Porto to Coimbra

We left Porto about 8:30 on Friday morning.  Nina has decided that it is important to rotate seats on the bus.  So today she passed a chart around for us to mark which seat we were in.  We took a long drive to the Beiras area and the town of Aveiro.  Along the way we stopped in Costa de Nova for our bathroom break.  In this lovely little beach town all the houses of the fisherman are striped, mostly vertically.  Bright blues, greens, yellows, reds and even pick stand out against the white painted wood.  These homes are not stucco – fishermen are poor.   Ruth and I love the dogs in Europe.  They roam freely beside their masters and are so well behaved.  They run a little one way or the other as the people continue forward and they always come back without being called.  Here there was a particularly pretty hound who was so enjoying his beachside stroll.

In front of the houses before you would have to cross to the beach was a statue.  Ruth went to look at who it was.  The sidewalk was an open grating here and just as I said, “This is funky, do I want to walk on this?” --- up shot the fountains of dancing waters!  Ruth was the one who quickly danced and dodged her way to the safety of the other side!

Back on the bus all to soon we continued to Aveiro, the Venice of Portugal.  The canals were built in this to aid in the transportation of the harvested salt and fish.  The salt was used to preserve the fish and our guide insists it is less salty than others that are also harvested from the Atlantic Ocean.  The town suffered a loss to its river connection to the sea in the 1500’s and didn’t recover it until in the 19th century.  They still provided salt cod to the sailing ships but overland.

After our walk-about Ruth and I went and found the public (free) bathrooms and on the way chatted with Pedro.  Such a charming young student in this university town that we stopped to chat again and Ruth got us Americano cookies.  These very thin, very crispy, still hot from the iron treats were slightly sweet and were shared by all.

Onto the bus again to continue to Coimbra, a major university city.  First we stopped in Guarda.  Again a potty / lunch break with a short tour.  This time we visited the Se.  This simply means cathedral.  In this case the Cathedral of Guarda dedicated to St. Vincent.  The flying buttresses and gargoyles help define it as part of the Gothic era of construction.  There are 100  figures carved above the alter by Jean de Rouen that were used to tell the tales of Christ’s life to the illiterate peoples of the time.  Massive is the only word to describe gothic cathedrals.  The art work is beautiful but the real beauty of these buildings is the wonder of how on earth construction could have been done without the use of modern machinery.  Extreme heights and arched ceilings dependent on their keystones always amaze me.

The cold drizzle helped us to decide to pass up the climb to the top of the castle to look down on the church in favor of a hot cup of coffee and for me tea.  We split a giant Bismarck.  The filling looked delicious and was indeed a creamy custard.  But here that custard has no distinctive flavor. It is called Ova Moles.  A plain mix of egg yolk and sugar that was first given to new mothers to build up their strength. Ruth and I can get into long laughing spells building one joke on top of another so you can guess how this conversation went. 

This little stop gave us time to get to know Marion better.  She is a lovely mahogany haired lady of almost 80 years.  Her French accent belies her New Jersey lifestyle.  Her son, Tony, went up to the castle and did report back that it was windy, cold, and the view was not great today.  We look forward to spending more time with them.
We finally reached Coimbra. Nina told us it was the Friday night traffic that delayed us so we arrived at 7:30.  Ruth and I settled in and had our second sandwich of the day. I was able to write for awhile and took a nice hot, long bath and read for awhile. I broke my reading light.  Ruth likes a dark room at night but we will manage.

It was an interesting hotel.  Quite pretty but had the noisiest in room coffee maker I have ever used.  It rattled, hummed, and leaked all over the countertop.  It was a Nespresso and they had left espresso cups.  Teeny, tiny cups my tea bag did not even fit into!  Another challenge was the toilet seat.  Totally loose. I tightened the bolts but it continued to threaten to dump us to the ground.  The toilet paper had a metal cover that crashed mysteriously to the ground when Ruth was present.    Hmmmnnn.

Good night!