Sex in the City

Friday, July 19, 2024

To start today's blog, here is a beautiful picture Karen took yesterday evening in Lisbon.

One of the charming things about Portugal is the pride people take in their way of life. They love their food and drinks, gathering places, and language. And their enthusiasm is contagious. On this drive to Porto we learned a lot about life in Portugal from our guide. Portugal is the oldest country in Europe, they are a leader in renewable energy, and there are 10 million people who live there.

The leading industries in Portugal are wine/port (obviously!), olives, cork, paper, and tourism. Our guide tried to get us to guess what one of the other leading industries is by asking us this question - "What did the girls in Sex in the City like?". My first thought was - isn't that obvious from the name of the show? Turns out the answer was not about a sex industry, the answer was shoes. So, we could support local industries by wearing cork shoes while drinking wine and eating olives off of paper napkins!

Portugal is also known for the beautiful tiles that are used as decoration around the country. Here are some samples:

Our bus ride from Lisbon to Porto included a stop in Coimbra, which was a beautiful town, and a visit to the Coimbra University Library. The library was spectacular, one of the best examples of Portuguese Baroque style. It was completed in 1728, and holds 60,000 books. The library was built in a way that would provide protection for the books, and visitors are only allowed inside in small groups for a short period of time. To protect the books from insects two colonies of bats live inside the library and eat the insects in the room. That requires the staff to cover the books every night so they don't get damaged by bat poop!

Our next stop was at a local restaurant for local food and music. There is a type of music , called Fado, that originated in Portugal in the 1820s and is very popular there. The music has a particular beat and style, sometimes referred to as soulful. The group at the restaurant included two guitar players and a singer. They were excellent! Enjoy...

Later today we will board our ship in Porto and begin the river cruise tomorrow.