunately, our plans changed rapidly Monday night after there was turmoil between the permanent residents of the farm. We still are unclear on exactly what happened and exactly what the future of the farm is, but we had to leave within a few days to give them space to figure out their future plans, organizational system, and management dynamic.

With a new deadline in mind, we spent Monday night baking bread and spending time with the remaining volunteers, two German boys who recently graduated high school.

We stayed up later than we had since the end of 2013, then spent the next day washing clothes and gathering our things. 2 hours before we left, we heard the mail truck arrive. When one of Quinta do Luzio's residents brought in the mail, she handed me a package that my mom sent 3 weeks before. At that point, I was sure it wouldn't arrive before I left; the surprise made my morning.

Wednesday afternoon, we continued with our travel plans and headed to Coimbra, where we spent a couple of nights. The view from our hostel:

 We walked around the Univeristy of Coimbra, founded in 1290, and through the city streets. We got coffee and pastries (pastel de nata, the quintessential Portuguese pastry) in a cafe that was formerly a church. The cafe maintained its original stained glass windows, and the women's bathroom was located in the confessional box.

After Coimbra, we headed to Porto and wandered through old, gritty streets with tiled buildings that sprawled through hills and down to the river. It was rainy and foggy, but beautiful and full of character. The city sits at the corner of the Douro River, upon whose banks the city was built, and the Atlantic Ocean. 

Soon we will be in Spain, and are hoping for sunnier weather than we have had the past two weeks, and for really great sangria.