Had Rod had his way, we would have forfeited the rest of the trip, including penalties on hotels and loss of expensive airline tickets, by flying home early. Of course, we would have been spared the six hours (my estimate) sitting through The Book of Mormon in London. Tough call.

Lagos should not be called a “sleepy” town, but it is not bustling. Like all of our other visits, including Munich, there were perhaps a dozen street musicians belting out their version of Cohen’s Hallelujah. My guess is that aspiring artists start with Lagos and work their way north after a couple days of practice. Identifying the song was aided by lyrics. 

The streets of the old town, mosaic as in all other places in Portugal, are lined with outdoor restaurants with a wider span of quality than cuisine. Some cafés are distinguished from their neighbors by chair design or table color; others are delineated by interlaced trinket and tee shirt shops. It is worth an afternoon’s browsing. Our plan to explore the caves and grottos of the coast were set aside for another day, but knowing how way leads on to way…

Lagos has the feel of being at an awkward teenage stage—lots of spirit and potential, but unpolished. Places like this are defined, not by their fans, but by their critics, who are always louder. Few will praise the innocent beauty as much as complain of the undeveloped beaches and lack of a good disco to get fleeced on expensive, après-soleil cocktails or three star Michelin restaurants. When those improvements uproot the unsophisticated sincerity of the small businesses that are at the core of Lagos’s charm, the old fans will become the new critics and raise their voices in righteous anger over what they failed to champion when it was right in front of their sandals.

Our last night in Portugal was spent at the airport hotel, a short walk from Terminal 1 but a great distance from Gate 49. Here is a good place to insert a minor criticism of the normally friendly Portuguese and their inability to deliver clear directions. They like to point, often omitting turns or distinguishing characteristic of a building, like its being covered in scaffolding. At the airport we spent time in lines we were told to use only to learn that our tickets afforded us a shorter, more convenient option, a required option. We missed our flight.

We enjoyed Portugal, but it proved more difficult to navigate than we expected of a first-world nation. English is widely spoken and has been a requirement of primary education for years. It often felt as though tourists are tolerated, but not enjoyed, certainly not appreciated for our easily bearable transience.

Portugal seems to be on its way up, gradually climbing out to the economic mess visited upon the country by the 2008 recession. When they learn to cook, it will be heaven. (Okay, the shared salad shown above and followed with a vegan lasagna for me and beef for Rod was really first rate.)

There is not much to report about Evora, or there is but it’s not pleasant, which is not the town’s fault. On our last night in Santiago, I found it difficult to sleep. Not long after being on the road, maybe 90 minutes, I became too tired to drive. Rod could not take over because, like most Americans, he lacks the requisite number of limbs in mutual cooperation to control the various levers, wheels, pedals, gears, switches, and audio/visual clues required to control the aircraft. I slept. Perhaps for 15 minutes.

Two hours later, we repeated the cycle, but after five minutes, I felt terribly ill. In fits and starts we arrived in the outskirts of the old town, defined by a wall, which is not a threat to the Chinese wall record. The traffic pattern is creative. The old city has one entrance and all other roads are one way out, providing the tourist a nearly infinite number of ways to fail to find a destination, which I discovered by trying them all. The hotel was discovered by happenstance when Rod saw its sign and I managed to turn sharply into its full parking lot. The GPS lady tried one last attempt to foil us with her impatient sneer, “recalculating,” an obvious lie.

After unpacking, we moved the car to distant lot conveniently adjacent to a hospital, which we entered in the hope of finding a toilet, but stayed for the ambulance transfer to a nearby trauma center. I did not die, though there were times I wished I could have—gastritis. That is about all I recall of Evora. We left in the morning.

In the northwest corner of Spain, a small city is almost cultish in its importance among devout Christians and off-the-radar by almost everyone else. Or that was my expectation, which might have been valid two decades ago, before the veil (or robe) of infallibility was pierced by the wink-wink, nudge-nudge carnal benefits afforded the long-suffering clergy and put on display beside the questionably immaculate conception. Just how endemic and fundamental has the hypocrisy been? 

Well, never mind all of that, because people still make the blistering hajj over several routes, not so much to cleanse their souls (or even to callous their soles), but to enjoy a cold beer over octopus and fries and have a few comradic (🎶you say “comedic,” I say “comradic”) laughs without the danger of getting a Pamplonic (🎶you say “Platonic,” I say “Pamplonic”) steer horn up your butt. (The “running of the bull” does not refer just to my blog posts.)

A massive cathedral dominates the central square, where once the faithful dragged bruised knees across the last 100 yards of reverence. Today, skateboarders dodge selfie-sticks and street performers in a devotion of life far more sincere than a cluster of dour nuns ever had. Santiago is today more a celebration of living than when bemoaning the apocryphal climb of a cross-burdened, long dead martyr.

The church is late Romanesque, barely predating gothic Notre Dame of Paris. The arches are round, not pointed, and the walls carry the weight of the high nave, without the refinement of gothic flying buttresses, allowing few window holes of stained-glass. Still, it impresses. 

Because of restoration work, there was no Sunday mass for us (I hear you chuckle), but one common feature of mass is the swinging of a 60 pound, silver, incense burner traveling in a wide arc over the congregation, propelled along its flight by a priest holding one end of the pendulum rope, assisted by some kind of pulley at the apex. The rope was dangling from the pulley to inspire our imagination, briefly, before we wandered down the street for bread and wine, produced in Biblical profusion for the carefree multitudes, sans wedding celebration.

Our hotel (accommodations rarely make for interesting blog fodder) is worthy of mention, being nearly as old as the church and standing deservingly on one side of the giant plaza beside the cathedral. The hotel was originally a hospital. It has hundreds of rooms. The internal rooms edge four large cloistered courtyards, peaceful as stone, until trod by a new guest with a roller and the oblivious nerve to stray from the thickly carpeted halls within the building. The wheels of dragged luggage sounded like rain on tiled roofs from our large bedroom chamber. A few decades ago, giving a room with a single bed in such a holy site to two men would have been sacrilege, but the Spanish have had it up to the sombrero with authority and today, tourist dollars speak louder than Latin mass. Clink clink. Thank god.

Though I would not want our Portuguese friends to be offended, the food in Spain is superior to that in Portugal. One item above, the wedge of Tarta de Santiago, is a particular dessert made only here and though it looks simple, it is perfect.

In one part of the city is a food market, like Boston’s Quincy Market but four times larger. There were fewer prepared food options, but there were some with people drinking wine and eating fresh seafood, midday. (I advise visits in the morning in lieu of breakfast…I mean, for breakfast.)

These random shots of the city give, I hope, a sense of the charm of Santiago. Most of the old town is car-free. Pilgrims wander the narrow streets enjoying the calm pace of life here. We spent three nights, which is probably more than most do, but the accommodations were comfy and there always seemed to be a new neighborhood to haunt.

The morning breakfast table, overlooking a quiet plaza. We miss this.

The trip from Porto to Peso do Régua inspired a few thoughts about driving in Portugal…like, don’t. The cities are no worse than any other laid out a thousand years before the questionably helpful invention of the horseless, and shitless, carriage. The highways are modern and the drivers keep fastidiously to the right except to pass. Tail lights flash turns and lane changes with the insistence of a broadway marquee’s border. So what is not to like?

Speed. The signs say 120 (kph = 75 mph) and no one is moving slower than 180, except for other horrified or cowardly tourists. On a divided highway, one just keeps to the right and hopes for the best. On a narrow, two-way, river bender, you cannot travel two kilometers without an angry local crawling up your ass, presuming their horn will push you along at the speed of sound. Mach my words. Take a train.

Sign-work is meant to make the visitor regret putting off that 18-month course on conversational Portuguese, which could easily come in handy if ever kidnapped in Brazil.

Ok, but the Douro Valley is mostly about wine and food. Not just port wine, though there is more of that than an English rugby team could possibly drink in a week, but top-notch pretentious reds and whites that could, unless we are careful, find their way onto San Francisco and Plaistow dining tables. We had three great meals. The third, at a small neighborhood bistro for a quarter the price of either of the others, was really good.

We took a trip up river one day to the town of Pinhåo, spelt with an a-hole. Ok, by “up river” I mean driving, not sailing. And we could have taken the train. So many options, for a place where few visit.

This is how you get to the other platform. Makes sense, but I had never seen it. Probably works less well for high speed rail lines, so I would not invest in the rubber walks.

These images and their elaborate frames are all done in tile. They obviously last a long time. I found them elsewhere in the valley, depicting life and the industry that has put some prosperity into Douro.The men crushing grapes in their underwear is a favorite, recalls Lucy doing this and ending up having a fight with another stomper. Wines that deliver a taste from the feet rarely earn comments from the discerning palates of connoisseurs, like a little strong on the heel, but a fine arch and a light touch on the balls with just the hint of toe.

We enjoyed the Douro Valley, but three nights was more than the average tourist needs. The hotel turned out to be a spa, with lots of options for residents of Porto who want to get away and relax, but it was heavy on relax and light on wifi. 

The town of Coimbra was a last minute change to our plans, booked only three months before departure. (To a man my age, “last minute” is a frightening phrase in its literal sense, when using the word “literal” in its literal sense. I’m getting dizzy.) Coimbra is a natural pause in the drive from Lisbon to Porto, sitting equidistant between the two.

That the city hosts one of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious universities was a draw with unexpected benefits. Our one-night stay coincided with a city-wide party of graduating students and others young and old who like to celebrate. Such crowds are remarkably easy to assemble in Portugal, or in any country where pleasure and fun are elevated above church attendance—countries commonly referred to as “civilized.”

The students group according to college color, yellow for medicine, red for law (if not order), blue for science, and other colors I could not identify. Rod referred to the contingent of young women in the float as “nurses.” I ran from the scene expecting a cascade of beer.

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We found the merrymaking to be in good spirits, though there was a lot of spilt beer, much landing on male students in black robes.

We were lucky to stop into a fine restaurant just as it was opening for dinner. Within 30 minutes, it was full. Great place to go to school, which I am discovering a little late.

The trip to Sintra was not exactly after Lisbon, but filled our last full day in the city. It requires a train trip followed by a vehicle—a bus, a faux tram on rubber wheels, or a tut-tut, which is a motorcycle modified with a seat and a prayer, the seat being optional. In the US, this vehicle would not be legal to operate in a private garage. So that’s what we hired: adventure

Our pilot Henriké spoke with crisp consonants, rolled Rs, and a proud multi-syllabic vocabulary that gave one unjustified confidence in his ability to drive the narrow curves up to the castle with an inattentive navigation that gave us more face-time than needed. But he’s a charming chap with sound advice as to how to skirt the lines of ticket-buyers who chose the safety of a crowded bus. I hope, against the odds, that Henriké and his vehicle live for many more trips—without us.

The first stop along the way was at ramparts pointlessly defending the trees and hiking paths behind them, but even the Moors must have enjoyed the views easily scaled on the backs of those unfortunates whose whole purpose in life was to move heavy stones up hill until the day one might be dropped, smashing a foot, thus making feeding and care an expendable charity. That aside, the view is lovely.

Just as Henriké had promised, a bored young man at a line-less kiosk off the beaten path sold us tickets to the palace. After a short hike up the last 200 meters, we bullied our way past clueless tourists, our tickets in hand, to enter the walls of this colorful, quirky get-away of a ruler whose family had no vision of their fate. Like Louis and Marie before them, their excesses would one day tear this extravagance from their cold dead hands, but our visit was not about the past. It was about envisioning the future when Trump and his family would be dragged from Washington as unceremoniously.

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It galls one to think that Disney continues to enjoy copyright protection for Mickey Mouse and pays nothing to Portugal for the Magic Kingdom. When I look at these tarted up crenelated walls, I see not a fortress, but Joel Grey’s rouged face in Cabaret, the movie. It falls short of garish—certainly not hideous, almost playful, it defies description. The best I can do to label this construction is to call it the marriage of determination with immaturity, vigorously consummated.

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The interior seems conventional. When the king and queen established this retreat, various important lords built competing homes on the slopes below in dangerously mockish good taste.

If one travels to Lisbon, failure to visit Sintra would be an affront to bucket lists the world over. For agile youth, the scamper down the mountain, if not the clamber up, will more than justify homage paid to this moorish mishmash. One can always crouch behind I know it’s gaudy and showy, but it’s fun. Who can point an accusing finger at fun? Pas moi.

One speaks of a country’s cuisine with the reverence given the dead. So of Portugueese cooking I say, may it rest in peace. It has virtues, like simplicity. Fish, when grilled, is unadulterated. Salads are fresh and served with good olive oil and vinegar on the side. Desserts have flair. But when a restaurant boasts “traditional Portuguese cuisine,” it is an invitation to, as Dionne Warwick might say, 🎵walk on by, which we were fool-me-thrice slow learners. If one needs an explanation for why Italian cooking is ubiquitous in Lisbon, try the salted cod.

Breakfast at our fine hotel was more than adequate, but I longed for the German bread.

So enough with the complaints, already. Dining is a joy. Many beautifully lined, auto-free streets are staged with restaurant tables that run an unbroken column from intersection to cross-street. Notice that the pavement is a mosaic of off-white and dark gray stones, buffed glossy by the shuffling feet of tourists, sometimes finding more interest in their iPhones than in the remarkable life around them.

The tiled streets and sidewalks all over the city are crafted of these stones, replaced with the same artistry as done originally when construction requires that sections be disturbed, which we saw in stages over our 5-day visit. Walking on these broad sidewalks, some wider than the boulevards they line, is an uplifting experience.

Lisbon is a city of street musicians, and they are good. The one in the video above had the added advantage of being remarkably handsome and slim. One out of three songs from any musician is Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Melancholy sells.

In the area called “The Bairro Alto” a simple park overlooks the city from a hill to the north. The steep climb is commonly assisted by a form of funicular with larger wheels on the lower end than on the upper, allowing the floor to be flat as the climb is at a constant pitch.

To save rail cost, the ends of the lines have a single track and the center expands to two tracks, permitting a climbing car to pass a descending car, if the timing is right. It was not doubt of their smooth passing, but a long line, that persuaded us to walk the hill, beating the next lift. (Incidentally, a funicular is designed so that the weight of the descending car assists the rising car, so they always pass at the same location.)

In the park is a bust of the first newspaper man of Lisbon, less prominent than the full scale, skinny lad in bare feet hawking the news. Whether the sculptor sought to undermine the Citizen Kane of his day or elevate the entrepreneurial vigor of the boy, I shall never know, but I approve of their relative importance.

According to Rick Steves, the Bairro Alto is known for its raucous nightlife and the last honest meal, but we did not embrace the idea of returning by cab—traditional Portuguese, thrice burned. However, for those looking to see all of Lisbon, I’d recommend seeing the Bairro Alto at night; it lacks energy during the day.

With hours to kill we took a ferry across the channel to a neighboring peninsula southwest of the city. A bridge that strongly resembles the Golden Gate in San Francisco ties the two together, but the boat is fast and cheap. Here we shared a fine lunch of pan-fried sole. Even with the cost and hardship of sailing, the meal was a great value.

More about sidewalks  In the neighborhood of our hotel, workmen had to remove and replace a sidewalk for reasons I could not discern without learning Portuguese. 

The removed stones were of the same marble mosaic as one assumed were laid down by Romans 2000 years ago. We watched this work progress with the same horror that many must have been experienced when a fine Victorian house had its gingerbread torn from the windows and doors to be replaced by the once ubiquitous and now illegal asbestos siding, popular by people who valued their wallets more than their living space. We presumed the an uninterrupted line of artful sidewalk would be filled with concrete to avoid paying laborers a day’s salary. We were wrong.

When the time came to put in new stones, the work was done to the same standard as was used originally. This is why miles of walkway in Lisbon (and as we learned, other cities in Portugal) are graced with the pride of artisan labor. It is not then named as “The El Barffo Corporation’s Pedestrian Way” in a whorish way to trade civic pride for advertising income, as San Francisco has done with “AT&T Park,” now “Oracle Park.” Lisbon may not have the high wages and soaring property values that put the poor in their place, but instead has a dignity that is priceless.

The Lisbon Metro is worthy of a quick mention. The long trains arrive at the station at about every three minutes. If you miss a train, the wait is short. The trains do not dawdle. They pull into the station, the doors open, people get off and on quickly because the doors soon close and the cars race down the tracks—no bullshit. If you need to get somewhere, you know how long it will take.

As a result, traffic in Lisbon is light. Taxis are cheap, busses and trams are everywhere. Who needs a car? Large American cities could take a lesson here. A city’s commitment to public transportation is the only way to spare us hours of sitting in traffic.