Friday, August 3 Approaching Spain, only 1 km to go

August 3, 2007

It is 7:00 PM now and we are sitting in our hotel room in Valenca. As we pulled into the hotel we saw a sign saying we were 1 km from Spain. It is warm here, so we went in search of lunch, where a surly waiter refused us help or an English menu so we ate the old stand-by, the only thing we can order in Portuguese- a melted ham and cheese sandwich. We hiked around for a bit in search of a grocery store in which to buy some water and soft drinks for our mini-fridge but the Portuguese hide their grocery stores as if they were precious gems. In the big cities the grocery stores are sometimes underground and sometimes in the center of a multi-floor building, in both cases with a slightly marked doorway/stairway leading to the goods. It is very interesting. If you don’t know the actual name to the store you are unlikely to find it from the small little sign that is indistinguishable from all other signs. I located the grocery in other cities by walking the opposite direction of people carrying grocery bags, figuring they wherever they were coming from was closer than where I was. It worked each time. Unfortunately in the heat of the afternoon I could not find anyone carrying a grocery bag. In any event, we did not find any store so we came back to our room unsupplied.

The train ride to Valenca was through beautiful countryside. The train itself was old and uncomfortable, and although the conductor guarded the exclusivity of first class by removing several interlopers, it was difficult to tell what exactly our first class train passes bought us that was not available in the exactly the same looking car called second class. But, the countryside was beautiful and the train was air conditioned. We saw miles of beaches, some small forests and lots of hilly farm land. We spied goats munching the grass on the hillside and grapes and corn growing everywhere. The corn fields are neat rows of vibrant green, while the grapes seem to be the lacy, green and red border around the corn, like a ruffle around the end of a pillow. We saw grapes in long curving strips, in circles around corn fields, in decorative shading around homes, but rarely in rows like a crop. Occasionally we would see a vegetable garden although those vegetables don’t seem to make it to the restaurants.

Our hotel is outside the walled city, and given the heat of the day we did not explore the walled city yet, but tomorrow we should have a report. We may make it over there tonight, but we definitely will in the morning. We have heard from Caitie by e-mail and hope to reach her by phone in the next few days. We are so excited about meeting up with her soon.

Adios, Deanne

Back from dinner. The walled town is charming, although the entrance is a narrow little one lane hole through the wall with a red and green light system around the blind corners to direct the traffic through the hole without head-on collisions. It was a little harrowing to figure out how pedestrians enter into the mix of one way traffic, but we survived to tell the story. It seems that the town closes up around dinner time when the day tourists have left but we found a charming restaurant and had a great dinner of pork filets (Mike) and shellfish rice (me). We also had a wonderful salad; vegetables that we both enjoyed. As we were walking back through the quiet little walled city we heard the most heavenly women’s choir. We never tracked down the source of the music, but it was wonderful and combined with the medieval setting, was a great ending to the day.