Monday, September 8, 2025
And now I’m in Porto with Jules and Jan. I flew to Newark with the kids and Tom although I had first class and then I went to change gates. On my way to my gate I saw Jan and Jules eating an early dinner. They hadn’t left yet and my flight was to leave two hours after theirs. I ended up downgrading to economy and hopping on the plane with them. Middle seat. I was able to sleep most of the way but wowza.
We took a cab into Porto and climbed up three flights of stairs to our little apartment that is absolutely charming. The “lamp” over the breakfast nook dining area is a branch with three artisan lightbulbs artistically hanging from it. We have lots of light and windows and and and . The cab driver, Fernando, gave Jan and Jules the creeps. I thought he was fine, he was very clear that we might be robbed but we won’t be killed in Porto as there is no violent crime here. I’m curious as to how being raped and beaten falls on the number line of violence. Perhaps it’s best not to know. We walked down the Rue Santa Catarina and we had coffee and little custard cups. Jan had her coffee black, Americano, and Jules and I had ours with hot milk. We did some window shopping and some actual shopping. There’s a store here, Urban Project, it has goods made in Portugal and their logo is a coyote. I had to get something of course. I purchased a black tank and a silky scarf. The tank is kindof slutty looking, I hope that Tom likes it and the scarf, in black and white with coyotes on it is just fun. We also went into a store that sold, I can’t believe this, but essences of sorts. Kindof like tomato paste in paint tubes but instead of tomato paste, it was mango chutney, different chocolate and berry and port combinations and chocolate and orange and pepper. The sales woman was a great sales person and we all walked out with tubes of essence, beautifully packaged for gifts for others for christmas.
Morning glories EVERYWHERE. We walked down to Ponte de Luis, many, many steps going down, down, down, many stairs but not before passing a bunch young college students in black suits, some of the girls were wearing skirts, men and women were wearing capes all assembled on a grassy verge outside of the old town walk, Muralha Fernandina. I couldn’t help but imagine heads on spikes. Oh! and before we got to that we did pass a church that had a saint with lines going from the palms of his hands out to Jesus on a Cross, like he was flying a Jesus kite. The Christians are so good with gruesome imagery. We barely made it back to the apartment and up the three flights of stairs (ten steps each) before collapsing on our little beds. There is a piece of artwork in the eating area that has an ink and watercolor painting painted over the open pages of several books. It is of a man embracing a woman or a child, the female has walking oxfords and socks that come up just past the ankles. I can’t tell from the books or painting if it is a father and daughter or one of those creepy Lolita things. The weather is great, I’m wearing a trapeze dress with pockets made out of some man made silk thing and I’m perfectly comfortable. Jan and Julie are asleep upstairs in their respective twin beds.
Another note, before I forget, electric cars everywhere
We ate dinner in a restaurant where we had vegetarian food and there were paintings of skeletons smoking cigarettes on the walls.
09/09
Today we had a guided walking tour with Jose Luis
He was very informed on the history of the churches and the Carmelites, the Barefooted Carmelites the Jesuits and the Franciscans.
So the Jesuits were kicked out of Porto first, maybe for being militant know it alls, I’m not clear. Then barefooted Carmelites, monks who catered to the impoverished had a longer run and the Carmelite nuns had the longest run as they were nurses who would actually nurse Napoleon’s soldiers when they had captured the town. This group were allowed to stay in their facility until the last nun of their order died. The Carmelites and the Carmo had Churches built separated by one of the world’s narrowest houses because it was not allowed to have the walls of the two sacred buildings touch.
Jose pointed out that balconies on all of the buildings in Porto are unique, the iron work is different. He told us that the students we had seen were second year students at the university. He took us to a train station that had tile mosaics depicting all different forms of transpiration from foot to boat and train. The mosaics were quite beautiful.
Pictures of Frieda Kahlo are everywhere on tote bags, souvenirs, billboards and when we asked why, Jose said she was symbolic of feminism and is very popular with latin populations.
We went to a nature preserve on the water. The day was a little bit overcast but it was lovely. I took a nap in the sand. Jules fell asleep sitting upright and Jan took tons of pictures. The uber ride to get here was epic. We had to go all the way around town to get to a place that was “as birds fly” maybe 8 miles away. Jules kept asking the driver, “Is this right?” and he in turn, would unnervingly take his eyes off of the road and give the map in her hand his full attention and say “yes”. Once we took our walk along the boardwalk we got an Uber back and it was a one and done.
All of the young women seem to be wearing black leather moto jackets and high waisted jeans. We tried to find an early dinner after having a crap lunch at a tourist place on the river but we ended up eating hummus, potato dumpling things and cabbage salad.
Also, Portugal has a history of discriminating against the Jews. During the crusades they would come into the house of a “suspected” Jew and look for pork. The Jews learned how to make a sausage out of turkey that tasted like pork sausage so when the crusaders came and asked them to eat the pork in front of them the Jews could eat their turkey sausage and not violate their faith. What a god damn waste of energy.
They were under a dictatorship for 30 years and this ended in 1974 with a bloodless revolution. I am so sure some blood was spilled. The military took power back and it is referred to as the Carnation Revolution.
09/10
Well today I made everyone get up and walk to the meeting place for our boat and wine trip in the Duoro valley. Oops! That is for tomorrow. It was only when I double checked when we were at the meeting place that I realized my error.
Off to Braga we went. Jules had read about it in The Lonely Planet book. We walked for 35 minutes through the residential area of Porto to get on a train for an hour train ride to Braga. Jules bought a gorgeous orange sweater at a London Boutique Shop. We found a place for breakfast in Braga, it was a quest. Jan had quiche with an Americana, Julie and I had bacon , eggs, toast and flat whites. It misted on us the whole day so it was a good day to not be on a boat ride.
There was a beautiful garden in the town center of Braga (I kept wanting to call it Brazzos from the Steve Martin character from Only Murders in the Building) Braga also has a religious site, Bom Jesus Do Monte, or Pretty Jesus Hill. We took an uber to get up there. Although the property itself was gorgeous with lakes and numerous gardeners who looked like they were mostly standing around and glaring at the tourists, I found the statuary more ghastly than usual. Now this is saying a lot. I was raised Catholic and feel I should be inured to it but I’m not. We bought tickets for some parts of the site but we kept getting turned away from other places that we tried . There was a woman who had not one but two wonky eyes so we really couldn’t tell where to look, this in addition to her having no desire to make eye contact made two way communication hard. This woman bypassed all of that by holding her right hand out and moving finger back and forth indicating “No”. We started to go down a hallway, “No!” followed by finger waving. We turned and tried another entrance, “No!” The only entrance we were allowed through was the one she was sentry for and we had to buy a ticket for that one. Bom Jesus was quite the money making enterprise. Tickets for any little room, and 1 euro for each candle for a prayer. They didn’t take credit cards for the candles.
It was here that Julie started talking about the power of telling a good story and how much power the Catholic church amassed with their storytelling.
We ate at Verde Hut. Fantastic vegan food, great soup, salad, bread, curries, dessert was a separate charge and we all had some, it was just great.
09/11
Back to the center of town in the morning for the Duoro River Valley tour. Our guide was Rita, a local from Porto, strawberry blonde, oldest of 11; 30 years old. Although she was short she had competed in track and field She had 2 gold rings on each hand and a nose ring. She was cheerful. She had lived in UK near the border of Scotland for 7 years, she had studied management in University but was unable to finish. She was a bright can do kind of gal with a background of unfinished pursuits. She had four dogs and a partner who I suspected might be substandard.
On our tour was a newlywed couple, Ellen was 30 and from Hawaii and Chelen(?) was younger and from the UK. They met while working for an arm of Disney. They were doing some travel before starting a family and on this trip they were out visiting Chelen’s family in the UK. We also had a mother and son set. Nick and Sue. Sue had worked as a travel agent and Nick was thirtyish with two young children, they were from Colorado.
The first winery was owned by a lawyer, Paula, married to a policeman. Their jobs kept them in different cities in Portugal which made the whole family thing tough. Paula quit law and went back to school to learn about wine making and it was ten years before they made a profit. This winery’s main business was selling grapes even though they sold wine, award winning, as well. The young man giving the talk had worked as an IT salesman and Paula had told him that if he learned English he could work for her for life. Since he lived down the road this seemed like a good deal. He was darling and one hell of a salesman. I bought three bottles of wine and Jules did as well. Here we all learned how much Jan really knows about wine. She knows like a shitload and was asking all sorts of questions regarding aging in wood barrels vs steel barrels and grape types. It was fascinating to see this side of Jan but also a little scary. I kept an eagle eye on her. We all smelled the wine but the three of us didn’t do any tasting.
The second winery was an organic winery and it covered only seven acres. Our guide here was Carlos, a thin, worried looking man. He and his partner had purchased the winery off of a British couple. The British woman, Jane, got sick and died and her husband went back to Britain but prior to her death they made it a stipulation of the sale of the winery that it had to remain organic. It was over lunch that we learned more about the newlyweds, Ellen wanted perhaps only one child and Chelen(?) wanted a pack of kids. We also learned that Nick was a dick. He was adamant that he knew how difficult childbirth was because when his wife had their children he was there and he heard the screams. “No, I know how hard it is because I was there. I heard the screams.” Lunch was ok, we had those gawdawful fried creamed cod popover things, and some soup (soup was good) and some cheese and bread and of course for those who were drinking, wine. Sue was talking about how we would not need a car in the Algarve (we didn’t take her advice) and how Sintra was too busy to make it worth our while (we didn’t take her advice on this one either) The day was capped by a brief float down the River and I can’t remember the name of the kid who was helping Rita on this portion of the tour but it was his first go, he was not even twenty and he was adorable. By this point in the tour the newlyweds had gotten a little tipsy and gushy and I had to keep Jan from tossing Nick over the side of the boat.
Bread and cheese and fruit for dinner.
Note to selves, we had bread and cheese and fruit almost everyday with our morning coffee. Jan brought a large thing of Peet’s and we alternated between drip coffee and espresso’s that we made in our lodgings.
Also, Jules had told Jan that Tad had said she was rad and Joe had said she was tan (probably mistaking her Jayne S.) so we called her Rad Tan Jan throughout the trip
My mistakes were greeted with a “No Mart-ha” which was little Aiden’s constant refrain for me.
09/12
We took an Uber to the train station. The driver was from Brazil where his son is a lawyer, his daughter works in finance in Amsterdam and he had come to Portugal after spending some time with her. His wife lives in Brazil because she wants to be close to her sister so he travels home and visits. Very confusing to me. Anyhow he helps us unload the luggage and his shorts are ripped up the back. I was startled, there was his ass, not an underwear wearing guy. Jan and Jules missed it and we trundled off to inside the train station. Well, what a zoo, the next train that is available is at noon. It is 10:30 we decide to wander up the hill with our luggage, on cobblestone streets and look at a beautiful church and cemetery that was well maintained and in use today. A rich parish by the look of the Land Rover and Jaguar in the parking lot.
We mosied down the hill and went into what looked like a diner, coffee, pastry shop. Jan had 2 orders of egg on toast and Julie and I each had a toasted cheese sandwich. While in the off shop a little girl came in with her mother. An old man made cooing oh aren’t you a pretty little girl type of noises towards her and she, all of 3 or 4 maybe was having none of it. She made the right arm bent at elbow gesture with the left hand clasping the right bicep. She’s going places, that one.
Cobblestone streets, beautiful tiles on the buildings, intricate wrought iron balconies, each one distinctive from the next. Porto is beautiful. But we got on the train and left for Lisbon.
When we got on the train, Carriage 25, we had a hard time figuring out how to open the door, but an old man with bizarrely large hands, workers hands, opened it with ease and chuckled. We laughed as did the youngish, 34 or so, African who was standing with us. A group of young able bodied people couldn’t figure out the door but the really old feeble one had to let us in .The train was cleaner than Amtrak. The population of Portugal is very diversified, there were Muslims, Germans, French, rich kids, poor kids, young and old people.
Sitting behind us was a retired couple. I think that they were a little younger than us. They had lived in South San Francisco and retired next to a golf course in Nevada, no income tax. Was it Sparks Nevada? He of the pair offered to help us get our luggage down.
It was HOT and after 4 in Lisbon. Jules and I had Magnum ice cream sandwiches. We took an Uber to our accommodations. Well, it was like being in a terrarium. We were on the ground floor with windows surrounding the main room. Both bedrooms had sliding glass doors and there’s only one bathroom. That fucking shower, I hated it. The living room and bedrooms had these funky beige shag area rugs that just didn’t feel clean. Outside of the sliding glass doors of the bedrooms there was a 3/4 high wall thing with scaffolding covered in ivy but you could still see through the leaves. Outside the living room sliding glass door there is a 1/2 wall planter thing that had wandering jews and some sort of plant with red leaves. Our room faced the courtyard and the external wall on the building to our right was covered in bougainvillea.
But if we lay in our beds with the curtains open we could see people walking by through the porous wall screen. I think those outside privacy walls had fake vines on them now that I think about it. Otherwise, with the weather here the walls would have been opaque. Also, the fuckin’ bathroom. Gorgeous marble floor with two sinks. One wall was unfinished. The shower, I never figured it out. It had a huge shower head as well as a hand held shower head if you wanted to use that. It had two controls, the two controls controlled not only which shower head but the heat of the water. I damn near got 3rd degree burns or had to take a cold shower and I never quite knew from which shower head the water would be coming from. So the room was oddly sterile and verdant at the same time.
The concierge made reservations for us at a restaurant and when we walked over it was vacant so we wandered down an alley and had a great meal – grilled sardines, not a do again, spaghetti for Jules, Dorado for Jan and BBQ chicken with fries for me, delicious. By the time we got back to the room, we were pooped and we all slept late the next morning.
09/13
We slept in and decided to go to Cascais – a beach town. The town had the “meeting of the rivers” tile theme the Rio Negro and Amazon meeting, throughout the street. We had lunch at a grill that Jan’s friend Wendy suggested. I had shrimp and fresh toasted french bread, Jan and Jules had a salad. We all had bad service. When I asked the waiter for details on the menu, he told me to use the QR code. His accent was British. I couldn’t tell if it was African, New Zealand or English and I can’t remember if he told us. He was black with blue eyes. After lunch we went to Santina’s for gelato, so efficient. Pay first, choose your flavors, get served then get out. It was great gelato. We took an Uber to Sintra and walked up the very steep hill to the 1st castle. We were heckled by numerous male tuktuk drivers because they didn’t think that we would be able to walk the steep climb. Jan was bummed out because we were being tagged as old women. I’m used to being annoyed by men. We did not go to the main palace that had like acres of beautiful gardens but we did walk around on the “inside” of a walled, walls falling down, Moorish castle. The people at the information desk at the top of the hike were charming and helped us choose our path. We were close to closing time and they suggested that we take a shortcut to walk back to town. The path down was not to be taken until we saw the walled, not walled monastery castle and Jan had a discussion with the ticket taker about “inside or outside” of the wall. We took a tuktuk back down the hill and we got a female driver for this one. We ended up Ubering, back to Sintra. We tried to get into the restaurant that Jan’s son, Ben, recommended, Et Tu. It was up a hill and then another hill and then down an alley and then up a hill, the line was too long. We ended up going to a local family restaurant one or two hills away. I have to make a note here that our Uber driver had the patience of a saint. He reminded Jules and I of our friend Justin. He said he was patient because he lived with two women, his wife and his two year old daughter. Jan had Dorado and Shrimp which was great, I dove right into what she was eating and I can’t remember what I or Julie had but we did share a salad.
We saw a vendor that was selling artwork that he said was made with coffee and wine. He gave us all free bookmarks that he made right there on the spot with a fat red felt pen that he used a blower to dry the ink with. He was from Mongolia and Jules got a Cat and exclamation point series.
09/14
Went to Jorge’s castle. Lots of women in white skirts and dresses. It was a Sunday and church day and there was square dancing, oh, they didn’t call it that but that’s what it was. As we were walking through the outside and Jules was making a dash for the very tippy, tippy top, she spied an ice cream vendor. As Jan and I were sauntering around a lower level a little girl looked through a space in the stone wall and squeeled “ice cream!” It was that day’s theme. Jan got stuck in a forty minute line in a basement to use the bathroom. And as we were leaving Jorge’s place, we saw a sign, a new interpretation of Jesus. He was fit and they had a life sized poster of him on the side of one of the rooms of the chapel. Now THIS was Bom Jesus. Big brown eyes, vulnerable but strong. The refrain from Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus haunted me for the rest of this trip…
Reach out, touch faith
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there
…
I will deliver
You know I’m a forgiver
“You know I’m a forgiver” is a line that always makes me chuckle.
We somehow fit the Copenhagen coffee shop into the shoe and monastery day; we had iced slushees and pastries and sat in the shade out back. It was a great respite from… it all.
We also made it to another monastery in our efforts to find the one that Jen had gone to. This monastery made me cringe. Lots of artifacts, many of them reminiscent of the Nazi symbols, also, there was a picture of a bevy of bishops, men, men, men, men, and they so looked like the clan to me. There was a round enclave? The enclave had great acoustics, I was tempted to sing Ave Maria in there, but I settled on a low hum. Jules followed the sound and saw me standing there and said, “oh, it’s you” and so it was. This monastery was very disturbing to me, in my mind I kept circling back to Jules’ point of story telling and how much the story of Jesus/God as I was taught as a little kid still resides somewhere in my bones. It kindof creeps me out.
We were guided to a shoe store, Gardinia, by one of the clerks at a souvenir shop. The people in Portugal work so hard. We had just gotten the run down from another clerk about how she works in several of the souvenir shops and sometimes, one time in particular, freaked out a man who saw her at three different souvenir shops and he thought he was going a bit crazy, when her replacement came in, a woman in late forties or so, stout and sturdy, she pulled out her phone and told us where to go, and we went.
It was epic, I bought three pairs of shoes and then we went for gelato. The evening was capped off by dinner at a great chicken place. Jan found her future husband, he was wearing a green shirt. There was a married guy from UK sitting alone further down the table from us and there was another guy, alone with a pitcher of red wine. Jan was a bit jealous of the guy with the wine. Frankly so was I. The married guy was jealous of the three of us having fun while he was eating alone. The whole vibe of the place was neighborhood. The chicken was prepared spatchcock, and we just really enjoyed ourselves, watching the locals come in and chat with each other and the waiters, watching the to go orders being picked up by drivers, watching food being delivered to our table. They served bread with butter and what was determined to be a tuna paste thing. We tasted the tuna paste but didn’t like it. Jan spied an old woman devouring some fluffy dessert thing so we ordered it. It was fluffy meringue with syrup and we loved it. The only sad part of this day was that I had gas so badly that Jan got up in the middle of the night and slept on the couch.
09/15
We went to Connection Yoga, it was supposed to be power yoga but it wasn’t really. The instructor, Anastasia, was the teacher, blonde, perfect body, young, under 30, born in Mongolia, raised in Berlin and now in Lisbon for 1 1/2 years. It was a 45 minute hike to yoga and we saw some kids, we thought they were 15? 16? open container, hanging out, thinking they were cool. We also saw some Romanies, or Gypsies and some guy was yelling at them to keep them away from us, or that’s what we thought was happening. The Yoga place had a little cafe with the lovely Matilde as a barista. She so wants to be a runner but she hates running and she’d so love to be in shape but she hates working out. We loved her. The instructor did not teach a power yoga class, she modified the class when she saw us, to be easier, and she did have us “breathing through our vaginas,” mulaBunda you can do it!
On our way back from yoga we went to an underwear store, the proprietress, clerk, was Chinese and was watching a soap opera and eating sunflower seeds. She didn’t even acknowledge us until the show was over. We got a bralette thing for Julie to wear with a dress she bought at the bizarre (the one where we ate hummus at the lower level) And Jan was looking for a bra undie set. They had one she liked but not in her size in blue. We also saw a memorial outside of either a hospital or I think it was the medical school. This memorial had a statue and then all around it were tombstones with thank you notes carved to all of the different doctors who had taught at the university. It was really quite beautiful. We got back to our hotel and changed and got an uber to a St. Francis statue to meet Francisco our food tour guide for a food walking tour. There was a retired married couple from Ontario Canada, a late 20s early thirties software engineer for Shopify from the NY suburbs, we all found her a little scary and uptight, an occupational therapist phasing out of living in Alaska to Yuba City CA (46 years old and traveled the world, she was an African American born in Chicago) and some creepy middle aged guy from Boca Raton. Francisco, 28, was darling and it was confusing to him why we didn’t drink or eat octopus. He asked if we saw that Netflix show or what and he couldn’t understand why we didn’t drink, his 96 year old grandmother drinks a lot and takes salsa lessons and they think the drink may be preserving her. Also, also, his grandmother liked to drink one of the wines that we were given to sample and listen to Faro music, sad ballads, Jan did her impression of listening to sad music and we all laughed. We tasted the cheese that was one the world’s best cheese of 2024, I thought it was awful, canned sardines, I liked those, and something with egg, dried cod and was it potato? I was ok with that one. We visited different restaurants and Francisco told us about smaller families, aging population in Portugal. Rising cost of living, etc. And when someone balked at tasting something he reminded them that “you paid for this, at least try it.”
09/16
Got Audi from Lisbon airport and drove to white shell beach. This is a lovely resort. I was shot. Jules and Jan went to grocery store, Jan had her own room now and we had showers that worked.
The drive/ride to White Shells resort was pretty easy.
We had a light lunch at the resort which had a beautiful round pool. I had screwed up and the last couple of days I had to alternate my psych meds to make them last. That might have contributed to me running out of steam.
09/17
Jules made breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese and tomatoes and bread before we hiked the Seven Hanging Arches trail. I kept wanting to call it the seven veils of Salome, but there you go.
The hike was beautiful and it was hotter and took us a little longer than we would have liked. The coastline is very similar to the Marin coast.
We only did half of the hike, we called an uber and Carlos, the uber driver with a white Tesla showed up. His family escaped from Angola. I felt we were being driven by royalty.
I noticed that the nutritional rating on our gelato was a D.
The resort was beautiful and lots of well heeled european parents with their babies played in the pool.
09/18
We spent three hours on a speedboat. The three of us kind of had to hold on and Post, we looked for dolphins but did not see a one. Jules and Jan saw a flying fish and we all saw the dorsal fin of a hammerhead shark. The driver, Diego (pronounced Dee oh go) and his assistant Anna were beautiful young people and there was some young movie star looking guy who helped us onto the boat.
There was a prison in Faro, right there on the ocean.
We ate inside the courtyard of the old castle in Faro. We had quinoa salad with mango, these goat cheese puffs with tomato jam, coffee with milk for , Chicken PiriPiri for , Dorado fish and spinach tortellini. We were back at the resort by 5:30 and the next day we were off.
Extra note, gas was 73 Euros for 39.59 Liters to fill up the car on the way back to the airport that shakes out to about $8.2/gallon. No wonder electric cars have caught on like fire.
