En route to Seville

Back into Spain today and into Andalusia. It was grey and drizzling today as we drove through the dry rolling plains of the Alentejo with its woodlands of cork and olive trees. Cork trees are harvested every 10 years and live for approx 200 years. Cork is an important product from Portugal and is used for corks, handicrafts ( I have seen cork shoes and handbags) and for floors. We drove through villages of little white-washed houses with brightly-coloured window and door surrounds.When we crossed back into Spain and Andalusia it became hillier , still the cork and olive trees, but with more farming - quite barren with stone walls, horses, sheep, goats and also the black Iberian pigs which eat acorns and this apparently gives their meat a special flavor.
Festivals here include bull fights, bull running in Pamplona and other centres and 'la tomatina' on August 31st, which is the throwing of tomatoes in Valencia.
We are staying in a very posh hotel in Seville called Macarena. There are lovely old buildings and the old city wall are right outside. Tonight we went to a tapas dinner and flamenco show. The flamenco dancing was amazing and we all yelled 'Ole' until we were hoarse!

Cascais and Sintra

This afternoon we drove west down the coast to the charming town of Cascais. It was just a fishing village until 1870, since when it has become a fashionable town for the rich and royalty. Cascais and Estoril were also a place of escape for those fleeing the Nazis during WW2 and the place of exile for several European kings. Margaret and I had a superb fish kebab lunch and the waiter chatted us up and shouted us a port after our meal! Ian Fleming based his Casino Royale on the casino in Estoril.
Then we went inland to Sintra where we visited the National Palace, dating from the late Middle Ages as one of two summer palaces for royalty and we had to climb up and down 100 steps! The palace had beautiful imported Moorish and blue Portuguese tiles. In 1992 the Sintra palace was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO. Sintra was a very pretty hill town, which inspired Byron and Hans Christian Anderson.I had hoped to go to the Gulbenkian Museum but were we're too late getting back to Lisbon after a very busy day. To Seville tomorrow.

Lisbon

Portugal became a republic in 1910 and has a population of 10.5 million, of which 700,000 live in Lisbon.The Tagus River runs through Lisbon. It was originally settled by the Romans and then the Arabs. It was an important cosmopolitan trading post until an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 1755 destroyed much of Lisbon , so it doesn't have the beautiful old buildings like Madrid. Many of the buildings are pastel coloured. It does, however, have the most beautiful main street called Liberty Avenue, which is a tree- lined boulevard not unlike the Champs Élysées. Also all of the streets are paved in patterns in limestone and basalt as in Coimbra. The downtown area -the Maquis of Pombal Square, the Restoration Square and Rossio Square were lovely and the hill suburbs are linked by funicular. The Castle of St George on the hill above was built in the 16th century. There are two huge bridges joining both sides of the Tagus River - the April 25th and Vasco da Gama Bridges.We also went to Belem to see the Belem Tower, an old fortress , the Discoveries Monument dedicated to Portuguese discoverers and Henry the Navigator and the Geronimus Monastery.The latter was a huge Gothic cathedral which wasn't destroyed in the earthquake. The huge tombs of Vasco da Gama and the poet are Luis de Camões....( the Portuguese Shakespeare) were here. The Order of Christ ( former Templars) funded many of the famous Portuguese voyages and subsequent maritime expansion. Their Red Cross was on the sailing ships' sails. The photo of the reddish building with the turret is of Lisbon's bull ring which is also used as a concert hall. Some of our group went to a bull fight tonight. It started at 10pm, so needless to say, Margaret and I didn't go!

Coimbra, Batalha & Fatima

Coimbra is another lovely old university city on the Mondego River with the two Santa Clara monasteries, old and new. It is built on a hill with the university and the cathedral high above the city. I spent the whole morning up at the most beautiful university I have ever seen. It dates back to 1288 and the students all wear gowns. The magnificent library is recognized as one of the most sumptuous in the world. It was built between 1717 and 1728 and the internal walls are floor to ceiling bookcases decorated with Chinese motifs and beautiful wooden inlaid tables. The chapel and salon for concerts were also lovely.It was a very steep climb up to the university on cobbled streets, which are made by hand with each stone sunk into sand and tapped in individually. Amazing!(see photo)
Our next stop was at the beautiful Gothic monastery at Batalha, which was built in limestone at the end of the 1300s as a Domincan abbey.It was enormous and the unfinished chapel had special ornate carving called 'manuelino'. Many famous Portuguese are buried here eg Henry the Navigator, John the First and Philip of Lancaster.Our lunch stop was at the famous Sanctuary of Fatima.This is famous for the story of 3 illiterate children in 1917 looking after sheep who witnessed the apparition of Fatima and the subsequent miracles. Pope John Paul 2 was a frequent visitor here. The three attractions here were the Chapel of the Apparitions, the old basilica with the tombs of the 3 children and the modern basilica.We saw pilgrims going on their knees down a long marble path with their rosaries doing penance.Our final stop was to a bodega for a wine and port tasting. At night we went out to a typical Portuguese dinner and the entertainment was Fado singing and folk dancing.

Avila & Salamanca

We left early today to travel through rather pretty hilly country Into Castilla Y Leon, which was drier with cattle, wheat and stone walls. Our first stop was Avila, which was a lovely old medieval fortified city with well- preserved city walls with 88 turrets. It has been the residence of nobles and is famous as the birth place of St Theresa in the 16th century. She started the first barefoot Carmelite community, a strict religious community. The setting was stunning, but I personally preferred Toledo.
Then we travelled to Salamanca across 'las vegas' (the plains)which had red soil and were heavily cultivated with wheat and corn. Salamanca was a beautiful city, with most of the buildings an attractive golden stone. It has one of the oldest universities of Europe, especially for medicine, so there were students everywhere. What a magnificent campus with a very ornate facade and cloister. The huge cathedral, dating back to the 11th century was also lovely. The Plaza Major, the cathedral and the baroque facade of the university were special sites. Students are reputed to have good luck if they can find a statue of a skull with a frog on its forehead!
Then it was on into Portugal, which became independent from Spain in the 1130s. Portugal became rich as a country in the 16th century through its explorers such as Vasco da Gama and Marco Polo. The Portuguese Empire only extended from the Iberian Peninsula in the 19th century to places such as Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia, Macau and Brazil.Portugal had a dictator until 1976, since when it has been a democracy with a president and a prime minister.
The Portuguese landscape was hillier, rockier and more forested than Spain, mostly pines and eucalyptus. It was a very long day, as we left at 8am and didn't get to until after 7 pm.

Madrid two

After all morning in Toledo, we only had time for a snatched lunch, after which we did a bus tour around Madrid. It was similar to our trip yesterday, but this time in sunshine. This huge city has a population of more than 4 million and is the epicentre for all roads crossing Spain, with many immigrants coming from Romania, Morocco, Ecuador and Colombia. Apparently Romanian pickpockets are a huge problem - they are often well dressed young girls or businessmen in suits and ties! One of our tour group of 41 was jostled yesterday! The Prado area has 3 beautiful fountains, dedicated to Neptune, Apollo and Sybille; the neo-classical Prado and Sophia museums , the most famous Spanish artists being Picasso, Dali and Velazquez. The modern Atocha train station is amazing and almost a gallery itself.In the posh Salamanca district it apparently costs 4-5 million euros to buy an apartment here! No problem? Las Ventas Bull ring was magnificent and can hold 23,000, with bull fights every Sunday from May to October(see photo). There are very few high buildings in the city , which is apparently also built over a hidden river. The Real Madrid soccer stadium can hold 85,000.We saw throngs going to a soccer match last night. Madrid has lots of lovely trees and boulevards which are important for stemming pollution, which is apparently a huge problem in Madrid. The beautiful botanic gardens have over 15,000 trees.Margaret and I decided to give the museums a miss and came back to the hotel for a quiet sangria, as we have a long day tomorrow. We have to get up at 6.30 and we will travel to Salamanca, near where Wellington routed Napoleon's army in 1812, ending up in Coimbra in Portugal.