bom jesus

A night in a convent

After standing on the very edge of the continent for a quick photo-op, we hit the highway to get up to our first Pousada, this one in Amares. Garmina, as we dubbed our GPS, guided us through serpentine roads through tiny towns, as is her tendency. As a result we arrived after 8 at Santa Maria do Bouro in the tiny town of Amares. The Pousada is in an old convent and is, we discovered, easily mistaken for an active church. After a tour of the back garden and driving up the narrowest unlit rill-lined driveway I've ever navigated, we ventured into the church for directions and found ourselves inside what would be our favorite of all the Pousadas.




The rooms are the old nuns' cells, recently and beautifully updated to hotel standards. The arcade around the central courtyard has been glassed-in to form the hallways, so that the interior rooms are cozy and warm while affording a nice view.


We dined in having noticed that the town of Amares, like most we visited outside of Lisbon and Oporto, rolled up its sidewalks at dusk. The restaurant occupies what was the refectory and kitchen of the old convent. We were one of three tables being served that night, which we would soon learn made this a crowded restaurant. Our waitress, a young twenty-something from Madeira, seemed to enjoy our willingness to try anything that was "authentically Portugese" and encouraged us to drink the local red (not great) from the traditional cups--i.e. something close to a cereal bowl--keeping one finger hooked over the rim of the cup.




Everywhere we went, there were beautiful little details in every-day objects. This is the pocket of a pool table.

Cabo da Roca

After a liesurely lunch in Sintra we continued west to, literally, the very edge of the continent. Cabo da Roca is the western-most point in Europe. It's also VERY windy. Reminded me of the Oregon coast, but maybe I'd say that about any western coastline.

and now back to Portugal

Now that I have an abuncance of free time on my hands, thought I'd get back to posting more pics from Portugal.

When we left Lisbon, we headed almost due west to the town of Sintra, a little jewel of a town with a funky castle tucked into the hills about half an hour from the Atlantic coast.

This being our first real trip together, Nathan and I were happy to validate that we're both museum people. We stopped for a hot lunch, and poked around the town a bit. I suspected Nathan was more tired than he let on, this being day one after the marathon.




It was in Sintra that we discovered that people can and do make just about anything out of cork.

baking with hannah

Just had to share some photos of Hannah's beautiful Christmas cookies. We spent a girl day on the day after Christmas lounging around the house in our pj's until well after noon watching chick flicks and baking cookies. Hannah turns out to be the queen cookie decorator. The boys all like their cookies well enough, but girlfriend took about an hour and a half to decorate 2 trays of cookies! As you can see, they really were works of art.


She made a point of decorating every cookie with someone in mind...pink and red for me, pink and blue for Hannah, yellow and blue for Eddie, pink and green for Mommy. Dan was troubling because he doesn't have a favorite color.

The mountain-of-pink one was clearly the best, because she was so delighted--PINK! SPARKLY!--that she couldn't even speak, she just waved her hands and ghasped.

Museu do azulejo

Proving that they are good sports and not just sporty, Nathan and Travis gamely trekked out to the Museu do Azulejo, aka The Tile Museum after the marathon. For a ceramics geek like me, this place was a feast for the eyes.

Elevadors and streetcars

Lisbon is a hilly city so there's a great network of streetcars, and these funky elevadors to assist weary pedestrians.
This elevador was made by a guy who, quite obviously, was an associate of Gustave Eiffel. There were also metro stops (didn't get a picture) that looked exactly like the ones Guimard designed in Paris.
Old train station.
Could have lived on pastries alone for the week. I still haven't stopped fantasizing about the egg custard ones, though Nathan assured me that there were hundreds of other great pastries to try.