As the trip drew to a close, it seems like the time has sped up. Our first day in The city we spent the morning doing our "panoramic" tour of the city- getting on and off the bus at major stops and gazing at the rest of it as the bus passed by. The gypsie women were offering scarves for sale at every stop and my friend Jane and I shared the "two for five euros" we bargained down from "one for ten". While the group toured a church, our guide stood in a long line to purchase pastales de Belem, the custard pastries made by nuns that are acknowledged to be the best in the city. Still warm from the oven and lightly sprinted with powdered sugar and cinnamon they were a wonderful, classic treat.
There was very little to buy throughout our travels in Spain.Our guide had promised us that all the shops in Portugal would be selling cork purses, hats, and shoes, but we never passed anything but cheap souvenir shops and most of the stores were closed on Sunday. Most of,the women were very motivated to find cork, so even though the guide insisted that this was not a shopping tour, she rearranged our schedule to the suburbs of Sinatra and Caiscais to give us time to shop. Most of us came away very happy with our purchases and I can't wait to use my beautiful cork tote bag when I get home. The two cities were definitely unimpressive.
Our farewell dinner was lovely and we will definitely miss our fellow travelers. The sense of comaraderie was palpable throughout the group and there a number of people we connected with in a special way.
Even though the official tour was over, we stayed in Lisbon an additional day. I booked a six hour tour of "places tourists don't usually see" with the We Hate Tourism tour company. Our driver was amiable and chatty and five of the six other travelers were good company. The remaining traveler was a woman from England whose irritating personality seemed to be right out of a British sitcom. We drove down precipiticely steep and narrow streets through residential neighborhoods, crossed the bridge to say hi to Jesus (statue) and have the most magnificent view of the whole trip and ate pork sandwiches and local desserts.
Portugal looks and feels very different from Spain. It is more racially diverse and is just starting to clean itself up for the tourists that have started to visit in the last six years. There s a lot of work still to do, but construction is everywhere. then sidewalks are made of small black and white stones creating beautiful designs, it the sidewalk mosaic is slippery as well as uneven and is quite a challenge to walk on.
We leave tomorrow morning. We are mostly packed and hope to have a calm and leisurely departure. We fly from Lisbon directory to Philadelphia and then on to Chicago. It has been a wonderful trip, but it will be good to be home.
I plan to write one more summary blog entry when I get home and also add photos to past blog entries.
