My Spanish Sabbatical, 2007/8
Daniel W. Koon
March 9, 2008
Hi all--
We hear the winter's been a whopper in Canton! Here it's been unusually warm and dry--people are concerned about the lack of rain. Birds are singing, and flowers and trees have started blooming.
Last week Eli had a long weekend, so we went to Portugal for a few days. One of D's colleagues remarked that Portugal today is like Spain 20 years ago; this may be, but we found people in the street to be very polite and helpful, a nice change from Madrid. [well, except the waiters in the pedestrian/tourist zone who were trying to recruit diners for their restaurants--they were uniquely annoying.]
We arrived in Lisbon in the afternoon, so that was our shopping day in the ped/tourist area. I did find some interesting buttons, but the selection was nothing like in the notions shops in Madrid. The next day we went to the Centro Cultural de Belem [a bus ride from downtown] to visit the Museum of Design, but it no longer exists--a guard said it wasn't popular. Across the street is a monastery, so we visited Vasco da Gama's tomb and walked around the cathedral. Later we went to the tile museum, which is in an old convent and has many murals painted on tiles in addition to Moorish mosaics and exhibits about how tiles are made.
The next day we took a 40-min train ride to Sintra, a well-preserved village with 3 'palaces.' The Palacio Nacional is full of antiques and tile murals, and has 2 very tall conical chimneys over the big stoves in the kitchen [the chimneys are visible in the pic below]. We took the little bus up a steep road that winds through a forested hillside up to the remains of a Moorish castle. Only parts of the walls and towers remain, but the cisterns and hiding places for grain [in case of siege] are part of the tour. The last castle is the colorful Pena, waaay up on the hill. This place is a festival of decoration: mosaics around a lot of the outside walls and arches, some of the outside walls painted red or yellow, a chapel lined with green tiles, and Arabic, Russian, Gothic and Renaissance touches added over centuries of reconstuction..…But we didn't have time to go to the Quinta [plantation/big farm] at Monserrat, which is supposed to have terrific gardens.
We also tried the local sweets: tarta de nata [thick cream] was yummy, and we had some dark & moist marbled choco cake. The 'quejidada' in Sintra is alleged to be a kind of cheesecake, but it's more of an eggy custard tart, also very good.
We have reservations for flights and hotel in Berlin about a week from now [for Semana Santa--holy week], but there's a big strike on at all German airports and maybe in Berlin's pubiic transportation too, so.........well, we'll go somewhere, even if just for a few days,since Eli has the week off.
We hope you're all well--stay in touch!
take care,
Judy, Daniel, Eli
Pena Palace, Sintra
Moorish castle, Sintra
Sintra, aerial view
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