Cuyahoga Valley National Park

North of Akron,Ohio

“Remember this — very little is needed to make a happy life.” Marcus Aurelius

Beautiful ride in this jewel of a park
Murph & Annie
We followed the Cuyahoga River – heading north toward Lake Erie
Turtle “day care”
An easy 20 mile ride to the Scenic train
We handed our bikes up to the attendant
And they hung them on hooks
Time to relax for Annie
and think about lunch 😉
We could see glimpses of the trail that we had just traversed
What a wonderful resource!

All good things…

“I have found out there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” – Mark Twain

I’d like to thank everyone that traveled along with us. A big shout out to those of you who took a few minutes to send a comment. It’s a little difficult to “play to an empty room” and I eagerly awaited your responses, so thanks again! Until next time…

Much Ado About Natas

“Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing in pursuit of something else.” – Lawrence Block

We first discovered pastel de nata while we were in Porto. “Murph, what are these pastries that everyone is walking around eating?” I wondered. We asked our hotel manager, Luis, and he told us all about them. We had to taste them for ourselves and they did not disappoint!
We tasted them in Porto, Coimbra and Sinatra.
But the holy grail is in Lisbon, specifically Belém. This café is the birthplace of the wonderful custard tarts. Since 1837, residents have been coming to this café to get their tarts fresh. Its popularity stems mainly from the fact that their recipe is a closely guarded secret —supposedly only three people know the exact proportions of the ingredients. This café cranks out 20,000 or so a day—you can get them fresh and crunchy, literally hot out of the oven.
The way I understand it, the monks at the nearby monastery used egg whites to starch their robes and as a result there were tons of leftover egg yolks. The nuns had an abundance of sugar from Brazil and along with those yokes, they created pastel de natas! Bless their hearts ❤️
A little bit of heaven in every bite!
It’s a Portuguese thing, y’all…

A little more Lisbon

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl

“When life throws you a rainy day, play in the puddles.” Yeah, it was more like “hang on to your umbrella and hope it doesn’t get away!” But I do have to say this was the ONLY day, out of almost 7 weeks, that weather was even a slight annoyance. It was really incredible.
It was a nice trolley ride back the next day to see the Belém Tower on a sunny day. (Belém is pronounced, beh-LAYNG. Not a typo and why we’ll never master Portuguese) Anyway…this was the sending off point for voyagers in the Age of Discovery and when they returned, the Belém Tower (built in the 1500s) welcomed them home.
In 1960, the city honored the 500th year anniversary of the death of Prince Henry the Navigator by rebuilding this giant riverside monument.
It takes the shape of a huge caravel ship, in full sail, with Henry at the helm and the great navigators, sailors, and explorers on board behind him.
This was a pretty cool marble map on the pavement – illustrating various routes and years of Portuguese explorers.
We received a tip from our friend, George, to check out this cool area in Belém. It’s an abandoned industrial site that has been turned into a creative, cultural and gastronomic area in restored buildings.
Indeed! It had a very cool vibe 😊
We particularly liked this book shop.
But the REAL reason we were there was for the chocolate!
Specifically, the chocolate cake – they make one thing here and one thing only – chocolate cake. It was amazing and worth the trip!
Yup…
When we returned to the central city we spotted these “bats” screaming
at these terrified kids – which we assumed were freshmen and this was some kind of initiation.
Looked horrifying but
all in good fun. I’m thinking these freshman can’t wait until next year to torture the next incoming class.
May be a bit random but I loved seeing these parrots in the trees in the parks.

Lisbon, Portugal

Known as Lisboa (leezh BOH ah) by the residents – which comes from the Phoenician Alis Ubbo, meaning “calm port”.

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag

Vintage trolleys and
funiculars shiver up and down it’s hills.
It’s a proud city of ironwork balconies
and mosaic sidewalks.
So many
different patterns.
This was a favorite of ours – Rossio Square – with fine stone patterns in the pavement—evoking waves encountered by the great explorers. (more on that later)
If you’re prone to seasickness, don’t look down as you cross this square!
Here’s to all the hard work that went into creating those wonderful squares.
It’s a city of red tiled roofs
and bougainvillea.
In 1902, an architect who had studied under Gustav Eiffel (remember him from Paris?) completed this 150 foot tall iron elevator, connecting the lower and upper parts of town.
Look at the beautiful woodwork inside this elevator!
The Casa dos Bicos – “House of the Beaks/Spikes” is a historical house in the civil parish of Santa Maria Maior. The house was built in the early 16th century and has a curious façade of spikes, influenced by Italian Renaissance palaces. It survived the disastrous 1755 Lisbon earthquake that destroyed much of the city.
Ya see, spikes – not bad for over 500 years old, eh?
Lisbon’s striking train station.
So, when we spotted this guy, we thought he was handing out train tickets but nope – lottery tickets. 😂
Convento do Carmo – After the convent was destroyed by the 1755 earthquake, the Marquês de Pombal directed that the delicate Gothic arches of its church be left standing—supporting nothing but open sky—as a permanent reminder of that disastrous event.
It was a bit of a shock to me to see flowering trees so close to October.

The Algarve – Salema

sah LAY mah

A vacation from our vacation.

“The sea, once it casts it’s spell, holds one in it’s net of wonder forever.” – Jacques Yvette Cousteau

During the summer months this little town of Salema is overrun with tourists but by the end of September it’s pure relaxation.
It was especially nice for early and late walks along the Atlantic Ocean.
We found some interesting rocks when the tide was out.
And, oh yeah, this guy! Not sure we’ve ever seen a larger jellyfish “in person”.
These beautiful boulders were pretty spectacular!
Ok, most of the time it’s kind of nice to be in our own little world and not understand the local, spoken language. In this case, it came in handy – the tide was out and I thought this would be an interesting photo. But when I was taking it, these two men started yelling at me and make hand gestures (see the man on the left) that I clearly understood! I can only surmise their distress – I’m pretty sure the boat came unmoored and floated to shore in the night and was grounded. I figured they may have been embarrassed and were just waiting for the tide to come back in. (Spoiler alert: it did just that and they were able to push the boat out and get in – I, of course, witnessed that at a distance.) Good grief!
But this little guy was my “palate cleanser” – just seeing him walking along made me happy again. 😉
Such a gorgeous shoreline.
Scattered with these wonderfully moss covered rocks.
I loved tiptoeing between them and imaging some of them in my shade garden.
We did take a short trip out to where we could stand high on the cliffs above the ocean. It was both scary and invigorating.
This may look like an ordinary, “who cares” photo BUT it was so exciting for us to have a place to hang our laundry. Most of you know that we prefer to travel light and only take carry on luggage, so we don’t have a ton of clothes and it’s generally not a problem. This trip it was never convenient to go to a laundromat so we were making due by washing a couple of items at a time & hanging them in the shower and hoping they’d dry before we moved on. With this rack we were able to wash everything we wanted to and, along with the low humidity of this area, they would dry in hours. Thus, we did ALL of our laundry and were in good shape by the time we left for Lisbon! It really is the little things in life that count😎

My guy!

Because of you, I laugh a little harder, cry a little less, and smile a lot more.

No matter how big or small – if it’s a train, trolley, metro, funicular or little steam engine – he’s always ready to snap away. Oh, and he helped me make orange juice at the local market in Lisbon! ☺️

Èvora

EH voh rah

“With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding.” – Sandra Lake

While driving through the countryside we kept seeing trees like this – red from the bottom up. We wondered “have deer been eating the bark?”. But there were so many and it looked so uniform.
When we arrived at our destination we went to YouTube and searched “Cork Oak trees, harvest in Portugal” and I hope you will too! It’s very fascinating! In every city we’ve been to in Portugal there have been cork products for sale. Cork purses, cork backpacks, cork eyeglass cases, cork fans, cork hats, and even cork postcards and on & on. We never realized that Portugal produced the amount of cork that they do. Please look it up – it’s most interesting!
See what I mean?
Évora has a very intact Roman temple – at least 2,000 years old
Amazing condition – don’t ya think?
Évora’s Jardim Diana – overlooking the countryside.
In the town square – Praça do Geraldo – they have a board that posts death notices.
Just had to share this pretty pic.
Oranges in the process of ripening.
University students playing some kind of a game, laughing and having a great time. Fun to watch, too! 😊
Évora Cathedral – built in the 12th century is a mix of Romanesque and Gothic styles.
We found this 15th century painted marble statue of pregnant Mary interesting. It’s thought that the first priests, hoping to make converts out of Celtic pagans who worshipped mother goddesses, felt they’d have more success if they kept the focus on fertility.
Impressive cloister!