A walk around Dublin

CC sent us some photos of Dublin. Thank you CC. Our trip is coming to and end... :(

A final day out in Mallorca

CC sent us another batch of photos from Mallorca. She tells us about her day:

We rented a car and drove out to cuevas del Drach (across the island). They are interesting and we took the obligatory tour ... Hehe... Stalactites and stalagmites ...cool textures and colors and a beautiful concert inside with little boats (with lights). It was a rainy/cold day but after the caves we decided to drive through a portion of the coast, looking for a nice lunch spot but it was deserted...so we then drove up to Valldemossa for a late lunch/early dinner before coming home and settling in..packing, etc... Valldemossa looks like a town in Tuscany --- very very charming.

Cuevas del Drach:

Valldemossa:

Next stop, Ireland! Thank you, CC.

Barcelona (We're green with envy) - UPDATE

CC has arrived in Barcelona. We're very jealous, but we can enjoy the trip vicariously and be consoled by looking at these pictures...

Sending CC lots of petonets!

UPDATE

CC sent us the first photos of her trip:

Thanks, CC!

Opportunist

I mentioned an American we met in Lisbon in my post about the snails. I said he was very different from progressive Ann and Larry.

This guy was surrounded by twelve to fifteen women of many nationalities, all very excited to be near him. They were in Lisbon for an evangelical convention and had various inspirational badges: "God's word is the truth," "Together in the Holy Spirit," and others.

A number of women handed me their cameras and asked to be photographed with their American heartthrob. I obliged, then asked him if I could take his photo. He was delighted.

Dora and I guessed that he was offering the women something extra, perhaps visiting them in the guise of the Holy Ghost for a double-dose of spiritual togetherness...

Há caracóis

Dora arrived in Lisbon at 5 am and I arrived at the hotel around 2:30 pm. The room wasn't ready when she arrived, so she left her luggage at the reception and went out for a walk. She noticed many restaurants, bars and cafes displaying these signs, which mean "We have snails."

She told me about it and we were intrigued... were these caracóis similar to the famous French escargots? We decided we had to try them. We asked about caracóis everywhere. The answer was invariably that they had them but they were finished, we could try again in a couple of hours. On the last evening, we were walking in Praça da Figueira, doing some window shopping, when we spotted a restaurant with tables outside. Two women at one of the tables had a pile of empty shells in front of them. Caracóis! We asked them if they had enjoyed them and they said yes, so we sat down and ordered some.

The waiter, who was quite a character, informed us that they HAD some, but we'd have to wait an hour until they were available again. We couldn't leave Lisbon without trying the caracóis, so we ordered a couple of beers and waited. They arrived and looked nothing like escargots. They were tiny and looked like snails fresh from the garden, but in a sauce with some bay leaves.

We didn't know how to eat them, so we asked the waiter. He said that most people picked them out with toothpicks, but he had a different method, and asked if he could pick one of them to show us, we said of course, and he just sucked the critter straight from the shell. We started eating, using both methods. They were delicious, but there were far too many. We ate and ate and ate, but the pile stayed the same... Then a couple sat next to us and we noticed they were American. We started chatting to them.

They were from Saratoga, but had a house in the Algarve, where they had lived for many years. Their daughter was raised in Portugal, but decided to go to university in New York, so now they spend their time between the two countries. We asked them if they liked caracóis, they said yes, and we quickly asked for their help with our perennial pile. I mentioned my blogs and when a certain name came up, they burst out laughing: "What a ridiculous person!"

We had to leave because we had a reservation at another restaurant, but we really enjoyed the caracóis and meeting progressive Anne and Larry.

We had met another American earlier on the trip and he was very different from Anne and Larry. I'll tell you about him some other time.

[All photos are from google images.]

Lisbon

The trip to Lisbon was incredible! The Portuguese are very hospitable, funny and generous. Lisbon is a beautiful city, with little surprises around every corner. We tried to see as much as possible in four days, but it's a very tall order...

The food is fantastic, but we had to be careful after the first dinner. Somebody recommended a restaurant, praising the sardines, something my sister was very keen to eat. We arrived and there were only a couple of people in the restaurant, and they didn't look very happy. There were no sardines. We ordered some prawn rissoles for starters and they were still frozen in the middle. We sent them back and ordered Bacalhau à Brás. It wasn't too bad, but we had better before... The only nice part of the meal were the desserts. We decided that from then on, we were going to check the atmosphere of the restaurants, watch people's faces, see if they were eating with gusto. All the other meals were really good, it proved to be a good system.

I took my camera, but, for some inexplicable reason, I left it at the hotel for the first two days. Some of the photos were taken with my sister's i-Phone.

We had to pose next to Fernando Pessoa, a great Portuguese poet

This guy's make-up gave him the appearance of rubber. 
He would stay suspended like this for hours...

Torre de Belem

The Jeronimos Monastery

We went to this expensive restaurant for some good food and fado. We got neither... 
The food was mediocre and the woman couldn't sing to save her life! 
The guys playing the guitars saved the evening.

Entrance to the Museu do Azulejo (The Portuguese make the most wonderful wall tiles)

We think they took some mind altering substances in the XVIth century... 
This panel is about the marriage  of a hen, organized my a load of monkeys!

The leopard hunt. Please note the second leopard, waiting to look in the mirror. 

Castelo de São Jorge

We also visited Sintra, about 40 minutes from Lisboa by train. The old kings of Portugal had their summer palaces there. The village is very beautiful and well preserved.

We took a tour on a very old jeep and went to Cascais to get the train back to Lisbon.

This  is Cabo da Roca. It's the westernmost place in Europe

Dora has a cheeky smile

The next three photos are of a place called Boca do Inferno (Hell's Mouth). We found it quite dramatic.

I was so impressed with the friendliness of the Portuguese, so taken with the beauty of the country, that I wouldn't mind moving to Portugal...