Our overnight stay in Coimbra was settling into our hotel, dinner buffet style, then to bed, arriving so late into our hotels does not allow for much sight seeing. Next morning we did our city tour, we visited the university and walked down the cobbled pathways to the bottom of the hill, not a great deal to see in Coimbra.
What is wonderful about Portugal, is all the amazing tiles featured on buildings.
Statues throughout the streets of Coimbra.
More wonderful tile pictures.
We departed for Lisbon, stopped at Batalha for wine tasting. We sampled two ports and two dessert wines. I really enjoyed the almond liquor.
After our wine sampling we travelled to Fatima for lunch and to visit the Cathederal. Most of the Cathederal was closed due to restoration works.
Resting place of the three shepherds in Fatima
There were amazing amount of people in the is holy place, a lot of people were seen doing penance by crawling on their knees, a very long distance to Fatima, for repentice of their sins.
Candles could be purchased and just thrown into a fire pit, there was a long line of people waiting to place their candles.
People doing penance had quite a distance to crawl, must have sinned badly.
After Our Fatima visit, we continued onto Lisbon, arriving at 5.30 pm, after 1 hours rest we all got ready to go to our Fado night.
Fado is traditional in portugese, very sad poems that are sung, short and hard to understand when you do not speak portugese. An enjoyable night was had by all.
Luso,the restaurant where the Fado show was held.
The next day we did an optional tour to Cascais, a seaside resort town where we had lunch and sampled the sardines....delicious.
After lunch onto Sintra, what a gorgeous spot, on top of a mountain, which reminded me of Sorrento without the sea. We visited the royal palace, what an amazing place. I need to do a separate blog about the royal palace due to the most amazing painted ceilings and 18th century Chinese tureens.
In love with the tiled street signs.
That evening we met Teresa, a friend that we met 2 years ago in South America, we spent an enjoyable few hours together, so wonderful to explore the city of Lisbon with a local.
Lisbon has seven hills and to get to the top of these hills, elevators and funiculars are used.
View over looking Lisbon.
Gorgeous tiled buildings in Lisbon
A tour of the city revealed lots of monuments, Lisbon is a great city to visit.
This monument of discovery and Christopher Columbus travels.
This bronze statue is of a famous portugese writer.
The fort on the Tagus river.
We also visited the Cathederal in Lison,,starting to become ABC (another bloody church).
Lison or Lisboa as the portugese like to call it has the most amazing aqueduct going over the city, no longer in use, last used in 1963.
This concludes our visit to Portugual, we stopped at a small village called Beja for lunch and then renters Spain, more to come with our Spain adventures.
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