Camp Reston

On a walk my first day back I marveled at the transformation. When I left for vacation, school was still in session and early heat was still battling spring chill. But now it is full-on summer. 

On the lake, fishermen wait patiently for a nibble. Children cavort on canoes and paddle boards. Sunbathers turn their towels toward the sun. Shade is deep and wide; the walker seeks it when she can. 

The place I live no longer feels like a suburb. It feels like a camp. 

The Concert

The crowd began to gather 30 minutes before the performance, a ragtag group of concert-goers, including students, friends of the musicians, and a few tourists thrown into the mix.  It was our last night in Portugal and we had been wondering how to spend it when I happened upon an announcement of a concert on the grounds of the Quinta da Regaleira, of spiral staircase fame. What fun it would be to return in the evening, just as the last light was slanting onto the twisted spires and tree trunks! 

That was before we arrived to find a black-clad musician (perhaps the cellist?) exclaiming to the guard on duty that, at least from what I could make out, something was missing at the venue. Forty-five minutes later, we were escorted through the grounds of the Quinta right up to the stage where the Damas de Sao Carlos, a 10-member all-female ensemble (plus a male harpsichordist) had taken the stage. The musicians came from Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Portugal. They had decked out their concert black with scarves of scarlet, blue and green. 

We had barely taken our seats when they launched into "Spring" from Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." How the music filled and animated that special space! How good it was to hear those familiar notes in that unfamiliar setting. And how strangely comforting: it reminded me that just as music transcends all languages, travel transcends all cultures. It draws us together. It makes us, however briefly, one. 

Old World

On the way to the airport Sunday, the chatty cabdriver, Isabel, pointed out sights along the way. "Here is where the king would stop on his way to Sintra," she said, pronouncing it "Seen trah." It was a two-day trip so he needed an intermediary palace, she explained. And sure enough, there was a telltale spire amidst the trees and apartment blocks. 

"The past is so alive here," I said, exclaiming over the beauty and the bounty of the place I was sad to be leaving. 

"But you are a young country," she said, pronouncing it "young uh." "We are old."

I thought of her words as the plane touched the tarmac at Dulles Airport in the waning light of a midsummer evening. Everything was so green, and there was so much space. It was easy for a moment to see the potential of this continent, the feelings that must have greeted its discovery by Europeans. 

It's easy to rhapsodize over the quaint lanes and cobblestones of Europe, to decry the fast food joints and 10-lane highways of the U.S. But it's important to keep Isabel's observation in mind. Portugal is the Old World. We are the New. 

Suitcase at Rest

I'm a bit compulsive about unpacking. Usually within hours of arriving home I've emptied my suitcase and filled the laundry hamper. This trip was no exception. It's not that I want to move on; it's the opposite. I want to see what I've collected. 

On this trip there were ceramic tiles and carved olive wood. There were books and teas and a box of six pasteis de nata, the national pastry of Portugal, bought from a chaotic coffee counter in the Lisbon airport. 

But mostly, I return with memories, impressions, ideas. It was my first trip to the continent since 2010, and I'd forgotten how much I love the way Europeans live, the scale of their houses and streets, the pace of life that includes time for a coffee break, which, given the size of Portuguese coffee cups, doesn't take long.  The way they live with less in one way (smaller cars, tighter spaces) but more in others (an appreciation for beauty and the past).  

My suitcase is empty. My mind is full. 

Até Breve!

If I didn't know better I'd say that Portugal is deliberately making it hard on us. For our last day here she dished out some of the most splendid weather we've had on this already blue-sky trip. Then she landed us here in Sintra, city of kings, although I'll take some responsibility for that since I planned the itinerary. 

Finally, there were today's attractions. Whereas yesterday's visit to the Pena Palace was a bit like being herded into a cattle car, this afternoon's tour of the National Palace was deliciously free of crowds. 

And in the morning—ah!—there was Quinta da Regaleira, a villa on grounds that include a mossy green spiral staircase that I'd seen in photos and which lived up to its photogenic reputation—though after walking down it with two millennials we met on the way there, I'd say it requires the bold approach of holding one's cameras over the void to snag the perfect shot (see above for a less-than-perfect one).  

All that remains is a final evening, then packing up and leaving early tomorrow. Given that I've yet to master Portuguese I had to look up the best phrase to use when you don't really want to say goodbye. I think "até breve" will do the trick. It means "see you soon." 

Hiking It

Castles are not built on plains or in valleys. They are situated on mountaintops and hillsides. But what happens when the castle becomes a major tourist destination? In short, gridlock.

To avoid the crush we skipped the bus to Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle today and hiked up instead. The guidebook said it was a trail only to be undertaken by "serious hikers," but that didn't deter us. 

Hike it we did, both up and down, and though the knees are sore, the mind is full of the sights we saw along the way.  

Room With a View

This post should be titled "Rooms with a View" since every room we've stayed in on this trip has opened onto a terrace or a plaza or a sea of red-tiled roofs.  

From one of them we could hear the Atlantic Ocean rolling up on the sand. From another we could almost touch the medieval walls of Evora.

But today's hotel, our final resting place before returning home on Sunday, is the highlight of them all. Perched on a hill that overlooks the National Palace, our room has a tall half-moon window with a fairytale castle outside. A quick walk through town confirmed the fairytale castle-ness of the place. 

Sintra has palaces to tour and gardens to admire ... but it's tempting to just sit here and look out the window.

Forever and Evora

Since my earliest travels, I developed the habit of not wanting to leave the places I visited. I can still remember the tears I shed leaving San Francisco at age 15. For years I pined for that place.

In time, I learned to move on from these travel crushes, but that doesn't mean I don't form attachments to places, sometimes so suddenly and with such a rush of feeling that I wonder if I haven't lived there in a past life.

It's happening again with Evora (pronounced EV' or ah), a walled city we've been touring the last few days. Maybe it's because I saw it first from a distance, a cathedral on a hill, or maybe it's because an hour after we landed here we were whisked away on a tour of the megaliths, which got us out into the rolling countryside where we could see the cork oaks and menhirs.

But whatever the reason, Evora has spoken to me: its medieval walls, its old folks clustering around the obituary notices in the town square, the little restaurant hunkered down beside the 16th-century aqueduct, the lovingly casual way this place embraces the past. I want to bottle Evora and take it home with me.

Roman Recycling

It's hard to miss Evora's Roman Temple, sitting as it does in the middle of the town square. What's amazing is how well-preserved it is, more intact than many of the Roman ruins in Rome, thanks to being covered for centuries, first as a fortress and then as a slaughterhouse.

Scattered throughout the city are other ancient surprises, like the Roman baths tucked away in a corner of the Town Hall, which flash into view courtesy of motion-detected lighting. (They were discovered during a remodel in 1987.)  

Or these paving stones, irregularly shaped and polished to a high gloss from almost two millennia of use.

This is a town that honors the past ... and also recycles it. 

Megaliths of the Alentejo

Two thousand years before Stonehenge, the people who built the Almendres Cromlech were lugging large rocks into place and setting them up to align with the equinox. Were they gathering there to tell stories? Perform rituals? Trade knowledge?  Maybe all of the above. 

We do know that these stones are monuments, our tour guide, Sira, told us today, and we might even see them as people, eternal guardians made of stone.

The Alentejo region of Portugal is one of richest megalithic sites in Europe. To come upon these stones today, to learn a little of their history, is to feel closer to some of our earliest ancestors, to understand a little more about what makes us human.

Land's End

It's not hard to imagine how a resident of the 14th century would feel looking west from Cape Saint Vincent on Portugal's southwest coast. This was land's end, as far as you could go. Europe ended here, and there was not yet a "New World."

The Portuguese prince known as Henry the Navigator sought to change that. He taught sailing and navigation skills, provided funds for expeditions to Africa and Madeira, and influenced generations of explorers. 

Henry's inspiration in part was Marco Polo's Il Milione, a travel book that was also a source for Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, which we studied last semester. Such is the power of imagination that even today, hundreds of years later, standing on the windswept heights of Henry's fortress, I could glimpse the danger and the curiosity these views provoked. 

Fisherman's Trail

This path was first trod by fishermen as they walked from village to village and down to the sea. Now it's part of a network of trails that run through protected land, and the people who travel it are carrying cameras not nets.  At least one of them (that would be me) was thinking that there could be no better way to see the Algarve than to hike this beautiful trail.

This section runs north from Salema along the cliff's edge, most of the time at a respectable enough distance away to keep my fear of heights at bay ... but not always! We walked east with the Atlantic on our right, its colors ranging from turquoise to dark navy, ruffled in places from gentle waves.

We saw boats moored in secret coves and bright white towns in the distance. One of these, Burgau, was our destination for the afternoon, based on a tip from a pair of Canadian hikers, mother and daughter, who told us of a great lunch place on the beach. 

We made our way up hills and down, swilling water and passing through fields of fennel and thyme. Shortly before our descent, we passed through a grove of blooming cactus.  And then, we were in the town itself, strolling its narrow lanes and feeling the way you do when you reach a place not by car or bus or train ... but on foot.

The Algarve

The Algarve is Portugal's riviera, with sand, sun, surf and whitewashed houses on a hill. 

We bussed here today and are getting the feel of this small, tucked-away village, a quiet spot in what has become a heavily developed area. 

It's about 30 degrees cooler here than it was in Seville, and I wore a sweatshirt as we walked the beach. It's good to be back in Portugal!

Corpus Christi

Today, June 16, is the feast of Corpus Christi, which celebrates the body and blood of Christ that is present in the sacrament of the Eucharist. In Seville, it is celebrated with solemn processions and with floats that manage to be both devout and opulent at the same time.  

We were part of the festivities this morning, tipped off to them by Mercedes, Monday's walking tour guide, and helped along by a map supplied by the hotel. The procession lasted for hours—men, women and children carrying banners, staffs and lighted candles. Up to 50 men bear the weight of the floats on their shoulders, shuffling along in unison.

I felt I was seeing the real Seville, the one the people here experience, not the one manufactured for tourists. The piety was impressive, perhaps only to be outdone by the bells of the Giralda, which went into overdrive to mark the occasion. "He was a rationalist," Chekhov wrote, "but he had to confess that he liked the ringing of church bells." It was hard not to feel likewise today. 

You Are Here!

One of  travel's greatest gifts — one I look forward to even though it isn't always easy — is being shaken out of my routine.  Sometimes this means dining al fresco to the sound of Spanish guitar at 10 p.m. Other times it means getting lost and walking twice as far as we need to in 104-degree heat. 

What these have in common is an intense focus on the present moment, on being here.  So today, when I found the "you are here" bullseye on a map (en Espanol, of course), those words had a completely different and more Zen-like meaning than originally intended. 

Yes, I am here and can now (theoretically) find my way home. But I am also here, now. I'm not planning this trip. I'm not looking back on it. I'm in it, in the ever-present now. I always am, of course, but travel helps me realize it. 

 

Ding Dong

We knew ahead of time that instead of taking steps to the top of the Giralda, the bell tower of Seville's cathedral (the largest Gothic cathedral in the world), we would be walking up a series of ramps. The reason, the story goes, is that the monk responsible for ringing the bells every morning decided it would be easier to ride to the summit on a little donkey — and since donkeys don't do stairs ... you get the idea.

I haven't had time to verify this tale, but I have climbed the ramps (all 35 of them) to the top of the tower, which was originally a minaret when there was a mosque at this site centuries ago. 

To be atop this edifice, to see the splendors of Seville spread out below, well, it passes the prickles-down-the-back-of-the-spine test. And if you happen to be strolling around the nosebleed section  of the Giralda when the bells begin to ring, then the thrill is complete. 

All Together Now

Seville's Alcazar Palace has been a royal residence since the 10th century, which means there's been a fair amount of redecorating through the years. The ornate Moorish carvings that grace the first floor gave way to Renaissance arches on the second. 

And the mosaic tiles inspired by those in Morocco and elsewhere in the Middle East are combined with replicas of tapestries that graced medieval walls. 

Each successive ruler left his or her mark—including King Pedro 1 in the 14th century and Charles V and Isabella in the 16th. 

Which means that the Alcazar Palace is a prime example of the Mudejar style that developed in the Iberian Peninsula between the 13th and 16th centuries, a style made possible by people of many faiths and beliefs living together. It seems fitting that such beauty should flow from harmony.