Mar 21, 2013 - Pre-Trip & Goin' Over

Well here we are at DFW waiting to board our flight and head off on another adventure. We fly from DFW to JFK in New York, then on to De Gaulle in Paris, and finally to Lisbon, Portugal. We will get to spend a couple of days in Lisbon before shoving off to Porto, Portugal where we will board our ship and cruise the Douro River. 2013 is the first year that our river cruise line, Viking, has had a cruise on the Douro. Actually, they had planned to do it several years ago. And we happened to be on a Viking cruise in 2010 with a number of...

Dec 11, 2012 - Knights Templar, dinosaur footprints, Roman ruins and a hangover……..

The last week has been quite amazing and has been the most varied of the trip so far. Portugal is growing on us the more time we spend here. From Porto we continued to head south through the most famous university city in Portugal - Coimbra, an interesting and elegant city. The historic university library has 30,000 books on display all written before 1800. We have visited the extensive Roman ruins of Conimbriga, walked in the steps (literally) of dinosaurs from 200 million years ago, and travelled to our favourite town so far – Tomar, the...

Nov 18, 2012 - Lisbon - Last Day

Today, our last day, was a lovely sunny day for walking around some parks. Close to our hotel is a huge area called Parque Eduardo VII. It is a great area in the middle of the city for locals and tourists to wander around. We took the Metro from there out to the site of Expo 1998. This a nice area on the river with a walkway stretching for miles. Some of the buildings from Expo are still here to look at but it's just a lovely walk by the river and well used by locals as well. There are lots of restaurants and snack bars as well. We had our...

Nov 17, 2012 - Lisbon

Today started with walk to the "Elevador da Gloria" the tram ride that saves a really serious uphill walk to the Barrio Alto district. At the top there is a lovely park with a splendid view of the city and towards the river. We strolled downhill from there looking at wonderful tiled buildings and of course stopping for a coffee and pastry on the way - that has become very addictive! We looked at the elevator at the top end and then from the bottom when we had walked down there. A wonderful idea for the tourists it was built in 1900 or so...

Nov 16, 2012 - Lisbon

As expected the rains came today so it was a good day to visit the Gulbenkian Museum, a couple of stops on the Metro from where we are staying. There is a very good Metro system here. Calouste Gulbenkian who was born in Istanbul to a wealthy Armenian Family went on to make his own fortune in gasoline. He became an avid art collector and when he died his will requested the creation of a foundation to house his huge collection of art. There is a lovely collection of Eastern Islamic Art along with paintings and sculptures of European Masters....

Oct 29, 2012 - Luton to Lisbon

Our flying visit to the family in England went very well. The weather was a little mixed as we would expect at this time of year. We had some nice walks up in the North East along the River Tyne and visited Eltham House, the home of the Courtaulds family near London. All our family are all doing fine. We arrived in Lisbon last night in the rain but today the sun came out and we had a lovely day exploring the sights. We started this morning by taking the bus up to the Castelo de Sao Jorge. (we chickened out of the major uphill climb). It was...

Sep 4, 2012 - First Day at Sea

Today was the first day of the voyage. I like the trip so far. We have plenty of food and perfect weather! Our first stop is going to be in Lisbon Portugal to restock on food and other supplies, but then we head to Africa! I cant wait to meat the people that live there and see what unusual goods they have to trade! I hope the merchants are nice and give us a good deal!

Aug 21, 2012 - Changed Plans, Lisbon, Cascais and Goodbye

We followed yesterday's pattern and had a slow start. We had received an e-mail asking us to get in touch with the airline due to changes to our flight home. To our dismay the Gatwick to Canada flight has been cancelled and we were offered a flight to Calgary on Tuesday September 11 with a connecting WestJet flight to Edmonton. We then went over to the square for breakfast. Yesterday the waiter had short-changed us by 10 Euros until challenged. We decided to try a different restaurant and went to an adjoining square. As we ordered,...

Aug 20, 2012 - Castles and Friends in Lisbon

We had a slow start to the day and, as breakfast was not included in our room rate, went to Rossio Square to have breakfast at a cafe there. We had a light breakfast and then went through to Figueira Square and caught the bus to Sao Jorge's Castle. It wound its way uphill along narrow, twisting, steep streets that you would not imagine buses, even the small bus we were on, could negotiate. However, we did arrive safely. We spent quite a while going round viewing Lisbon from this vantage point, then exploring the castle itself. It covers...

Aug 19, 2012 - Lost, Found and on to Lisbon

We got up and had breakfast where we said good bye to an American family we had met yesterday and who were also leaving today. They are the only English speaking people we have met in Nazare. We then packed the last few items and went downstairs and read in the lounge till it was time to check out and call a cab. It was another beautiful day, though some clouds were evident. The cab driver took us to the bus station and we got our luggage and waited for the bus. Christine suddenly realized she had left her jacket in the cab! I tried calling...

Aug 8, 2012 - Checking out Lisbon

We watched the ship dock at Lisbon and had breakfast. We had sailed under the April 25th Bridge, but did not see it, and turned around to dock. David & Dawn left the ship early to do a Segway tour of old Lisbon which they enjoyed very much, but Dawn had wakened with a nerve related headache caused by stiffness in he neck. The rest of us left the ship and took the Hop-on-Hop-off bus. We had hoped to meet up with David & Dawn, but the bus was quiet and we decided to stay on rather than get off and wait for them. This may have been a mistake....

Jul 17, 2012 - Playing in Portugal

I landed in Lisbon, Portugal in the early hours of July 18, 2012. Since my plane touched down I have been going nonstop. Seeing an entire country in 12 days is extremely hard work. I kept a written journal of my adventures. To save time, I will not be rewriting everything in this journal but I will be listing highlights here, by day. July 18, 2012: -Had my first pastel de nata -Watched the changing of the guards at museu arqueologico de Carmo -Visited Cristo Rei in -Tasted vino verde for my first time July 19, 2012: -Enjoyed the original...