Skip to main content

Long Day

 I named this blog ........Crazy Trip.  Well, yesterday was one of those days.  We thought we would go inland and see the countryside.  I picked a place called Castelo de Almourol.  See the country and have a destination.  Well, 2 1/2 hours, 50 roundabouts  and very curvy roads we made it.  Castle was closed for lunch, so we decided to have lunch, too.  Tasteless burgers, salad without dressing and fries fried in old oil.  Good, Coke though.  We then paid 5 Euros to ride a boat -- very short distance to the castle which was on an island.  Had to climb many, many steps.  Did I mention it was hot?  Reached the castle and I had to sit inside on steps because I I think I had beginnings of a heat stroke.  Have had it in the past.  Jim continued to the top.  It turns out that it wasn't a castle at all--just a fortress.  There were no rooms or little caverns.  Jim came back down, we waited for the boat in the shade and headed back 2 1/2 hours to Peniche.  As for the countryside that we saw, not impressed.  We will stick to the coast from now on.
Sorry for the rant-- we both were exhausted, especially Jim with all the driving.  It was worse than driving in Italy!!









Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Another Montserrate

Today, we drove an hour through Lisbon to the North to a place called Palace de Monserrate.  We had to investigate just because of the name.  We owned a house in the Caribbean on an island called Monserrat.  We have visited a monestary called Monserrat in Northern Spain and now the Palace de Monserrate in Portugal. The drive into Monserrate: Very narrow road Now those pics were of walk to the castle. These are of the castle: Of course, the library The Palace was first built in the 1700's as the summer resort of the Portuguese court.  An earthquake completely destroyed it and was it rebuilt in 1858 for Sir Frances Cook and his family.

Palacio Nacional de Mafra

The woman who rented the apartment to us in Peniche left us a list of places to visit.  One of them was the National Palace in Mafra about an hour from here.  I did some reading about it and learned it houses a very well known library.   National Palace of Mafra During my reading I learned that tours of the library are by appointment only for certain people.  So, I thought what the hectic, couldn't hurt to try.  I sent an email and had a quick response that Jim and I could come today.  The librarian's name is Clotilde Mendes.  She met us on the first floor and, oh, what a tour----not only the library but the Palace, as well.  The Palace has 1400 rooms and is 4 KM square.  The cornerstone was laid in 1729 and was finished in 1746.  The following are pictures of the library: Geography Section. Clotilde pulled a few books off the shelves and let us look at them--printed in the 1600 and 1700!! They are in amazing shape.  The Librar...

South

Drove South today.  Again we went off road.  We seem to have better luck finding neat things. More coastline, but each spot seems a little different. Ended up in a town called Lourinha where they were having a festival/market.  Walked around for a while  And drove "home"