Iceland, Again

 We just couldn't get enough of Iceland, and the way our tickets were booked, we could take a 4-day layover in Reykjavik for no extra charge ... so we did! No rental car this time, we just spent time in town. Science nerds that we are, we spent an entire day at Perlan (earth-science museum), and also hit the museum for the northern lights, Icelandic history, maritime museum, and a lava show. That still left us plenty of time to just walk around town and enjoy food and drink, and even a bit of shopping -- where else could we count on getting super-warm wool clothing? Here's just a quick sampling of photos from the "land of fire and ice."

  

Duoro Valley, Portugal

 Porto was so amazing, it was difficult to imagine what could top that experience. We shouldn’t have doubted. Another of the wonderful black Mercedeses glided us inland (and uphill) to the Duoro Valley wine country. 135 km inland, over 1000- meter high mountains. About 1-1/2 hours drive but a whole ‘nother environment. The light is different, the air is sweet. They’ve been growing olives and wine grapes here since Roman times. According to our driver, Portuguese writer Miguel Torga described this area as a “geological poem.”

Duoro Valley overview, from the high point of our drive. It was cool and foggy when we left Porto, but just like in Colorado the weather became completely different on the other side of the mountains.

 

Breakfast

 I miss our Galeon peeps every day ... but not for breakfast! Sydney has been genius about finding us hotels that include breakfast, from local Icelandic Skyr (yogurt) fresh fruit and smoked salmon, to a full-on English breakfast in London, to this delish pastries and champagne in Portugal. Compare that with the El Galeon self-serve breakfast of cold cereal or instant oatmeal (the latter specially for us by request) or a panini press to make your own ham-and-cheese sandwiches, coffee or tea ... and be ready to work at 08:30. For all of that, we’re planning to work again in two months next summer when they need English speakers; and at the same time we’re appreciating our vacation travels!

 

Porto, Portugal -- A Statue, Two Museums, and a Bookstore

 We had far more opportunities to dig into culture in Porto than we had time, so we picked our top three. First up was this bookstore (you who know us well, know that we generally manage to visit a bookstore in every port, but this one, the “Livraria Lello,” was unusually famous. It was said to be where the inspiration for "Harry Potter" came from. Those words made for tourist magnets all over England when we were there, and apparently here also. The next day we got tickets to go inside. It truly was a pretty bookstore; and we learned they’re backing off the Harry Potter association, though the damage may well have already been done. Got away for less than 100 euros (unusual for us at a bookstore, I know, but we’re continuing our cruising tradition of going to local independent bookstores and buying books about the places we visit.) This trip netted us books about the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755; Portuguese navigators in the renaissance; a picture book about the gorgeous blue-and-white tiles we found all over Portugal; and Michelle Obama’s latest. And a couple of selfies…

Author friends: this is the famous bookstore where Rowling is said to have gotten the inspiration for the Harry Potter series. People line up and buy a ticket just to go inside! I wish you the same for any bookstore that carries your books. (And yes, we’re going too, but not right now, and the price of the ticket can be applied toward a book purchase.)

Porto, Portugal -- We Were Absolutely Smitten

 We were absolutely smitten by Porto. Not in an I-could-see-us-living-here way, but just in a deep appreciation for the unique vibe way. I'm sure part of it had to do with our location -- Sydney has a true gift for finding perfect-size hotels in great locations, this one right on a pedestrian mall and walkable to everything. The weather, think "Seattle" -- cool and moist, though we had sunny days as well. It was touristy, yes, but also, just ... right. I was fascinated by the tiles and the street scenes: 

Leiria, Portugal -- A Glimpse of Ordinary Life

 Our next city wasn't about tourism so much as it was seeing some longtime friends. Though there was some tourism anyway, Portugal is a lovely and varied country and its hard to avoid seeing beauty everywhere. Over the years we'd run into C and K aboard our respective boats from Nova Scotia to Florida and places in between. A few years ago they decided to retire from cruising and seek their next adventure -- living in Europe for a while, maybe forever. We'd had similar European dreams, though ours kept getting pushed back as we opted instead for one more year on Cinderella and the Spanish tall ships. At this time they had been living in Portugal for about a year and a half, and they invited us to spend a few days hanging out and seeing their new land-based lives.

Packed up our suitcases and headed to the train station. The train that arrived (10 minutes late) reminded me of trains I’d been on as a kid. Hey, the train was old enough that it could have been running first when I was a kid! As we struggled to lift the heavy suitcases up the narrow steps I found myself wishing for one of the professional drivers in the black Mercedes that had so smoothly whisked us away in other cities. But then we wouldn’t have met the kind taxi driver who helped us figure out which track the train would come on, or the French fellow passenger who would miss his own connection due to the late train but still took time to help translate for us, as well as lift the heaviest of our 3 bags. Minutes after we arrived at our hotel (and yes, finally there was a black Mercedes involved after all) C and K showed up. By happy coincidence it was C's birthday and we enjoyed a lovely birthday lunch along with meeting some of their new friends. We went back to their apartment afterwards; filled with light and a mix of new ikea furniture and treasured old things from before their boating days. Coincidentally their apartment was just a few blocks from our hotel — with a whole city to have chosen from this seemed an incredible stroke of luck. And finally a long convo with our waiter at dinner about … many things, but a lot about the situation of being in a small relatively poor country with too many pensioners to support from too few young workers, a situation we’re facing on both sides of the Atlantic. All in all, a full and auspicious first day in this city. 

The birthday lunch (C and K are in the middle). "We don't describe ourselves as expats," one said. "Expats implies we're in this transient state away from our real country. We're trying to remember we're immigrants, and Portugal is our new home." Note the backdrop of a wall of wine bottles; many of our pictures of restaurant meals in Portugal have the "wall of wine" in back.

Nazaré, Portugal

 Annnnd… on to Portugal. Just a quick trip from neighboring Spain. Much as we'd enjoyed it, we were anxious for some cooler weather. But our airport arrival experience was a misadventure worthy of our friend Denisa who writes about her travel snafus with wry humour: we somehow got directed into the line to get our passports stamped to exit the EU; fortunately the agent spoke excellent English and figured out that we were in the wrong lane before we ended up in the country illegally. After reclaiming what are now 3 suitcases (first trip in my life where I needed an extra bag to come home with. Of course, 5 months, temperature ranges from 0 degrees C in Iceland to 40 degrees C in Sevilla; foul weather sailing gear and pirate costume as well ordinary clothes and El Galeon polo shirts and jackets for work days, plus the antique nautical instruments from Whitby, and now my ceramic tile and a steadily-growing collection of fridge magnets, meant we weren’t exactly traveling light) we were met by a man in a suit holding a sign with our names on it and whisked away in a black Mercedes (for real! How cool, like a movie!) to our hotel. 

Our first stop was along the coast. Nazaré was a small fishing village, now summer vacation spot and location of legendary giant waves for surfing. No big waves the day we visited (I had been hoping for some leftover hurricane swell maybe?) but a really heavy salt spray mist in the air. Spoken Portuguese sounds a little like Russian to my ears and I definitely underestimated how uncomfortable I would feel not knowing any of the local language beyond a few politeness words. Between google translate, playing charades, pointing, and taking cues from other people we managed to get a couple of tuna, cheese, and tomato toasted sandwiches ("tosta atun com tomate" delicious for 4€ each) and a couple of beers.

A “living museum” along the waterfront promenade. This line of traditional fishing boats, they used to put lanterns in the back and go out at night with nets to fish (signs in front of each boat gave specific details; the last one in the row is the lifeboat)

  

Sevilla, Spain -- Tile

 So much of Spain (and we would later learn, Portugal) uses tile for a building material. Easy to see why -- strong, durable, insect- and water-resistant, varied and beautiful. So for a little different adventure Sydney scheduled us for a private session learning about, and hand-painting, a ceramic tile. Both Spain and Portugal have long ceramic traditions, evolving from Roman times when it was mosaics (images made of tiny bits). When we had our kitchen design/remodeling business, Jaye splurged on a high-end tile cutting tool partly because it was made in Spain and we assumed the Spanish had the most know-how to make a good tool. It was indeed good and over the years more than earned us back its higher cost in easy and accurate cutting. I meticulously hand-painted a tile which was then fired in the kiln (called “low-temperature” at only 1000 degrees Celsius). This piece took a little over two hours for a newbie. So imagine what it would take for these gorgeous tiles found on our walks around Sevilla! 

Before the kiln. The tile is basically terracotta; The glaze is finely powdered glass suspended in water. And fascinatingly the lines between the colours is a kind of oil—because oil and water don’t mix it will serve as a kind of barrier to keep the glazes from running into each other during firing. 

  

Sevilla, Spain -- at the Museum and Offices of the Nao Victoria Foundation

After ten years working on ships owned by the Fundación Nao Victoria, we were finally (!!) going to have a chance to visit their home offices. We had a bit of trouble finding the office, which was tucked into a riverfront promenade almost under the main road, which couldn't be seen from above at the city level where we were walking.  But seeing the masts of another of their full-size historic replica ships led us to the right spot. After the majesty and drama of sailing on these wonderful historic replicas, it was quite a jolt to see ... very prosaic cubicles, and several of our former shipmates now "promoted" to a life of business casual and computers instead of sea boots and halyards. 

But there was also a fabulous museum about Magellan's expedition; we spent several hours reading every word of every display and picked up a few new facts to add to our tours.

Model of the Nao Victoria, the only one of Magellan's five original ships to complete the circumnavigation; at the museum of the Fundacion's offices in Sevilla. 

 

Sevilla, Spain -- Day Trip to Córdoba (photo dump)

 One of the more touristy things we did was a bus trip to Córdoba, another site of many antiquities about an hour and a half drive from Sevilla. The Romans were here, later Moors held the site for about 700 years until they were finally kicked out in 1492. And all those influences were still visible in the site. 

Ironically, on our way to see the very old, we were captivated by the very new. This is a massive solar-power installation using "molten salt" technology; many parabolic mirrors on the ground focused on this tower; you can read about it here.