Porto and back

After two days in Porto - Portugals second largest city - visiting national monuments and sites like the magnificent Ponte de Dom Loui and having a great time meeting up with my friend Ana, I feel sure about my conclusion that I do like this country.


Haven't done much the two last days, being back in Lisboa, just been around. Last night, watching the sun set behind Lisboa from a small café on the south side of the river Tejo and today watching people cross Praca de Comercio, a big town square here in Lisboa, in great hurry to catch the tram or the next sightseeng bus tour.



Tomorrow it's time to pack it up and go back home.



Ciao!

On a good day

Late afternoon I´m once again sitting on the terrace belonging to Santa Crus, the café overlooking Praça 8 de Maio. The air is warm and people from different parts of the world is sitting around me under the canvas roof, providing shade from the strong sun, talking and having coffe or a beer. On the plaza below us, a group of musican are setting up and start to play, bagpipes and drums and peolpe gather around them, an old man clapping his hands and dances along to the music. A flock of pigeons take of and fly across the stone plaze, settling in above the entrance to the curch. I take a sip of my icecold fresh orange juice and I go back to reading my book, and I find myself thinking - "This is exactly how I wanted to spend my vaccation".

Coimbra

On my 4 last trips it have been raining alot, so yesterday when I arrived to a sunny and warm Lisboa I was really happy about finaly getting some sun. When I wake up monday morning an see that the sky is full of dark, rainfull clouds and a cold wind was blowing thru the city, my optimism pretty much goes down the drains. But I thought it´s still early morning so I check out from the hotell and heads toward the Oriente trainstation to catch a train to Coimbra.

By the time I got there, it took about 2 hours, the sun was back and warming up my windchilled body. I don´t really have a plan for Coimbra, what to see and so, but one thing I did want to visit is the university. It was first funded in 11th century and was moving back and forth between Lisboa and Coimbra until the king said enough and it staid in Coimbra. It´s a big place, but only building for the faculty of law is old, from the 15th century, the rest, the faculty for medicin, sciense, letter and fysiks is new, built in the 1940~. I visit the old libray with lots of really old books, and the - for some reason - famous clock tower. It´s just a clock tower. A well...



I leave the university area and head back downtown, a part of the city with maze like streets, no more then 2m wide, it feels like walking inside with the walls that close together. In a few places it pops up small plazas with a café serving coffe or sandwishes and with a small fontain in the middle. I find a nice café overlooking the "Praça 8 de maio", and get my book out, very nice place to just sit.

I´m staying at a friends house and after dinner it´s time to go out and see the nightlife. Unfortunally, this is offseason for students so many of the clubs and bars are closed, but some are open and we visit some to get a feel of it. Portugees people are known to party alot, they often keep the clubs open till 4 or at someplaces, 10. Giovana, who is my guide, takes me to some really cool places and we listen to some nice music. I wanted to experience some Coimbra fado, but the "Casa de fado" is closed, if just this night or for all of august, she didn´t know. I have to try again tomorrow. Yes, my friends talked me into staying another night here before continue on my journey.


I´ll get back to you...

Back in Portugal

There is just something about Lisboa Portugal that makes me like it so much. And to see if it's the country or the city that makes me skip my plans to see the rest of europe, I pack my bag and head down there once again, second time this year. This time to visit, not only Lisboa, but also Coimbra, in middle- and Porto in the north of Portugal.

It's the second night here and I'm back in my small room at Residente Leune. I've spent the day walking around Alfama - the old part of the city - and riding the tram rout nr 28 that takes you around lots of different places. The ride in these trams are often crowded and it goes thru old narrow streets and up and down steep hills. I stop by a large park where old men are sitting talking on small benches or famillys with small children feeds the pidgeons. A group of people do yoga among the green trees. A lovely tranquil place.

Right now they are showing one of Portugals national sports on tv - bullfight. Strange sport, first they let the bull chase a girl on a horce while she tries to poke it with a stick. And when they get tired of it a guy in a green elf hat stand in front of bull and as the, by now, pretty angry bull attacks, he tries grab it's head and to hold on while seven other guys jump on and tries to stop the whole thing before they all are smashed against the wall, whitch they do ofcourse. Very strange. But then I've seen strange sports home aswell... 22 grown men running around chasing a ball??

Better turn this of, have an early start tomorrow.