VIDEOS

Videos from our various wanderings.

The Flavors of Portugal - Summer 2019




Guimarães 



Barcelos & Viana do Castelo



Alfama 



Sesimbra


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Celtic ruins? What Celtic ruins?

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Viana do Castelo is a nice little town in northern Portugal near the Spanish border. It has what I'm told is a very nice beach, but we did not have time to take the ferry to it on the day we visited. The downtown is also nice, with tons of the types of tourist shops and restaurants that you would see at any beach town. It also has a medieval fort at the river's edge. But the real attraction is the  Santuario de Santa Luzia that sits at the top of a steep hill (accessible by a funicular.) Santa Luzia is a brand new chapel, by Portuguese standards - it was started in 1904 and completed in 1959. It sits on the site of what had been a medieval hermitage dedicated to St. Luzia - the patron saint of sight. A local cavalry captain, Luís de Andrade e Sousa, came to the hermitage to pray for help with his eyesight. When his sight improved, he instituted a fraternity to take care of the hermitage in 1884 in gratitude. The chapel (and later, a complete temple) was erected to serve...
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Everything is Uphill

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Three of Portugal's four major largest are situated on major rivers. Lisbon sits near the mouth of the Tagus River, Porto at the mouth of the Douro, and Coimbra on the Mondego. Only Braga is more or less landlocked, lying between the Cávado and Este rivers. The landscape of Portugal's river cities rises rather steeply from the shoreline, with one or more major hills defining both the low town (baixa) and high town (alta). For the traveler, this means wonderful vistas and a LOT of uphill travel. There are, of course, elevators/funiculars to get to the top of most hills, but the views are much better from between the buildings and among the staircases.   In Coimbra there is one major hill that leads up to the area where the University is located. The hill is very steep, although the view over the river is beautiful. There is also a "shortcut" - a very old, very steep set of stairs up the hillside to the top of Coimbra Alta with no handrails, just stairs carved int...
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Procuro um apartamento em Sesimbra

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Quando nós fomos no Sesimbra, nós visitamos uma corretora de imóveis. Nós procuramos um apartamento barato. Nós queríamos um apartamento com três quartos, uma cozinha pequena com os moveis, um elevador, e um terraço mas não uma varanda. Sesimbra tem uma boa praia, nós queríamos de ver a praia de nosso terraço. Quando nós retornamos de Estados Unidos, nós  conversamos regularmente com essa corretora de imóveis. Nós temos esperança de um apartamento perfeito. When we went to Sesimbra, we visited a real estate agent. We're looking for a cheap apartment. We wanted a three bedroom apartment, a small kitchen with furniture, an elevator, and a terrace  - but not a veranda. Sesimbra has a beautiful beach, and we wanted to see the beach from our terrace. When we returned from the United States, we talked regularly with this real estate agent. We have hope to find the perfect apartment!
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