I´ve been wandering around the streets of Pamplona for a few days now and it sure has a lot of history: I visited the Cathedral one day and did a walk thru. It was sure impressive in both size and art. You could easily spend an entire day looking around and not see everything. There are two routes marked going thru town, the running of the bulls route and the Pilgrims route. The Pilgrims route enters the walls from one end of town, and passes thru town via the Cathederal to the oposite wall surrounding the town. The bull route starts on the northern wall at the corrals, and winds thru town to the bull ring. The bulls and runners run on cobble stones and make some sharp turns, which cause a lot of falls. Once the bull gets up. it´s disoriented and charges in any direction. This is where most encounters happen.
I´ve just been snacking so there aren´t any food stories, but I did eat at a vegatarian restaurant. Just to try it. It was pretty good. The house salad was great with cheese, nuts and endive and stuff. I´m still having trouble figuring out when restaurants are open. I thought I had it figured out but then I tried it on Saturday and Sunday, and they were either closed or had different hours. There´s still plenty of people in costume and bands wandering the streets. I went to see Slumdog Millionaire last night and thought it was good. I was thinking it would be in english with Spanish sub titles, but was wrong. Some recent movies that have the names in English are shown in English with sub titles. You know when you see “El Curiouso Caso e Benjamin Something” that it¨s going to be in Spanish. Anyway it was good even in Spanish.
I get on a plane today from here to Lisbon. I spend 2 nights back there and then it¨s on to Paris for an afternoon and night. Then nonstop to SFO. Now I need to email Annie and see if she remembers that she agreed to pick me up.
My last days in Barcus were really nice. We did a lot of driving to surrounding towns and we had some good meals. Chris made a great dinner of confit de canard with cranberry sauce. She also made green beans using the duck fat and garlic to saute them in. The duck is so moist when it is cooked in the duck fat. I found out that most people buy the confit de canard in cans from the store. The can is about 3 pounds and has 4 or 5 duck legs and thighs packed in fat. Chris said they only run 8 to 9 euro per can. I found that Amazon sells them!!! We also had a going away dinner in Oloran Ste Marie and I had the escargo: It was great. All the butter and garlic and parsley and plenty of bread to soak it up. Chris had them make me a special dessert.
Stan and Chris drove me to the train station Wednesday morning. The quail egg guy is only making the run into Spain every three weeks this time of year. My routing had me changing trains three times with one hour layovers. Just before the train got to the Spanish border it was stopped and Police came onboard to check passports. Noone had asked for my passport since I arrived in Europe. The policewoman looked thru my passport several times before she told me that my passport had no entry visa stamp. There were alot of questions and she asked for my plane ticket. I didn´t have one because it was electronic. A bunch more questions and the whole train waited. I don´t know if it was all for me, butr we sat there for an hour. Finally we got back underway almost an hour and a half behind schedule. This was going to make the connection in Irun very close. We were bussed across the border to Irun and had 5 minutes to catch the next train. Luckily there were about 50 people from my train in the same situation. We had to go thru security again before boarding the bullet train. It was going on to Madrid after Pomplona and I guess that is why there was so much security. Anyway, I made it to Pamplona.
Pamplona is a great looking city with plenty to see. My first meal was osso bucco done in red wine with mushrooms and onions. I was late enough to finally eat in a restaurant rather than just having the bar food I´m used to (Pintxos or tapas) It was a little past 8 when I went out to eat. Most restaurants are combination bars and restaurants. I went in to the bar and asked to go into the restaurant portion but was told it didn´t open until 8:30 or 9:00. That answered a lot of questions about why I had never seen anyone in restaurant portions. I just wasn´t staying up long enough. They finally opened about 9, and I had a good meal. People really started pouring in about 9:30.
I visited the bull ring and saw the statue of Hemmingway. The street course where they run the bulls is marked and it goes right in front of bars and stores and family homes. It must be quite a sight. By the way, Stan and his son did the running of the bulls here! The path that the religious Pilgrims take passes thru the city and the course is also marked.
I got my laundry done for now, and have a plane ticket from here to Lisbon on the 24th. I fly to Paris on the 26th, and to SFO on the 27th. I´m off to see the hotel Hemmingway always stayed in. It´s the oldest in Pamplona, called La Perla. It´s in the main square of the old city.
I’ve been in Barcus almost a week now. I had only planned on staying three days, or so. It’s such a nice area and way of life. Stan always has an errand to run into one of the small neighboring towns. The towns are all small and interesting. We went over to the sheep farm because they sell fresh yougart and sell the cheese they make. There is a bakery less than a minute or so away where he goes to pick up the fresh baguetes in the morning. There’s a local butcher shop, a hotel and 2 restaurants. The market has a cheese case thats bigger than the meat case. They would be 4 star French restaurants in America. Here, the locals and visitors from surrounding towns come and eat their meals. Stan and I went to lunch yesterday and had their lunch of the day, basically. We had 3 choices for each of the courses. My main course was duck and Stan had Veal with mushrooms. We had a glass of consume’ between courses. The first course was frois grau and watercress sprouts with a balsamic reduction. Dessert was 3 types of sorbet or ice cream. There were families all around having their lunches. It was so neet hearing the French and seeing the French wines and French menu items. They just live like this. After dinner they serve those small cups of cafe’. I could really get used to this.
There was a very old cathereral next door and I got some good pictures, I think. It would be a good area to bike. Most towns are about 8-10 kilometers apart and the roads are nice and windy and narrow.
I’m going to find out today if the quail egg guy is going to make his run to Pamploma this Friday, and if I can catch a ride. That would mean staying here til Friday and having only 6 days to see Pamplona and get back to Lisbon. I should be able to do it. I did want some time to catch up on my laundry before my flight back in business class. I may have to do laundry my night in Paris.
That’s it for now. I think I’ll have the cheese platter for lunch with that muscat wine.
Well, I made it all the way to Stan’s home in the French countryside. I changed trains twice and got off at all the right stops. The French town names are quite unique; St. Jean de Luz, St. Jean Pied de Port, Oloron Ste Marie, St Martin de Hinx, etc; Fortunately, they are all pronounced exactly the same when spoken over a train loud speaker system! It was a great run thru the country side. We’ve been having big wind and rain storms. A lot of blow-downs and flooded fields. Just about every town that I went thru looked interesting enough to spend a week in. It might be nice to just get a rail pass and visit towns along the route. This southwest area looks like it is still pretty rural and worth exploring. My entire trip from San Sebastian was just under 25 euro.
Stan lives in a small Basque town called Barcus. It has about 200 people. Most of the homes are several hundred years old. There’s a lot of pasture land and old rock fences. What seemed odd to me was that for a remote small town, it has at least 2 very nice restaurants. Even smaller neighboring towns have very good restaurants. They seem to be French restaurants. We went to one last night and it was great. Stan had wild boar, I had the pigeon? and Stan girlfriend had Froi grau something. We each had 5 courses, I think. One of my courses was a thigh and drumstick of duck. It tasted like it was cooked in duck fat. It was so tender and moist. The dessert dishes each had 5 mini desserts on them. Each one was a little work of art. The building was heated by a big fire in the fireplace and all the furnishings were antique rustic items. Our waiter even spoke French.
Stan is having a group of people over tomorrow for a book club meeting and lunch of roasted lamb. We’re going shopping for snacks and drinks today. He has a friend that raises quail for their eggs and sells them in Pamplona to the Tapas bars. There is no real train route from here to Pamplona without going all the way back to San Sebastian. We’re going to see if I can catch a ride with him on his egg delivery route in the next couple of days. Hopefully he hasn’t made his run this week yet. I want to see the hotel Hemmingway stayed at when he was in Pamplona.
That’s it for now.
Just a few comments about Bilbao before I go on to San Sebastian. I found out that blood oranges are quite available in this area. I was walking by a fruit stand and saw a display with an orange cut in half. The stands are set up so beautifully and are a sight to look at. I tested a couple of the oranges to see if they were hard or ripe. Some even had the color showing on the skin. The shop lady came over and in no uncertain terms put the oranges back in the box and said quanto¿ I put up four fingers and she selected the oranges for me. I guess you don´t mes with art. The other thing is that all bars and almost every pasteleria has their own orange juice maker. Anywhere you order it, you get fresh juice. It´s so good.
A couple nights ago I found the most wonderful Basque Bar. Instead of having the Basque tapas (pintxos) on the bar, they had large pans of food. It looked like a buffet line on top of the bar. They were all like main courses of Basque food. They served a lunch size portion with a baguette. I was just blown away by the selection. There must have been 20 options. I wanted to try the local dish of squid cooked in it´s own ink. It´s raved about. All the dishes were like a chicken catchatori as far as thickness goes. Or maybe a thick stew, but the meat was the main ingrediant. The owner spoke enough english to lead me down the line. As I remember it started with the squid in the black cream sauce, then cod (bacalau) in 2 different sauces (one loked like drawn butter), Quail, rabbit, lamb, pork, mussels, snails (mussels and snails in a red sauce, both in shell), liver and seafood paella. I wanted the squid, but the liver in brown sauce looked and smelled so good. I had the liver and was not sorry. The sauce was fantastic but the liver was like pate´. It wasn´t chalky or tough or dry. It wasn´t like the texture of any liver that I had before. I vowed to come back the next night and try the squid. I asked if they were going to have the squid on the menu tomorrow night and was insured that they have it every night. Most people that come in to the bar have the squid if they have anything. I have to say something about the clients that come in to the bar. 99% of them are men and 50% are wearing the Basque Beret and are over 50. Most speak Basque. Its like homecoming whenever someone comes in. Its a quick plate and a glass of wine, and they´re gone. About half of them drink a bubly pink rose´ .
The next night I came back and sure enough there was the squid, first up on the line. I did a quick pass down the bar to see what else was up for offer. Everything was pretty much the same except that there was a pan on the other side of the bar that looked good. This bar has a U shaped bar and food is normally only on one side. I asked the owner what was in the far pan and he said “Ox Tail”. I was sold. Nothing else would do but the ox tail. I´m not even going to try to tell you how good they were. Or how tender or tasty. It´s worth a trip just to try the ox tails. I needed an extra baguette for all the gravy, though. I kept loking at the squid, and after about an hour I decided to see if I could get a half (media) portion. He gave me a full portion anyway. Again, no use in even trying to describe the flavor. The texture is like sauted mushrooms, maybe. But not like squid at all. Maybe the ink or long coking time changes them. Each dish I tried was the best it could be. It was like they were cooking for company everytime. I remember when he was dishing up the ox tail, as he passed by the rabit pan that had potatoes, he scoped up a couple to add to my dish. I was amazed with the ox tails. There were no vegetables or anything else to add flavor. There was just a little shreaded carrot for color. All the flavor was ox tail. The geletian content of the gravy was about 90%. For the record, the name of this place is Rio Oja on Perro Loteria (street). There´s no number above the door, but it would be about #10. This is in Casco Viejo (Old Town), Bilbao=Bilbo, Spain.
I found out that San Sebastian has a local celebration that´s supposed to be on 19 Jan and is called Tamborrada. I should have missed it but even though this is Feb, there are still some celebrations going on. It celebrates how the Basque laundry women mocked the occupying French troops of Napoleon. They would march behind his drum corpse with their wash tubs and mock them. Today they honor their Patron Saint and mock the French at the same time by (starting at midnight) going thru the streets banging on pots and pans and partying for 24 hours straight. Its something to see someone walking around with a dented up pot and spoon while dressed for work. The Basque also have secret gastronomic societies (txokos).
San Sebastian isn´t as old looking as the other towns because it´s been leveled 12 times in it´s history. Wellington´s troops leveled it last. So it´s old, but not that old. There´s still plenty to see and explore.Old town is called Parte Vieja. It claims the most bars per square foot of any city in the world. I´m here until Monday afternoon. I´m meting up with Stan, the father of a friend in Pelican. Hé and his girlfriend are coming in from the French Basque area to demonstrate how to do the famous tapas crawl. I´l let you know how it goes. I then will go into France where he lives and experience small town life in a Pyrenese vilage.
I took the bus from Vitoria-Gasteiz to Bilbao-Bilbo this morning. Again, all along the way I´m seeing thousand year old Churches and Spanish Homesteads. It would definately be worth renting a car or motorcycle and touring the old Mission sites. There´s a paralel road to the main highway that goes thru all the old mission towns. Some of them are just two or three large haciendas and some rock walls around large gardens.
This morning before I checked out of my hotel, I walked down to the bus station to look around and get something to eat. There is a post office next door. As I was heading back to the hotel and looking for a place to eat, I saw two women mail men heading out with their full grocery basket buggies full of mail. They were just ahead of me and they wheeled their baskets in to the first coffee shop and had some coffee and pasteries. I went in also. It was pretty nice to see how laid back things are. I also found that out when I arrived at the hotel. I got here about 1:30 and checked in and unpacked some luggage and headed out to look around. I notices most , if not all shops were either closed or in the process of closing. It of course was just after 2 PM. The should reopen at 4 PM.
Just a few notes on food. I finally figured out what the Spanish hot chocolate reminds me of, and it´s exact! It´s hot chocolate pudding mix. Exactly. Same thickness and everything. Try it. The other thing is that I found another tapas that I think is outstanding. It´s a small sandwitch on french bread with a small fried egg, ortega chilli and ham. Again, the egg yolks are so bright orange and tasty, and the orgeta chilli just compliments the flavor so well. The thin sliced ham adds another flavor. It was wonderful. Something I found while walking around Sunday morning was a large, shinny copper kettle of about 20 gals capacity, sitting on a burner on the sidewalk, just boiling away. I took a picture and then walked up to see what was boiling. The water was purple! And there were giant octopi in the pot. When I came back by accident almost 3 hours later, an old man was slicing up the octopus into quarter inch thick medallions. He would spread them out neatly on a wooden plate and then sprinkle on some red powder, add corse sea salt, and then drizzle with olive oil that he kept hot by imersing the oil container in the pot. There was a small crowd of locals watching and placing their orders. I walked all the way back to the hotel, and then turned around and went back. I had a whole plate with bread, and they were great.
When I got here on 2 Feb, I knew it was Ground Hogs Day, and Joe´s birthday, but didn´t know that Bilbo has a patron Saint that has a Festival on 2 Feb, also. Its called Romeria San Blas. His claim to Sainthood has something to do with throat illnesses. Everyone is passing out lengths of chord that represent the chord that Saint Blas wore around his waist as part of his Habit. So everyone ties the chord around their throat and wears it for three days, and then burns the chord. That protects you from throat illnesses. Or is that Ground Hogs Day? Anyway, its a chance to celebrate. There´s a celebration in the middle of August that lasts a month. I´m not sure what it´s about, but anytime you read in the guide books about restaurants, under their hours, it says 9 to 5, M-Sat, Closed last two weeks of August and first two weeks of Sept. It must be some celebration.
I´m going to spend tomorrow at the Guggenheim Museum. I don´t know what to expect, but it get great reviews. I saw the building on the way here from the Bus station. It´s something to see. All titanium and curved, and big, and weird looking. I just hope that I can find the front door.
My hotel is right in the middle of Old Town again. The streets are even narrower and more medevil looking. The shops and bars in this area are fantastic. I´ll let you know about the Guggenheim.
I´m in Vitoria-Gasteiz now. Notice that it has two names. One is Spanish and one is Basque. I did some reading on the Basque culture and history, and it´s facinating. Better not refer to the Spanish town name when you are talking to a Basque. They have 3 mostly autonomous regions now but are still looking for independance, I think.
The bus trip up here was good. There´s a whole history of crusades and pilgrimages through this area. The most impressive is the Pilgrimage to Santiago. It´s a long story, but in the 800´s the Church came up with a new Holy site in Spain to promote pilgrimages and spread their influence. In 1189 the Pope declared Holy City on par with Jerusalem and pilgrimage to Santiago offered a bonus that you got a free pass out of Purgatory. They gave out punch tickets (the Compostellana Certificate) that had to be signed at every point along the pilgrimage route. Sort of like a sports car ralley. Anyway, the whole point is that this route was built up with churches, cathederals, hospitals, and hotels from 800 to well into the 1800´s. The bus trip followed this route that leads thru a pass in the Pyrenees Mountains. All along the route from about Braga you run along 1000 year old churches and villages. Some are too small to have a hotel or restaurant, but very historic. Vitoria is the official Capitol of the Basque Nation.
There are plenty of cathederals and churches and buildings to keep you busy for weeks. The people are very vibrant and friendly. I went into a pintxos (Basque style of tapas) bar the first night here and had a great time. The bar was literally covered two deep in snacks. There were over 50 different types of snacks, from omlets, small sandwiches, but a lot of stuff on toasted french bread. My favorite was the brie cheese covered with carmalized onions and shreaded ham and sprinkled with almond chips. It was heated just until the cheese melted. The onion was so sweet it gave a new taste to the brie. So there I was sitting at a bar with every possible snack in front of me, whole hams hanging from the ceiling all along the bar, drinking vino tinto out of a water glass, and conversing with the locals. It was great.
Running out of time.
The more I see in this town, the more amazed I am. It seems like every where I turn, I find another thousand year old cathederal or building. This college is amazing. There´s a chapel here about a thousand years old where the oral exams were given on the steps each year. This was a medical college. There were major preparations for celebrations for all the graduates and many goats and pigs were slaughtered for the festivities. The blood was saved and if you passed your orals and became a doctor, your name was written on the limestone walls of the chapel in the blood of the pigs. Although it hasn´t been done in over a hundred years, you can still see the names of some of the new doctors. This is also the home of the Dominican Order. There is a massive church where they started here, still in use. There is a monument to a priest named Father Vitoria, who is considered the Father of International Law. He´s from here, also. During the time of European colonization, he championed the rights of Indiginious People, including the American Indian and lobied against the right of Spoils of War. He didn´t get much backing during his time.
Back to the food blog. I found another food find: Chocolate´con Churros! Spanish Hot Chocolate with Churros. The chocolate is so thick it barely pours. It tastes like Mexican chololate but the churros aren´t like the COSTCO churros. There´s no sugar or cinnamon on them, but they´re still excellent. You get four sticks about 6 inches long. I wondered why they gave you a ´sugar´packet with the hot chocolate until I saw someone shaking it on the churro. It´s cinnamon and sugar. This morning I had some orange juice and they served a sugar packet with it, so I thought it may be a bit tart. Most bars have their own orange squezing machine behind the bar. This was fresh squezed juice and it tasted so sweet it was like tangerine juice. It must be those fresh Valencia Oranges. Best orange juice I´ve ever tasted. I also had ham slices on toast. The toast were thick slices of french baugete with olive oil drizzled on the ham. What I didnt expect was the taste of fresh ripe tomatoes. The toast had been topped with gaspacho or fresh tomato puree to slightly soften the toast. Great. Another piece had what just looked like a slice of ham on toast. I wasn´t prepared for this taste either. It had the taste of intensely salty and creamy…something. I looked under the ham and there was their version of blue cheese, but it was BLACK! It was intensely creamy and salty, and went perfectly with the smoked ham! The fried eggs they serve on toast or tapas are small like banty eggs and have yolks that are bright orange. The yolk taste is amazing. By the way, these mini entre´s are not tapas. They have a different name and the portions are larger than tapas. Another one I had was chorizo and scrambled eggs on toast. It brought back old memories. I can´t really figure out what these things cost. Most are given away free when you buy a drink. I order one drink (cafe con leche) and order 3 or so plates. It runs anywhere from 1.5 to 4 euro. Not bad!
The one that I liked the most was served in a miniture frying pan about 4 inches across. It had one of those small fried eggs on top of thinly sliced potatoes with some sort of cheese melted on the potatoes. These things are lined up all up and down the bar and I just go along and point. Some are just grilled slices of linguisa on toast.
Today I saw a restaurant with their menu in English posted outside. Some of the more interesting items were Iberian Pork Jawbone filled with Foie (pate´?), Roast Suckling Pig, Roast Lamb, Deep Fried piglet or goat kid, and some others. I took some pictures but I don´t know how they will come out.
The dynamics in this town are amazing. The ´family´dynamics are great. The drinking age is 16 and you see 3 generations of a family going into a ´bar´for a drink. Bar is the wrong term for it, it´s more like a pub, but not exactly. The daughter could be 16, the parents 40 something, and grand pa about 65. You see two elderly ladies all bundled up coming into the place for their sherry, and then going off to another. No matter how old they get, they still get dressed up, bundled up and stroll down to the pub almost every night. The places aren´t really heated and everyone keeps bundled up while they´re in there, including their hat and gloves. They have their drink, and before they get too cold, they´re off to another. This is the season to show off their fur coats. It´s quite a show. The square is used as a mall by all the college people in town. Even though this is the off season for tourists, there must be 200 people in the square at any one time, all going somewhere. The noise is loud and after about 2 am there´s alot of imprompto singing. The noise is quite loud until about 4 am, and the place still has about 50 people at 6 am when the sweepers come in and chase them out. I don´t know if they even have TV´s here. Everyone is out and about having a good time socalizing.
That´s it for now.
Im in Salamanca this morning. I took a bus from Porto yesterday that was about a 6 hour trip. It was pretty foggy most of the way but I did manage to see some very interesting looking farms and farm houses. The rock walls were ancient. Some of the fields were smaller than parking spaces among giant bolders and ground that was more rock than dirt. The border crossing was easy. The bus just slowed down as we drove across the border. Once in Spain the olive groves began to appear as the large boulders dissapeared and pasture like areas became more abundant. Some of the olive groves had trees in them that had trunks the size of oak tree trunks. Some of the groves had free range black pigs in them! I knew I was in the right area.
I arived in Salamanca about 5 pm and from the bus station I could make out the towers of several large churches, This town also has the oldest college in most of Europe. They still have the original buildings and classrooms in some areas. Take time to look it up on the internet. Im staying in the main square. The square is inside a wall of buildings. Its hard to explain, but one building completely surrounds a square àtio thats about the size of 2 football fields. The side of the building that faces the square houses shops and hotels and restaurants. The room I have in my hotel has a balcony that looks out onto the square. They call it a Plaza. There is absolutely nothing om the square, just open space. Most people walk the front edges of the buildings because its all covered, but some choose to walk diagonaly across the plaza. The town surrounds the square and there are shops and restaurants galore. I must have passed 5 shops that sold nothing but hams. There is also a main mercado right next to the plaza. Its like the largest farmers market in the world. Flowers, meat, vegetables, olives, cheeses, ……
I havent figured out the bar rules yet, but what I think I figured out is that you get a snack everytime you order a drink. Its like tapas but you dont pay for them. They have them all laid out on the bar. I didnt know if I could order them or if they were just given to you. I ordered a plate of the thinly sliced ham and bread because they had a picture of it in the window. Well, aparently you dont order off the menu when they have laid out guest food for you. At least thats the message that came acros. Im going to learn some more tonight.
The reason that Im not using apostraphes (Spanish spelling) is that the keyboard is different here. Some keys have 3 characters and theres a cap key and another that I havent found for the 3rd character.
This town is built on a river and it has a bridge that is over 2000 years old and is still in use. The buildings in the square were built in 1750 about.
Im in a place that does internet and laundry, and my clothes are about done. Ill write more soon.
I´ve been Porto a few days and it´s obvious that it´s too big a town to explore on foot. I´ve walked around a couple days and there are more Cathedrals and Churches than can be seen in a year. One odd thing is that in Old Town, unlike any other I´ve seen so far, there are no restaurants easily available. Plenty of stores and shopping, but no restaurants. There are a few of the pastelarias for breakfast, but I found that there are two huge food courts in two stores. Everyone seems to eat there. The food is varied because of the many stalls, but it is mostly Denny style food. I did find a Brazilian counter that has great black beans and rice! Another thing about Porto, nothing happens until after 1 pm on Sunday´s. Even the main streets are empty.
I´ve decided to move on into Spain for my next stop. I depart on 22 Jan. and head for Salamanca. It´s quite a bit inland from Porto but not much further North. It really sounds exciting in the guide books. It´s a historic town with a main square called Plaza Major. I´m getting a room in a hotel that forms a wall of the Plaza. I have a balcony overlooking the Plaza for 29 euro/day. It sounds picturesque. Look at their website at www.pensionlosangeles.com
The thing that really sold me on this town is that pork is it´s specality with chorizo, cochinillo suckling pig, and morcilla, a spicy blood sausage. One of the fall backs is tortilla de chorizo for breakfast. They do pinchos when you buy a drink, which is a large tapas as part of the cost. There is even a Michael Jackson theme bar! They serve most things in pitchers like beer, sangria and tinto de verano for €2/litro. Calimocho, Coke and wine mixed together goes for €3.50/litro.
Salamanca looks small enough to explore by foot. It has several catedrals and museums. I plan to enter Basque country right after Salamanca going to Vitoria next. It sounds even more historical. The real El Cid lived there. I´m going to have to get a traditional black Basque beret when I get there. Then it´s shepherds food.
More later.
I have about an hour before I get on the train to Porto. I only have one change of train and then I just have to look out for the stop that says Campanha. That´s the Porto stop.
Yesterday I found a real home style restaurant in an alley that wasn´t even a full arms span wide. Once you leave the main street there are smaller streerts barely wide enough to get a small car down. Off of these secondary streets are the narrow alley ways. Like I said, they are less than an arm span wide and windy so you can only see a few yards ahead. Well I found this place that had an English version of their menu, and the place looked real authentic. The dish was called Chanfana and described as Chevre au vin rouge a la mode portuguaise. Basically goat stewed in red wine. I ordered a half portion because I wanted to have dinner that night. I had the sopa and the goat came with a plate of greens and a plate of boiled potatoes. The goat came in a cast iron caldron about the size of a large cantaloupe. It had been simmering all day judging by the tenderness. The meat was about half bones, but there was a lot of meat. The broth was about straight red wine. All the cologen was disolved in the broth. I couldn´t finish it. The lady that served me urged me to finish it, but I just couldn´t. Running out of time.
I was walking by another pastelaria (coffe and bakery place) when I saw the largest fruit cake in the world in their window. It was not only huge, it was the prettiest fruit I had ever seen. It was about 6 inches tall, but it had to be over 2 feet in diameter! What made it so good looking was the mix of colors and the carmalized, almost burnt looking crust. I have always felt that the colors red and green have been historically under represented in fruit cakes. This monster had more cherries than any other fruit. Next most previlant color was green. It was so unusual that I had to take a picture. Fruit cake apparently doesn´t translate well so I had to take the woman to the window case and point it out. She cut me a saucer size piece and I ordered a coffee with milk. I found out that coffee is pronounced `cafe`. It looked so good on the table that I had to take another picture. The fruit cake was amazing! It had a soft, moist center, crisp crust, and the unmistakeable flavor of brandy. I just wish that I could have asked her to toast a slice and put butter on it like Alton Brown suggests on his cooking program. This was heaven never the less.
I did see that they had breakfast sandwiches in the case. This morning I went back for a porscuto (prosunto in Portuguese) and cheese on a hard roll. It was great.
Yesterday I had my first Portuguese haircut. The lady made no attempt to figure out what I was saying or gesturing about. She just kept asking questions and once in a while I would say Si, and then she would ask a bunch more questions until she felt she knew enough. I ended up with two shampoos, one before and one after, a razor cut, and clothes brushing. It was quite a show. I did figure out that when she held up a jar of gel in one hand, and a hairblower in the other, that she wanted another answer. I got this one correct. The whole thing cost only 8.5 euro. The euro has dropped from $1.41 to $1.31 since I´ve been here.
I need to figure out where I´m going to stay in Porto. I think I will only stay there 2 or 3 days. I´m anxious to get to the Basque Region of Spain.
It´s good to hear that Mark got the CD with my first pictures of Portugal on it. He says they will be ready for viewing at Spring Training. I hope you enjoy them.
I haven´t seen any sign of orange shirts, slacks or ties. It must have been related to a sporting event, maybe Denver Broncos. This town still dries their clothes on their balconies and window ledges. I haven´t heard anyone speek a word of English, or any other language other than Portuguese. With my new plaid hat, I must just blend in.
I saw a menu sign in a small cafe that had a notation way down on the bottom of a `linguisa assada´. It was a very small place where the family used the kitchen for their food as much if not more than preparing meals for customers. I ordered the linguisa with a bowl of sopa and a glass of port. The port was excellent and a ruby style. I ended up having one for dessert also. The linguisa was cut on the bias into 1/4″ slices and then skewered on a long, skinny knife blade. She put a normal dinner plate on the counter and poured several tablespoons of a clear liquid that turned out to be alcohol. She lit the alcohol and grilled the sausage over it until the flames went out. It gave the slices a slight burnt look. She then slid the slices off the blade onto a plate, added a large crusty roll and served it with the sopa. It was kind of neat what happened when she was cooking the sausage. One of the locals sitting at the bar noticed the smell of linguisa and sat up and said something to the chef that included the word linguisa, with the inflection of the Ì could have had a V-8´~. I heard the chef say si si, and when I looked over, they were both looking at me. I just took another sip of my port. Anyway, it was great. Break off a piece of the bread and make a mini-sandwich. There was even orange colored drippings on the plate to wipe up with the extra bread. The soup was a creamed vegetable style that definitely had carrots and split peas in it.
I went to the bus station early today and bought my ticket for this afternoon. It was 12.5 euro for the 3 1/2 hour trip to Coimbra. The hostess at my house here made reservations for me in Coimbra at another rooming house. This one is 22 euro a night and definitely includes breakfast. I don´t intend on eating breakfast at the house because I enjoy wandering around in the mornings finding different cafe`s. It´s supposed to be centrally located in the Old Town section. I leave at 3 PM and get there at 6:30 roughly.
Last night was Friday night in Peniche.� Because of my cold and more specifically my cold medicines, I had made lunch my main meal and had not gone out for dinner.� Well yesterday I had a light breakfast of a roll and two espressos with milk {basically a latte} and no lunch, I awaited the proper time for dinner.� I took a nap and did some reading about Porto and finally at exactly 7 pm I left my room to have my first real dinner.� I had scoped out many of the restaurants within 2 or 3 blocks of my place and had sort of narrowed it down to two.� They all look so formal inside with white table clothes and glasses and silverware set up exactly.� I found that this is just the norm in Portugal, along with uniformed wait staff.� I noticed all the restaurants were displaying their fresh fish in an ice display case outside their front door.� Most menus showed most of their fish dishes as grilled.� One place apparently didn´t have room inside fore their grill so it was set up in the alley next to the building.�
As ~I walked down the street from my place I passed two restaurants and to my horror, there was not one patron inside either.� As I continued to walk past all the restaurants on my list it was the same thing!� The wait staff was waiting in some sort of a modified wedge formation just inside the front door.� I kept walking in larger and larger circles through the neighborhood in hopes of finding at least one patron eating.� Finally, at 7:30 I was hungry enough to run the gauntlet through the waiting wait staff.� I chose the restaurant where the formation looked weakest.� Most of them were huddled around a TV watching some news report.� It wasn´t until I finished my salad that anyone else came in.�
I had an octopus salad that was wonderful.� Basically rounds of sliced octopus with onions and a little cilantro in an olive oil dressing.� What was so amazing about the salad was how tender the octopus was.� On sushi it´s sort of chewy, but this was absolutely buttery.� I had grilled brim with potatoes and greens that reminded me of mustard greens.� The potatoes were unlike any I remember having here.� They were what had to be called waxy smooth.� They had none of the flakiness of russets.� They were simply boiled, and they felt so creamy and buttery.� They were great.� I had dessert, but no coffee which threw the waiter.� After about 10 minutes of finishing my dessert, and no sign of my check, I finally asked for it.� He looked at me with quite the puzzled look and said `no coffee?´ When I said no, he yelled something to the kitchen staff and there was much hustle and bussel, and my check arrived.� I guess dinner isn´t considered over until coffee is served.
I discovered something pretty interesting last night.� With the narrow streets and brick or concrete building fronts, and the cobble stone pavement, everything is echoed up and down the streets.� You can hear every dog bark, scooter whine, truck clatter, and sea gull cry.� The bar across the street doesn´t have a real front door, more like a roll up overhead garage door.� Theres no real line between the bar and the street.� I normally can hear loud talk and even songs coming through my window every night until at least 2:30 am.� Well last night aty about 3:30 I noticed it was perfectly quiet.� No dogs, no foot steps, no vehicles or voices, even the gulls were silent.� It was perfectly quiet!� It had to be that every person was asleep!� No one talking.� No one walking.� It was something to think that the entire town was asleep at the same time.� I can´t remember the last time I experienced a completely silent town.
Well that´s it for now.� I did see a wine show on TV that talked about following the river that reaches the sea at Porto.� It goes eastward through a valley like the Napa Valley through Portugal and into northern Spain.� It ends up in the foothills of the Pyrnase Mountasins.� Sounds like a good route to follow.
I´m feeling much better now. I think the cold is behind me. I went to lunch yesterday and had to make a decision between grilled squid, grilled anchovies, grilled salmon, and about 5 other grilled fish items. I chose the grilled anchovies. It´s odd how they do the stuff on the table. Theres always quite a selection of `stuff´on the table when you sit down. from rolls and butter, to cheeses and olives. When you look at the menu, there are prices for everything; butter .25, cheese 1.25, olives 1.50, etc. I guess they just charge you for what you use. The anchovies were beautifully grilled and served with salad and steamed potatoes. I think I got 7 anchovies that were the size of herring. Everything was great. I had dessert of some sort of creme brulet and a glass of Port. I timed myself, it took 1 hour and 5 minutes to finish lunch.
This morning I went to the cemetary to see some of the names. I took photos of the monuments that had names that I recognized. It looked like the High School roster from Mt. Pleasant.
I´m off to Coimbra on Monday. It´s about the halfway point between Peniche and Porto. I plan about 5 days in Coimbra and then on to Porto.
I bought one of the wool driving style hats today. It´s been cold in the mornings. Not quite freezing, but cold with the wind.
I´ve gotten to take a look around Peniche and it´s what I pictured as old time Portugal. It´s like an entire town that looks like the Alto Bairro section of Lisbon. I seem to be the only tourist in town. One other person has checked into the Inn though. I found that the cafe next to the Inn serves Chorrizo omlets made with chorrizo luncheon meat. It´s just sliced and put in the omlet. The taste is an intense chorrizo. I also noticed that they serve a chorrizo sandwich using a fresh baked roll for 1.5 Euro. Both are great.
I´ve been down with a bad cold for the last 2 days. I went to the pharmacia and after many questions about my health and meds, I was given 2 meds for my cold. I think that I should be better in a few days.
I´ve decided to stay in Peniche for a few more days due to being laid-up. I´m also tyrying to decide what my next stop should be. Porto is too far for a one day bus ride, I think. There are some interesting towns on the way. I´ll let you know.
Well it´s something right out of a picture book. There is an inner, old city and a much larger surrounding hotel area. I´m right down in the center of old town. It´s small, narrow streets with the occasional cafe and store, but mostly homes. I got to the Inn and it was closed. Now I know why she asked me what time I would be arriving. I told her 6 PM just to make sure my room would be held if I came in late. Well I got here around 11:30 AM and it was locked. Luckily, just ascross the narrow street wsas an internet cafe. I figured that I would just get something to eat , use the internet, and wait for the inn keeper. Well it´s about 20 til one and I´ve just been told the Cafe closes from 1 til 2 for lunch.
Anyway, it´s a great looking town and I can´t wait to dump my pack and get out and have a look around..
Yesterday I got up early to visit the fish/vegetable/butcher/flower market. It was quite a sight. I had my usual coffee with milk and a roll with ham and cheese inside. I’m still just pointingthings out in the display case, and I’m getting good at figuring out which ones have protein inside.
I walked the neighborhood behind the market and found one of the “slanted” cable cars that make the steep climb up to the Barrio. It was the best 1.4 euro I’ve spent. The streets are narrow and winding. The houses form continuous walls on both sides. The streets have risen over the years, and some of the doorways areless than 4′ tall. I took some pictures. It seems like there’s a church or a statue of a guy on a horse on every corner.
I only ended up eating the breakfast meal this day due to me catching a case of the crud. The zinctabs seem to be working, though.
Monday I find the bus station and get on the bus to Piniche. It’s a small fishing village and I’m taking a chance on staying in a small converted home. It sounds good in the travel book, and I’m supposed to get my own room with private bath. It’s only 15 euro a night, and that has me worried. I am carrying my sleeping bag just for such emergencies.
I was going to buy a hat and decided on one of those driving hats like I wore in China, but decided to wait until I get to the Basque region and see what they wear. Maybe I’ll get a big floppy beret.
It’s Sunday now and the big news is the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. It’s hard to be an American in these times. I met a very nice couple from Casablanca, Morroco. They are Muslim and can’t understand the US/Israeli mentality. I am invited to Casablanca, though. I may take a ferry across the Gibralter Straits to visit them.
That’s it for now. Got to find something to eat.
Well, it was different. It took a while to get in to the music, but by the end, it was very enjoyable. Dinner was quite expensive and the food was average. I did not have wine or dessert and the bill came to just under 60 Euro. I would recommend going as part of an evening tour of Lisbon. The tours start about 7 PM and include dinner and Fado. The good part is that they get you there, your dinner is included, you have a basic introduction to your tablemates, and they get you home. Trying to pay as an individual while 150 people are leaving all at once is very difficult. The show runs til after the Metro trains stop for the night.
I realized last night after getting back to the hotel that I had not made any plans or arrangements for the next few days. I extended my hotel reservations in Lisbon for 2 more days, until the 5th. I’m planning on visiting a small fishing village to the north. The town of Peniche is my first choice, as it has direct train service. One of my missions today is to find out about train tickets and schedules.
I had `breakfast´this morning at what I´d call a bakery. I had a ham filled roll with a coffee with milk. I guess the proper way to have a roll and coffee is to just stand at the display case and eat right of the top of it. It seems to be a timed event. I took a table and enjoyed a calm meal.
I´m getting to know the Metro train system pretty well. It´s very simple, but the little things make a difference. If you keep your old ticket, which looks like a business card, it can be recharged for .8 Euro. I was payiung for a new card each time and was paying 1.2 Euro. No sign of pick pockets or gang members, yet.
I´ll keep posting when I can.
Well I stayed awake all night after my coffees. I’m just now getting back on my sleep schedule. My dinner before the celebrations was my best so far. It started with the Port wine, bread dried goat cheese and a bowl of what he called a traditional Portugal sopha. It had a fried egg on top and the bowl was filled with bread pieces. When I broke the yoke, it was so bright orange it startled me. I finally also tried the smoked ham plate for starters. I had the pork loin cuttlets for a main course, and it was a suprise. It was very salty, but in a very good way, and it was also quite crisp. I’m running out of time on the computer, so I;ll have to cut it short. The festivities in the main square were amazing. So many people and such a good vibe. The light show with the music was an artistic masterpiece!