Albuquerque to Dallas - long layover - 9-13-11
Dallas to Madrid long flight, limited sleep, way too many hours sitting on my butt. 9-13 to 9-14
Madrid to Oporto Portugal the Portuguese capital of the North. Caught, with the help of lots of very friendly helpful and friendly people, the Metro from the airport to downtown Oporto then walked the few blocks from my metro stop to the main bus station. Got a ticket to Viseu then waited a bit and caught another bus to Tondela. Then, got a cab to the Arterra Residence Iºm staying at. Borrowed a computer and am learning a new keyboard.
Wednesday 9-15-11
Wednesday I was still recuperating from travel and jet lag. In the evening I joined Karl, Micaela & João, and much of Micaela´s family at an event in Tondela. It was called FICTON. It had to do with demonstrating and supporting local industry and representing all of the the types in a tradeshow type of exhibition. Over the weekend, João will be the sound engineer for the presentation. Opening night was great with music, food, a performance and lights. Quite well done. Meal was some cooked pork with onions to accompany Rice and Beans. We also tried a ´vinho verde´ type of wine as well as a locally blended Sangria.
Thursday 9-16-11
Look this up on Google Images: Lamego Portugal. It is where I am tonight. Still a fairly large city but moderate in size and the evening here is pleasant. I did a wine tasting which included a Douro regional red wine (vinho tinto) as well as a white port and a red tawny port. All were good. Meat features are various varieties of smoked pork. I started in Lobão de Beira then on to Tondela then on to Viseu then on to Porto. There I took a quick mini'train tour before jumping on the train to Regua. It was difficult to get around so jumped on a bus and made my way on to Lamego, Portugal. Here, lots of centuries dedicated to building things that reflect their dedication to Catholicism. The oddest thing happened. I walked into the Cathedral, mass was going on and I heard the priest say (in Portuguese) La misa ha termindao, va en pas. Close call, I´d say.
The train ride along the Douro river starts out with view of back yards in the hills as the train leaves Porto. It evolves to larger farm settings among the hills and eventually you are along side the river with terraced grape vineyards everywhere. An odd thing here is that the damn birds don´t eat the damn grapes. They ate me out in a couple of days and here a million acres of grapes and not a bird to be seen for days. It is grape harvest season and you see lots of people with their baskets, tractors and trailers and loads of grapes being hauled to the pressing plants along the river.
Tomorrow, on to Viseu or Tondela, or maybe Guarda or maybe... maybe not.
Friday may be a good day spent with Maria or someone else visiting the Ceramic Factory in Tondela or maybe the molino I´m hoping to see Dani and his family on Saturday for a ´Ropes´course near Coimbra. Haber...
Supper tonight was some goat cheese, three types of cured pork, a rustic bread along with a corn bread, fresh olives from last harvest (green and black) in olive oil and ended it with a café con leche. Still hot and humid.
http://www.google.pt/search?um=1&hl=pt-PT&biw=1024&bih=600&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=lamego+portugal&oq=lamego+p&aq=0&aqi=g2&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=20532l26500l0l29266l10l9l1l1l2l0l297l1407l0.2.4l6l0
Tonight I´m typing away at a cyber cafe above a cafe. The same place that has a ´Residencia´ which I´m paying €21 for one night.
September 18, 2011 In Coimbra and like the feel of the place. A University town, staying at another ´residential´. Going to meet some couchsurfing friends at the botanical garden.
September 20, 2011
Spending the day in Santa Comba Dão waiting for a train to Salamanca. I´ve walked around the city and it too has a character of it´s own. In general, I think Portugal is not built for tourists. Because of that it is a deeper immersion into the local culture, albeit, a bit inconvenient to travel around in. I´ve been hanging around at a café and walking around town while I wait. There seems to be more money here, more maintenance of streets, buildings, landscape, and gardens. The homes and buildings use a more refined quarried granite though less quantity than in other areas. Much more white walls with stone trim but still the red tile roofs and narrow streets with cobbled streets.
Drinking an expresso at the Café, I was able to experience the building of a section of a cobbled street. Instead of using poured cement for borders, pre-formed and dry cement beams were used. Inside, was then poured some dry course sand as a base. That was followed by taking stones, approximately 2"X2"X2" and using a mallet and setting them level into the surface at the level of the top of the beam, much like building a puzzle with no instructions. Next came the pounding of them with a large verticle wood block-mallet to set the initial level. Then they mixed up dry sand and cement and spread it over the cobbles sweeping it in. After that, another gentle tamping and a sweeping up of the excess sand-cement. Finally, using a garden sprinkler pail, the top was lightly sprinkled with water and the blocks were set level again with a gentle tamping. Next, just fine tuning, adjusting a piece here or there. This process eliminates the need for form boards, cement mixer, cement finishing and all that detail. It also reflects a handcrafted walking surface designed to last quite a long time and one that can be fairly easily maintained as needed.
Much of what is built here appears to built with a timeline of hundreds of years rather than 3-5 or 10 years. It is clearly an art form with some possible applications for an Earthship.
Separately on the street, a massive fig tree with a lot of shade has hundreds of figs fallen on the road and hundreds more in the tree not quite ripe yet. It is a philosophical observation that... that which is not worked for is not fully appreciated. The tree has probably been here for 200 years and planted by someone who harvested fruit for 20-30 years in their lifetime. After that, just a tree, dropping fruit on the ground.
I think Santa Comba Dão is quite a beautiful town and worthy a visit if you are in this neck of the woods.
Well, 5-more hours of waiting...
September 20/21
Well, this was a long train wait then a long train ride, about 11 hours on the train from Santa Comba Dão to San Sebastian. Bypassed many train stops and dashed past Salamanca and Burgos in the dark of night but feel great about being here.
September 22, 2011
I spent one night in San Sebastian and have now made it to Bilbao. I need to find a place to stay then I´ll get out and do some sightseeing. Public transportation here is subways, buses, trams. It is misty-cloudy today, about 20*C. Bus ride from San Sebastian took me through some beautiful mountains, all green with trees and grass. Already I´ve seen the bay of Biscay in San Sebastian and want to see it today when I get to the Bilbao Gugenheim. Now I´m headed from the Casco Viejo to find the meeting place tonight... ¨Hika Ateneo¨. The Basque languagwe is quite different than any other language. In English it is called Euskedi.
Not much time now to describe them all but will list them and attend to the detail later and off course to check spelling.
Zarautz
Getaria
Henndaya
Biarritz
Los Picos de Europa
