View from our hostel.
We have had a wonderful three days in Porto ( where Port wine is produced) and three days in Lisbon. These are both beautiful cities with grand historic buildings and monuments and picturesque rivers. We were happily surprised to find that most people in the service industries spoke very fluent English. All we needed was Obrigado for thank you and did not realize till today that we did not have that right. Apparently you say Obrigada to a woman and Obrigado to a man. In any case people seemed genuinely helpful towards us throughout our visit.
We continue to travel lean with our packs; staying in hostels ( extremely nice hostel in Lisbon) and pensions and riding the metro. It is nice to unpack for three days after 38 days of constant walking on the Camino but we just start to feel at home and we leave again.
As I write this we have happily landed in another very nice new hostel in Athens. We are staying here two nights and have our ferry tickets purchased for Santorini Island on Oct 11th. It is very easy here as well for us , as many people speak English.
You may have seen the news that Merkel was in Athens, Greece. We were amazed when walking around today to see so many policemen in flack outfits on every corner . During our very late lunch we could see the news of the protesters on tv while hearing the shouts and gas canisters going off a few blocks away. Later when we were walking around we could taste the gas fumes of pepper in the air.
Tonight we had a bit of the old Camino experience sitting on the roof terrace talking to visitors from Switzerland and Holland with the fully lite Acropolis on the hill.
Here are some pics of Portugal.
Sincerely
Arlene
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| Wine cellar at Porto |
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| Murals at the train station |
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| Lori climbing the walls of a Moorish castle in Sintra, near Lisbon. |
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| Thanksgiving treat in historic Belem, outside Lisbon. Famous pastry with secret recipe. |
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