Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 11:39:51 -0800 (PST)
Subject: "Here comes the rain again..."
bom dia,
It was raining off-and-on yesterday since i left Lisbon, and on and on and on and on today and it is still raining!
the good thing about that is that although the rain took away from what would have been some lovely mountain and ocean scenery, it added its own scenery!
Well, the drive from Lisbon to Portugal (yesterday - Sunday) was..... hmmmmmmmm...... (thinking of a good word here) ..... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........ cloudy. i wanted to go to the town of Sintra because its got some nice palaces with nice views, but didn't go there. Drove along the ocean for a little bit - that was nice and would have been nicer if it were not for the fog. Portugal coast is similar to California coast -- imagine the drive along Hwy 1 for those of you who've done that. After that I just went straight up to Porto, skipping an inland detour through a National Park along the way.
Porto is wonderful ... charming... and cloudy. Really cloudy. After checking in to my motel i drove around looking for a place to eat and an internet cafe, finding neither, but had a nice drive through the city. across the river is a town called Gaia (not to be confused with Isaac Asmiov's Gaia) - from there are gorgeous views of the old city of Porto! I stopped alongside the road to take a couple of pictures.. and within seconds a cop walked up and told me i'm not allowed to stop there... Well, i took 3 pictures anyway and kept driving. that whole drive took about 3-4 hours ... and i never saw a restaurant that i wanted to eat at, and never found the internet cafe thats listed in my tourbook. By the way, Lonely Planet guidebooks on Europe are excellent. just wanted to throw that in.
That was all for Porto - i finally ended up ordering a chicken sandwhich from the hotel cafe for dinner and watched english movies dubbed in spanish and french most of the night.
adius,
-me.
Along the drive from Lisbon to Porto:
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Porto:
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