Ola!
Wow, we’ve had another truly amazing day, and, I am very thankful to report, we are both still in one piece! (Or however many pieces one is supposed to be in…) So … up this morning about 6, and down to breakfast at 7:30 am. Truly, this house has to be 40 degrees colder than it is outside, and it must be 50 degrees colder than it is in our room (which is quite comfortable)! The lovely older lady whose house this is, watches television – in the dark -- in a room in which you can almost see your breath! I don’t know how she does it, although I do notice that she dresses in wool, so that probably helps. At any rate, a very nice, albeit small, breakfast buffet, including absolutely wonderful strawberries, and we were back upstairs. Seriously, as we went down to breakfast, I reminded Robert this morning about how cold the rest of the house was, and he put his sweater on (that we have been carrying along this trip) for the second time! (First time was yesterday morning when we went down for breakfast.)
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| Very old abandoned house |
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| with stunning detail! |
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| Can you see the red "U" shape upper right? |
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| On the trail! |
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| Two horses facing each other, one's head beneath the other |
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| Glorious day and stunning scenery! |
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| We even had poppies! |
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| 4 day old lamb! |
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| Me on side of cliff helping Gloria |
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| Made it safely to lunch! |
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| Incredible shrimp in port sauce |
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| Mushrooms, asparagus and scrambled egg |
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| See Whale |
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| My pork |
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| Fabulous dessert! |
Today’s agenda was the third site of the Paleolithic engravings, which entailed what was described as a 2 km walk over “rough terrain.” I hadn’t realized how much this was worrying Robert, but as he says, at his age (78) that hike could pose difficulties. At any rate, we were at the Museum by 9:15 am as a number of visitors were sorted out into various groups. Our group this morning was full – seven people, with a very nice Spanish couple as well as a German couple and their sick teenage son. I think the young man may have been around 14 – 15, but he was coughing from the moment we left until we got back. (Fortunately, he didn’t cough too badly in the car … for all of our sakes, but he definitely wasn’t well; I’m hoping it’s a cold as opposed to anything more serious and also hoping we don’t catch it!)
Today we headed to Ribeira de Piscos, which was by far the hardest to get to. Of course, it didn’t help that Gloria’s Land Rover was full to capacity! The other difficulty is that the engravings are spread out along the ribeira (small stream) down to its confluence with the Coa. This meant that we had to go from site to site – I think we saw about six or seven sites altogether, including one that was VERY high up on the hill.
I truly had a wonderful time! While I have always had a difficult time in spotting engravings in decorated caves – the lines are so finely drawn, and it’s usually so badly lit, that it’s not that easy to make out! Here, however, for whatever reason, I was spotting horses and aurochs and goats everywhere!
About half-way through the walk, we quite literally came up with a sheep herder, who, with his two dogs, was tending a large herd of goats and sheep. There was definitely one “little black” sheep in his flock, as well as a tiny lamb that had apparently been born four days ago! As Robert said, he was so fluffy! I think it’s the cold nights. At any rate, there were quite a lot of goats and little goatlets, as well as sheep and lambs. SO cute, although it did seem to me that the herder was doing all the work, as the two dogs were spending most of their time sleeping in the sun! Ah, a hard life!
At any rate, we got to all of the sites, and Robert did just fine. Unlike our other sites, where animals had been engraved on top of one another, these panels held more recent individual Paleolithic engravings (I’m talking 10,000 – 12,000 years old). The footing, in places, was really poor. Parts of the trail were covered with broken bits of schist and not very stable. I do have to admit (and Robert admitted to me later) that we were both thinking of friends of ours who had rather serious falls while hiking near their home. There was no question that a fall here, on these very steep slopes, would have had very dire consequences. Fortunately for us, nothing untoward happened, and everybody made it back to the Land Rover together! The timing had been such that we were supposed to be back to the museum by around noon, but we actually didn’t get there until almost 1:30!
One of the panels had a beautiful engraving of two horses facing each other, and seeming to nestle together; lovely. There was also (supposedly, here, as I am not really sure about this panel) the human figure of a naked man. Suffice to say, even following the tracing, I couldn’t really “see” what it was supposed to be, which is why I say “supposedly.” Human figures are very, very rare in cave art internationally – there are supposed to be around 14 different human figures in and around the CoaValley, while the entire cave at Lascauxpossesses only two human figures. At any rate, the day was beautiful, the sky was blue and it was lovely and sunny – a fabulous day to be looking for Paleolithic art!
When we finally got back to the museum, we, at least, were starving. We headed down to the very nice restaurant where we had eaten so well yesterday, and it was packed with people! However, Jessica, the nice young waitress who helped us yesterday, somehow found us a free table, and, while total chaos seemed to reign everywhere else, we magically got all our food and drink in very short order! (Thank you, Jessica!) In addition to our BIG bottle of sparkling water, we ordered a lovely bottle of Vinho Verde (the young wine we had enjoyed so much in Porto). To that, we ordered appetizers of shrimp (the entire thing) in Port wine as well as a repeat of our wild mushrooms, asparagus and scrambled egg dish. The shrimp were truly incredible, and now Robert is on the lookout for a recipe to put together. The mushrooms and asparagus was again great. For mains, R ordered sea bass (or, as it was listed on the menu: See Bass!) which came with all the parts attached. R actually called it See Whale, as it was so huge, served with spinach and boiled potatoes. I ordered roast loin of pork which came with broccoli and boiled potatoes. Robert loved See Whale, and my pork was fine, just not as good as yesterday’s steak! We let Jessica surprise us for dessert, and surprise us she did! She brought us what turned out to be two scoops of wonderful almond ice cream, served on an almond baked shell – of course drizzling chocolate over it did help things a bit. It was delicious, and we both loved it!
By the time we had finished with lunch, it was almost 3:30 pm, and here – true confessions! – neither of us had the inclination or the will power to tour the museum after all that. So, we’ve decided that by not touring the museum, we will now have to return once again to Foz Coa to do so! And, instead of more culture this afternoon, we went back to the hotel and took NAPS which seemed to be in order!
As we didn’t finish lunch until late, we figure we are now in for the night at Casa Vermelha.
Out tomorrow morning and heading toward Santiago de Compostella, Spain. We are definitely going to miss Portugal, and have resolved to return again soon!
So, friends, Romans and countrymen, that’s it for the day!
Lots and lots of love to all!
m
xxx
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