Up until recently, the grapes that made the port wines were actually stomped by human feet. This labor intensive process was usually accompanied by accordion and drum playing to keep the beat. Now that machines have perfected the process, only the most exclusive ports are still made with feet.
Veronica didn’t stomp on any grapes, but she did have dirty feet that needed cleaning. While she usually refers to a bidet as a “butt washer,” that didn’t stop her from using it as a foot washer.
We only visited one museum in Portugal, which was a photography museum housed in an old prison. While we were disappointed in the low number of photos actually displayed, we enjoyed the architecture and the display of cameras.
We had several fun dining experiences in Porto, including eating dinner at this riverfront restaurant (the girls especially liked the playground next door), having lunch at a commune-style vegetarian restaurant and picnicking twice at a park overlooking the city.
Of course, no trip to Porto would be complete without a visit to the port wine cellars. The grapes are grown in the interior of the country, then brandy is added to stop the fermentation process. The fortified wine is then brought to Porto, hence the name Port, where it ages in oak vats (these giant ones at Graham’s hold 71,000 liters each!) Of course, we learn slowly, so we needed to tour several of the port cellars and try many ports to feel properly educated. Our favorite was the private tour we received at Graham’s followed by a fantastic view while tasting.
Not only do the wine cellars provide great entertainment and liquid nourishment, but their signs add some sparkle to photos after dark.
After another mad dash to the train station (we would have missed it if not for a very nice lady that led us to a taxi and interpreted for us), we hopped on a high-speed train and headed north to Porto. We stayed in the historic city center and spent much of the three days exploring the ancient alleys and churches, some of which were quite ornate with gold from Brazil. It was an especially colorful city as laundry was hung from windows everywhere.
On our last day in Lisbon, I took the girls to the Lisbon Oceanarium, which is Europe’s largest aquarium. It was built on a pier over water and is impressive both inside and out. Our favorite fish was this giant sunfish that can grow up to 11 feet long and 2,200 pounds. We met Jimmy in the afternoon and headed to the coastal town of Cascais in search of the Mouth of Hell, an ocean blowhole. Unfortunately, it was low tide so there was no blowing. Fortunately, there was a yummy bakery nearby, where we filled our bellies enough to allow us the time to find the perfect seafood restaurant for dinner.
We spent a day in downtown Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Since my sense of direction isn’t as good as Jimmy’s, I stopped by a tourist office to plot out a plan of where to visit instead of just aimlessly wandering. We started with going up 105 feet in an elevator built in 1900 that connects the lower part of town with the higher. We had OJ’s at the cafe at the top with the view above. We then visited those ruins, which are of a 14th century church damaged during the earthquake of 1755 and now house a small archaeological museum. After a sushi lunch, we visited Castelo de Sao Jorge, which was completely rebuilt in 1938. The highlight there was the camera obscura, where we were taken on a panoramic tour of the city while standing in a darkened room under a periscope.
The bus ride to Sintra was quite an adventure as we zoomed up the hills narrowly missing cars around every corner. After much debate (and a few tantrums), we found a restaurant on a terrace overlooking the main palace for lunch. Afterwards, we visited the 8th century Moorish Castle and the Palace of Pena from 1850. Both offered great views of the area and lots of sunshine.
After spending two hours on the runway in Paris, we finally made our way to Lisbon, Portugal, where we took this photo in the airport. We stayed in a coastal town about 30 minutes outside of the capital, where Jimmy would be working for three days while us girls played.
It was too cold to go in the water, but we had dinner our first night at the beach. This photo was taken the next day as we journeyed to a historic town and had to wait for a bus at this beautiful spot. After all those gray Holland days, the girls were so shocked by the bright sunlight that I had to buy them shades. Luckily it was warm enough the rest of the week to leave the coats at the hotel. It was great to feel the sun on our skin for the first time in over 6 months.
Our overnight trip to Paris started with a mad dash to the TGV station in Vendome. We’d allowed plenty of time to get there, but the streets were closed for a road race. It was hard to get mad since we’ve blocked roads during races ourselves, but we didn’t want to miss our train since there wasn’t another for 5 hours. So James got aggressive and zoomed around some cars. Ann-Pier, the Chateau caretaker, then calmed down the irate police officers and got us flagged through. We made our train with a whopping 2 minutes to spare. We had just a few waking hours in Paris. We went to the Musee L’Orangerie to see Monet’s water lilies, which are beautifully displayed in two round galleries. Mother Nature helped us chose a restaurant for dinner--when it started raining, we ducked into the first place we saw, which luckily had pretty good food. We ended the night with a nice walk back to the hotel past Notre Dame.
Unlike past visits to the Chateau, we took very few photos this time. The weather was cold much of the week, but that didn’t stop the kids from playing outside daily. As usual, we rarely saw them other than at meal times. We played a little extreme bocce and went on several long walks during which we saw a hare, a dozen deer and a pheasant all on the Chateau grounds. We were thrilled that Sally, John, David and Andrew were able to join us for an entire week. Ashlynn was excited to have her classmate Ella along and her parents Anno and Refiya were a great addition to our group.
During my 1st visit to the Chateau in 1998, Jimmy enjoyed scaring me as he led me around the attic, basement and clock tower with just the light of a candelabra, and the Midnight Tour was born. His best was in 2005 during his 40th birthday celebration since he had Carolyn Sparano as his sidekick and lots of unsuspecting victims. Usually he does a separate tour for the kids, but this year’s was for all ages so it couldn’t be as creepy. For comedy relief, a few friendly ghosts popped up in a dark room.
There’s no doubt that my favorite part of the ZooParc is the flying bird show. For 30 minutes, birds soar not only across the stage, which happens to be a large pool of water for the seals that perform afterwards, but also over our heads onto perches at the top of the stands. While the first part of the show with the falcons and hawks is similar to shows we’ve seen in the US, we were truly shocked the first time a turkey vulture and condor flew straight over our heads. Good thing we remembered to duck!
Who would have guessed we’d have to go to France to see a trained American Bald Eagle for the first time? While it didn’t fly over our heads, it was majestic as it flew over the field behind the stadium and over the pool, then caught a fish the trainer threw in the air.
We’d last visited ZooParc de Beauval in 2005 and have anxiously waited to be able to share the experience of this awesome zoo with Andrew, David and Ella. Although I took a lot of photos of the white tigers and other exotic animals, you’re stuck looking at photos of our favorite animals above.
The kids spent an extra long time with the orangutans. It was quite humorous when they pulled out the map of the zoo and shared it with the apes. We couldn’t help but think that this might be the final piece that they needed to finally plan their escape--the apes that is, not the kids.
Amazingly, we had three birthdays to celebrate in a row while we were at the Chateau--Sally’s, Samantha’s and Jimmy’s. Sally surprised us by having this amazing cake made at her favorite bakery in Holland and hauling it 500 miles. We celebrated Jimmy’s birthday with a group dinner at the cave restaurant in Lavardin, where the owner surprised him with a cake and champagne.
