Portugal

There are people in this world who were not meant to tan. Exposure to the sun causes redness and perhaps freckles and generally peeling skin. However in Portugal everyone tans. You have no choice. The sun is too hot and too present and while you may burn and freckle and peel you will also tan. Even if it is the first time since grade school that you have been tan. And you will do it within the course of a weekend without putting any effort into it whatsoever. Hee! I have a tan!

Portugal is lovely. Bucelas was rural and lovely and quite hot and a joy to be in while with a smallish group of friends old and new. Lisboa is a charming city with reasonably priced taxis and excellent hotels and restaurants and amazing wine. It is also the sort of city one can walk around in and get entirely lost in before finding a landmark that corresponds to a map. I recommend not wearing new sandals when getting lost and wandering around Lisboa for six hours. The blisters will be spectacular. It is a very good way to see a great deal of the city as well as discover tiny pastry shops in seedy neighborhoods that speak no English and serve truly amazing pastry. I also recommend getting lost with company. Having tried both I assure you that company makes the whole thing much more entertaining. It also makes things much less unnerving when accidentally wandering through a more than usually unfortunate neighborhood. The experience of walking down a street and having men start to make this ‘ssst ssst ssst’ noise, which seemed to draw more men out to the street from random alleys and doorways to make it as well, would have been more than a bit intimidating if alone. As it was we stepped up the pace and got out of there as quickly as possible.

Having had several unguided tours of Lisboa (such a better term than saying ‘repeatedly getting lost’) I feel as though I’ve seen rather more of it than any other major city in Europe at this point. Even the cities I’ve had guided tours of. Vienna for instance where I was promised the best tour of Vienna ever, I’m fairly sure that I’ve seen less of. It was however the most interesting interpretation of what ‘the best tour ever’ contains. While there must be many schools of thought on what comprises a really good tour, rarely have I seen it consist of pointing out a particularly disliked drug store (because it’s pink) at every possible point. Conversations like this occurred:

“Oh look another pink store.”
Me pointing across the street to a very old and interesting looking clock. “Yeah, what is that?”
“Oh that’s a really famous clock. People come from all around to see it. I think it does something at noon.”

Or this:
Pointing to an office building across St. Stephens square which had menorahs in the second floor windows “That’s the Jewish welcome center”
Me, pointing to the MASSIVE gothic cathedral looming above us no more than thirty feet to the left “Cool. What is that building?”
“Oh! Yeah, that’s St. Stephens Cathedral.”

The tour also included much exposure to turbo punch which is mulled wine with schnapps and tastes ridiculously good. There were a few monuments that were intentionally viewed and explained and some that weren’t viewed but still explained; such as the miniature bronze replica of the old part of Vienna. It was, at the time, covered in some kind of shelter to protect it from the elements I was told. As the explanation went on to tell about the time that a friend had gotten really drunk and tried to jump over it and instead landed face first on top of all the tiny spiky bronze roofs and towers and had to be taken to the hospital, I can only think that the structure it was locked behind was also to protect it from the drunk and the stupid.

I have never before had so much to drink, breathed so much second hand smoke or felt so unbelievably ill and off balance because of these things. I have also rarely had such a good time. So while it probably isn’t ever going win the title of ‘best tour of Vienna ever’ it is without question the best tour of Vienna I’ve ever had.