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Portugal is Beautiful

 Whilst I am not an Instagrammer or whatever those in that part of the Gen Z demo are called I do like to capture thoughts in this medium of a blog .. mostly to impress on me what I did when I was a wee lad in my fifties.. assuming I make it few more decades and have the desire to look back in time..

This new year eve we left America to visit the southern tip of continental Europe in the form of a country visit to Portugal.

At the end of what is called the Iberian peninsula sits this nation of 10 million inhabitants straddling the Atlantic Ocean on its west and south shores. Shaped like and in many ways similar to our former home in California this is a fourth in geographic size and population to the largest state in America. It too is longish and sits along an ocean.

It too has a wine region except it is known for producing some fine sweet kind called Port.  Grapes are harvested in the Douro River valley in the area called Porto.  Used to ferment and then process halted with a grape brandy that adds alcohol and also raises the sugar content in the beverage so produced.  Some fine drinking that.  Got ourselves a bottle when we went there.  So for context the 3 big(ish) cities we hit up were Lisbon, also called Lisboa in lingua franca there and capital city in the central part of the country, followed by trip north to Porto (wine region); followed by a trip to the south coast in a sleepy hamlet called Armacao de Pera.

Latter was the sight of some spectacular limestone cliffs and caves right on the ocean.  Some pictures follow..


Happy new year 2023! Lisbon waterfront along Tegas river



remnants of Xmas celebrations




there is an underground movement too with lovely metro services running to various parts of the city



Main Train and bus station - Oriente





Plaza Commercia (large town square)


Great explorer of the 15th century who found India on a voyage lies here





fresh prawns from the sea

Porto in pictures - lovely vistas along the Douro river


Luiz bridge




Armacao de Pera in pictures..



Benegil caves approach by boat only



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