(Thanks to the Grateful Dead for the title of this post and this is part one of ?)
If you read this blog regularly you know I do not post
personal info or talk about my life very much, yet this time I guess I need to
share.
The better half and I just got back from the wildest and probably
overly ambitious trip we have ever taken.
Originally and if we could have stuck to the original dream
we should have, but life doesn’t always work out the way you want. And yes
going back to originally I wanted to drive from Lisbon Portugal to Rome (one
way) and take a month or two. That would have been an ambitious trip, but
compared to what we did time wise would have been much better. Due to all the
constraints of life we went from Lisbon to Rome and back in three weeks. Just
not enough time to even begin to do all we wanted.
So where do I start. Well first a piece of advice, because
as you all know us old people need to give advice all the time.
If you do drive around Europe, park your car at the hotel
when staying in major cities and use the public transportation system. Just do
it. We did and except for thirty minutes worked out well for us. Yes it takes
some getting use to the system in each town, but trying to drive in cities that
are hundreds if not thousands of years old, their roads are just not up to
American drivers.
Just getting out of one hotel in one city was impossible the
way the GPS system we were using asked us to do. Literally I got to one turn
and the car couldn’t make the turn. It was just too narrow. The system kept
saying take the turn and go so many meters to the next turn. And no, we even
had a smaller car and still it was not happening. I had to back up hundreds of
meters to get back to an intersection I could turn. Of course the GPS system we
were using was having a heart attack until it figured out how to re route us.
So if you drive plan ahead and make sure your hotel has
parking and leave the car. Do the rest on foot and Metros. I promise you will be better off. And if us “old
people” can walk 20,000 plus steps some days so can you.
So what happened, well everything. We had great tours. We
were late for tours and lost the money. We got lucky and rescheduled tours. And
we just walked around the cities or the small towns we visited. One of the
reasons I wanted to drive was to see small towns along the way. And we did, but
not as much as I would have liked.
Lisbon is wonderful, the people are nice and there is way
too much to do for staying three days. Especially since we took a day trip to
Fatima from Lisbon. Our driver was outstanding. He took us to the places you are
supposed to go, plus a few other out of the way or not the main area sights. We
spent the entire day and could go back. We attended a Mass and almost a second
one, but it was time to go back to Lisbon since it was getting late. On the way
back our tour guide was so great he even stopped off at a grocery store for us
so we could get some items for our travels to come.
And then the first hiccup happened which caused all the
rest. We left something at the hotel in Lisbon and didn’t realize it until we
were a couple of hours down the road. So by the time we got back to the hotel
in Lisbon and then back on the road we were 3-4 hours behind our schedule.
This caused us to have to stop earlier than planned. Which hurt
our timing, but also turned out to be one of the best let’s stop here and see
what is going on moments of the trip. We got to Salamanca Spain around 8 or 9
at night. And by the time we settled in it was dark, yet we decided to at least
go get a drink of wine or something. We found out we were near the University
there. We walked and ate snacks at a local restaurant. We had a great time and
went to bed real late. In the morning we went to a daily Mass at the Cathedral
and it was a joy. We explored the Cathedral for hours after Mass and while we
were doing that a Wedding Mass was taking place. It was wonderful to walk
through and look at all the art work while hearing, even though in Spanish,
someone getting married. We toured the city some more afterwards, bought three
boxes of cookies from the Nuns nearby that lasted us the whole trip. (each box
was a different variety and also very good)
And here we were leaving Salamanca at five so now we are
really behind, but enjoyed every minute while there.
Stayed somewhere on the road, can’t even remember the town,
but were still in Spain and needed to get going since we needed to be in Rome
in two days.
So we get to France and then I hadn’t realized it but the
route to get to Rome had us passing near Lourdes. So yes we made the stop and
spend two or so hours there. Which of course is not enough, people are mad at
me because I didn’t get Holy Water from there, but it was already late and we
were way behind schedule now. So we left after lunch there at around 4-5pm. We
barely made Montpellier which we only saw the hotel since we know had to drive
1000 kilometers in one day.
We got to Rome at four in the morning due to extensive construction
delays in France and Italy. Wasn’t good look because the lobby lights looked
turned off and there was a homeless person hanging out front. The better half
was a bit worried. We called from our car and luckily they answered right away
and got us squared away.
Okay I need to stop for a minute. First driving through the
various countries and landscapes cannot be described by a few words, but it
must be said we covered driving through some dry areas, hills with extensive
amounts of greenery, even the Pyrenees and more. We touch vistas off and on of
the Mediterranean Sea as we got close to Italy and through the northern part of
Italy. The roads were crazy and unfortunately this was where the traffic was
the worse.
Yet at times we could glance outward and look down the
valleys and hillsides and see the deep blue of the water and on the other side
were the tops of the hills covered with deep green vegetation. All dotted with houses,
villages, towns and cities up and down the hills to the sea.
Surprisingly I do not journal and probably should to enhance
my writing. I could have used this to give you a better picture of the drive
all throughout our journey. The views were breathtaking almost everywhere we went,
but going from South France to Italy was definitely amazing. The hills just
raced down to the Sea and buildings etc were magnificently placed in some quite
precarious looking situations in some areas. Of course there was agriculture in
some of this, but mainly it was the hills and the drop offs to the Sea that caught
your attention.
And I haven’t even begun to talk about the food yet. I need
to take a break at this point so I am
going to make this part one of a few posts about our trip. I know reading blogs
aren’t meant for long diatribes on anything without losing your audience.
I will say this and I do not know why, but there are an
inordinate amount of pizzerias in Portugal than I would have imagined beforehand.
I do not if it is because of tourism or the Portuguese just love pizza and
Italian food, either way I was surprised at how many I saw. This includes Pizzerias
in Lisbon, some in Fatima and in the Algarve region. We ate at a few since we
were in Portugal twice and all were good. One of them and apparently a chain or
something was off the main plaza in Lisbon that overlooks the river there and
was wonderful. I cannot remember anything right now, but if you are by the Plaza
look to the left side when facing the river, you should find it. And yes we
also ate Portuguese food. We tried very hard to eat local, always asking the
hotel people or store clerks etc what were good local spots. Some turned out
well, some left us thinking twice about what we ate. And one more point about
the food that I will get back to is we ate breakfast pretty much at all the
hotels we stayed. Yes they all had some type of breakfast buffet that was very
similar in all four countries. Some minor differences due to region, but very
minor. More to come.
Okay, will continue to work on this. I still have my normal
madness I want to blog about, yet being away from the Trump administration for
a few weeks was wonderful. We are too mad in this country right now and to go somewhere
where people are living normal lives for awhile was a wonderful break. Also a
day at the beach didn’t hurt either, but that is for later.
Cheers
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