Monday June 10th Planes Trains and Automobiles

Monday June 10th, planes, trains, and automobiles as we journey back home. 

So, oh 4:30 git up for an 05:30 Uber  to get us to the Lisbon airport by 6am. After about 20 minutes in the Uber cab we arrived at the Lisbon airport more or less ready to face the day. The airport went relatively smoothly and after passing successfully through security and duty free shops made our way towards the gate. We grabbed a couple almond croissants and a milchkaffe not knowing if the 7:30 flight would have a meal. 

 The croissant was good and so was the scoop of scrambled eggs and mushrooms with a few taters slices, bread and coffee. Being Lufthansa airlines we were also offered a Warsteiner beer - I guess it’s always 5pm somewhere. We passed on the breakfast beer feeling it would clash with the coffee. After about a three hour flight we landed at Frankfurt and took a nice 10 minute bus ride snaking around the ramp and underneath the terminal to arrive at the international arrivals area. Through passport control twice and once again through duty free successfully we arrived at our gate with our new tube buddies assigned to this B747/400.  Two pretty good meals, three movies and just over 11 hours later we touched down in Vancouver BC fully refreshed and ready to meet the early afternoon sunshine. 

The airport metro train took us to across the street from the AMTRAK station and we had 1:45hrs till departure for home. They called for boarding at 4:30pm for a 5:45pm departure. This is when things went into slow motion. As the line of a hundred or so started moving past the agent we were seen by a second agent who assigned seats and segregated us into US passport and others. The two lines then remerged so a single Canadian Agent sent Americans to one CBP agent and all the others to a couple of others to check passports and get our declaration cards and ask if we’d been on a farm overseas or touched any farm animals. We cleared through this process in about 30 minutes and then made it in one big line again to the agent tagging luggage for stowage for the trip ending in Seattle. After enjoying about 10 minutes in this line the baggage agent looked at the line and said folks if you’re not checking anything then feel free to walk down and board. Like an ice jam breaking on a frozen river this line moved off smartly and left the baggage agent no doubt wondering if his deodorant had failed. We arrived in our seats and departed the station 8 minutes early as all booked passengers had boarded and “Stan” had also arrived.  The train didn’t travel at the speeds we’d seen in Portugal and Spain, even the slow trains there would have smoked this ride. A shining spot was the Bistro car man who was pretty friendly and answered my questions about WiFi not working ( cause were not in the USA yet) and gave this former pilgrim who’d now been traveling just short of 24 hours some advice on an easy drinking craft IPA.  In an exercise of extreme vetting we stopped at the border so that US CBP agents could also check our passports and customs declarations paperwork that was checked by a US agent in Vancouver. We’d now covered the 52km or 32 miles at an average speed of 27 mph!  Eye watering speeds for those used to European trains - tears of agony.  

Kelli’s sister Kathi picked us up at the train station and whisked us home and we celebrated 25+ hours of travel and another Camino. 

Special thanks go out to Jeff and Kathi, Kelli’s sibs who took their mom to Jeff’s house in Burbank California and then got mom back to Anacortes and Ginny and Benny who were our Camino walking partners on this nice adventure.   Who knows what’s next but I’m sure there’s another “experience” out there somewhere that needs experienced. 

Love to all,

BandKalongtheway

Sunday June 9th Belém Portugal

Sunday June 9th a trip to Belém just outside Lisbon to visit the much acclaimed Jerónimos monastery, museum, monument of discovery and the eat a world famous Nata at the original bakery.

We woke up crazy early this morning minutes before 7AM,  well early if you’ve been out on a Lisbon Saturday night dining and strolling the waterfront lanes pausing and taking in an occasional wine or coffee or tapas or whatever. However we’d completed dinner and our stroll by 10:30 just as the tempo and population on downtown Lisbon was cranking up.  

After a quick coffee con leche’ and a croissant at the nearby local coffee and pastry shop we headed to the train station to buy tickets to Belém just west of Lisbon.  As fortune smiled on us we were able to take a San Francisco style electric trolley out for the 20 minute ride to Belém. 

When we got to Belém we bought tickets to view the museum and monastery. The museum had artifacts dating back to several hundred years  BC up through modern times of about 1500. Including gold and silver coins and jewelry to about the times of Christ. Many of these artifacts were discovered in an accidental discovery back in about 1990. There was mention that this may have been from a cache of treasure meant to safeguard it from thieves and invaders. At any rate it’s amazing to see this stuff bright and shiny and looking almost new , but 2000 years old. 

The Jerónimos Monastery dates to the mid 1500s so it qualifies as old here, like a house built in the US is “old” when it’s built in the late 1800’s. The architecture is Manueline, Portuguese Manuelino, particularly rich and lavish style of architectural ornamentation indigenousto Portugalin the early 16th century. The monastery is still used today for some official functions like receiving heads of state and treaty signing. 

We then visited the Monument to the Discoveries just south of the monastery on the waterfront and adjacent to a park with the garden of Vasco da Gama. Another amazing place to visit and share the space with explorers who left Lisbon in the early and middle 1400’s. 400 years before Lewis and Clark, 500 years before John Wayne lead the Stagecoach to Lordsburg NM🧐. Zoowie. A lot of history here. 

After a sandwich and fresh squeezed OJ we went back to Lisbon to find the church of Santiago, the starting point for the classical Portuguese Camino de Santiago. We did find it but were surprised it’s not really much acknowledged and was in fact closed when we were there. However we did meet a woman from. Hong Kong ( she impressed that it’s NOT China) who is departing on the 610km Camino Portuguese tomorrow morning with her husband in tow. She was excited to meet another pilgrim and was grateful for our short conversation and encouraging Buen Camino.    We’d hoped to get our pilgrim passport stamped at this church but instead visited the main Lisbon cathedral and were able to get one there. 

We’re mostly packed an Uber taxi scheduled for 05:30 tomorrow morning when we start our 23 hour journey to the New World. 

Saturday June 8th Lisbon food tour and sightseeing

Saturday June 8th Lisbon about 10km of looking around town

Kelli was moderately ill most of the day with aches and pains that we believe may have been Friday night dinner related. We slept late and did laundry in the morning and shortly before 11AM we strolled over to the the arch of rua Augusta, in Praça do Comércio to meet our food tour guide Thais. 

Thais started the tour by telling us about the great earthquake in 1755 that destroyed Lisbon both by shaking but mostly tsunami from the estimated 9.0 quake. As we walked into Lisbon from the central plaza by the waterfront Thais described how the city was rebuilt symmetrically and that most new buildings had the same size windows and doors and generally were the same across the street. This was done to speed the rebuilding and when you arrived at Lisbon that wasn’t destroyed it is obvious because streets aren’t straight and buildings are all different. We toured 4 places to eat and had samples and snack sized portions at all.  All also featured a wine, which five younger ladies from London (who were all from Brazil but lived in London for the past 2-12 yet) enjoyed immensely - they were here for a “hen” party. It was a food tour and by the end the samples added up and an afternoon siesta, or Portuguese equivalent, was necessary. 

Taste of Portugal: 16 Tastings Tour by Silvia Zara and Thais

Later we walked along the shoreline to the west and to a place called the Time Out Market which is a good sized market place maybe a couple 150x75 meters wide and ringed by small specialties food vendors. Everything from Asian fusion to hamburger to seafood and desserts and drinks and CROWDED!  We circled three times but were never able to get two chairs next to each other so we headed home and just picked an Italian pizza shop run by an Indian family we believe. It was good and watched kitchen production from a front row table. 

Home to call it a night and made a plan to visit Belen in the morning but no plans after that. 

Friday June 7th the journey to Lisboa

Friday June 7th Walk, Bus, Taxi, Train, Walk Santiago to Lisbon 

We awoke to a chilly but clear morning as we prepared to leave Santiago de Compostela again. A quick read of the news told us that the weather we experienced on Thursday was actually the outer bands of Storm Miguel which struck the area with Winds of up to 147km/h in northern Spain earlier, swirling around the Bay of Biscay and moving on to France. (BBC News)

We have two 2016 Camino friends walking the Camino Norte and probably we’re caught in this storm as they’re north and east of Santiago near the coast at this time. So prayers for Jenny and David Waraker as they are 65 days into their 1700km Camino from central France to Finisterre Spain. 

As we walked to the bus in Santiago we stopped for a café con leche’ and a croissant and soaked in the moments of our short journey. As we were having our café three rough looking pilgrims came in and ordered café and Port 🍷!  We weren’t sure if they were celebrating their arrival or if last night had just come to an end with a toast to the new dawn.  Our walk to the bus station had us on our full Camino gear, but opposite direction from the morning’s new arrivals. We acknowledged each other with Buen Camino and kept our respective treks to our next destination. 

The 3 1/2 hours bus ride to Porto Portugal was a bus full of pilgrims for the most part. Many were German and we suspect they’d flown into Porto to start so they now were going to fly home. In Porto we grabbed a cab driven by former Formula 1 driver Pasquale de Faste’ who sped us through traffic and town in his diesel Skoda wagon taking just 13 minutes for the google predicted 20 minutes car time. Brakes still smoking , bags off loaded and fare paid, Pasquale took off faster than Santa off to his next delivery.   In ample time for the train we went to buy tickets only to be told NO, completo, full. Ok then we’ll take the next one, completo, ok the next one - ahhh ok two seats still available on the slow inter-city stops everywhere train. We eventually made it to Lisbon a bit after 6 pm and loaded up and pilgrimed off to find our room that we’d rented for the weekend. 

Lisbon was hopping with activity when we arrived with cruise ships and tour groups and the apartment manager said it’s a three day weekend so EVERYONE is coming to Lisboa to party for the Pentecost holiday. Our host also was a fount of information about places to go, to avoid, to eat at, NOT to eat at and pickpockets. We stowed our gear and at about 8pm set out to a place that was recommended only to find out it was closed. So we strolled back towards our apartment surveying restaurants and just picked one that looked reasonable. It was ok but cost three days food money for the Camino 😳. Just the two glasses of wine cost what we’d have paid for two bottles that we’d split with Ginny and Benny on Thursday night. 

Back home so to speak and off to sleep. Saturday we have a three hour food tour and then who knows. Pictures for Friday will be posted as able but there are not many. 

Hasta la bye bye for now