Portugal

5/2/2023 - Sea Day
Heading from the east coast of Spain to the west coast of Portugal, we spent the day cruising through the Strait of Gibraltar, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. The weather was a little hazy with low clouds and so we didn’t see "the rock", but we could see Spain to the north and Morocco to the south - 8 miles at its narrowest point. Being back in the Atlantic Ocean made us feel like we were almost home.

5/3/2023 - Lisbon
What a delight to return to Portugal! We had hoped our friends, Tiago (James) & Rute (Ruth), whom we met on our Camino Portuguese walk in 2021, would be able to drive up from the Algarve to join us, but he was injured recently in a bodyboarding accident and was unable to travel. We had even made prior arrangements for them to come onto the ship, so were kind of bummed. Our 2021 trip included almost a week in Lisbon (Sintra) and on that trip we engaged a Rick Steves tour guide for a day-long private tour around Lisbon. This time we engaged the same guide, Rafael Pereira, again, for a half-day tour of Belém. Our tour started at the Padrão dos Descobrimentos/Monument to the Discoveries, where we spent an hour learning about each of the figures on the monument, from Henry the Navigator to Vasco de Gama, to Ferdinand Magellan, and on and on. In addition to the monument, we also studied the marble world map on the pavement, which follows Portugal’s voyages of discovery around the world. Because we have been almost around the world and several of our ports of call were “discovered” by the Portuguese, we felt like we had really come full circle. One those “everything is connected” moments. Next up was the Torre de Belém/Belém Tower, built in the early 1500s to be one of three protection points of Lisbon’s

harbor, at which time it was way out in the water. Its architecture is Manueline, a unique Portuguese style that combines Gothic with Moorish design. We stopped briefly to view the Monumento Combatentes Ultramar/Monument to the Overseas Combatants, which always has two military guards on duty. As we made our way up to the Mosteiro dos Jeronimós/Monastery of Jeronimós, we saw all the tour buses and hordes of people. We were a little bummed that we didn’t get to go inside, but we don’t do lines – and we specifically wanted to see Vasco de Gama’s final resting place, since we had visited his original resting place in Kochi/Cochin, India. Instead, we headed down the street to Casa Pastéis de Belém, the birthplace of the world’s best custard tart. They call it “pastel de Belém” while any other bakery in Portugal must call them something else, which is “pastel de nata”. No matter what you call them, they are out of this world. We ate our tarts while we sat in a local park and continued our discussion about Portugal – and life – before saying our good-byes to Rafael. Then we found the #15 tram and rode back to Lisbon, where we walked along the waterfront; stopped for some tapas & local beer; and a little bit of shopping, including a six-pack of pastel de nata – just to tide us over on the long voyage ahead. On our beautiful cruise down the Tigus River as we headed out to sea against a super strong incoming tide, we had a full view of Lisbon and Belém from our verandah – a magical way to end this day.