Last week I finished writing about our three week vacation in England, Scotland and Portugal. A comment I received was from Brenda Shaw who mentioned she has a relative near Lisbon.

That comment reminded me of the trip to Portugal that Nelly and I took in May of 2006. We took a bus tour with the Globus Tours group. That is a well run company, I would recommend a tour with them to anybody.

Our bus had 42 people. Eight of us were Canadians, one Australian, and the rest were Americans. Good variety of ages, some in mid to late 20’s, and the rest up to the 70’s age.

I picked three people in Canada and tried to send a daily postcard to each of them for all of the ten days of the tour. Some of those postcards were given back to me upon my return to Canada

We started at Lisbon, or Lisboa as the postcard says. Just by a stroke of good fortune, the hotel we roomed at just happened to be in the middle of the postcard picture.

May 10, our first stop in the morning after leaving Lisboa was at Obidos. We looked at a castle that was high up on a hill. Many of the houses within the castle walls were converted to tourist shops. There was even a post office so I was able to mail my postcards with ease.

The Romans, during their occupation of Portugal, had built an aqueduct outside of the walls and it was still standing although it wasn’t used and was falling down in places.

For lunch we went to Nazare, a community on the ocean. It was a sunny day with a warm breeze coming in off the water.

We drove on to Fatima, to a huge shrine dedicated to the three children in 1917, who saw a vision of Mary the Mother of God. The square where shrine was located, was HUGE. I couldn’t find any measurements but I would estimate the square to be 3000 feet long and 1500 feet wide.

The square could be longer and wider, I just know it was the largest concrete slab I’d ever seen in my life. Pilgrims have been known to crawl the entire length on their hands and knees.

We saw pilgrims on the highways everywhere, all of them were heading for Fatima, for the great celebration which started on the 13th of May and happened on the 13th day of each month with the last celebration of the year on the 13th of October.

The Government of Portugal had First Aid stations set up all over the countryside catering to the needs of the pilgrims. There was a First Aid station in the city of Tomar where we were to stay overnight. The station was manned 24 hours.

The temperature was 30 C but there was some wind to cool us off a little. Our hotel was an old style building and very comfortable. We were to leave early in the morning for our destination was Porto with three stops along the way.

May 11, we stopped in Coimbra and looked at a library built in the 1700’s. We had lunch then looked at Roman ruins which in the day was owned by a person of wealth.

Then it was onto the Bucaco Forest where we looked at rose gardens, a hotel and cathedral complex. Our final stop for the day was Porto where we would stay for two days.

May 12, we toured the River Douro then a winery where they made port. The winery photographer was Swedish. He gathered us together for a group photo. Just before he clicked the shutter, he announced to all of us, “smeele “. We all broke out into huge grins at his faux pas.

I took him aside later and told him about his mistake. He said, ” yes I know, and on English speakers it works every time! ”

The next postcard is from the Algarve where we stayed overnight at a hotel near the ocean. I drank the tap water everywhere we went, I didn’t get sick once. The tap water at the hotel was the worst of anywhere in Portugal.

In southern Portugal there are storks everywhere. The nests are frequently seen on the metal power line transmission towers. I’ve seen 35 nests on a tower. It is illegal to move the nests without government permission.

Portugal has a strange looking tree. It is sort of knobby looking from a distance and sits on a bare stem. When I inquired as to what kind of tree it was, I was told that it was a cell phone tower. It was unique.

After the Algarve visit we returned to Lisbon and would have flown home the next day but we chose to stay on for two more weeks with Nelly’s relatives who lived east of Porto.

That is a story for next week.

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