Enjoying this! I'm a big fan of Portugal.

Following/floating along. Glad you have made it this far. Courage for the next installments. If you were drinking, you could have a Porto tonic for inspiration.

Day 9: DOURO VALLEY, CONTINUED – THEN VISEU:

We wanted to repeat one of our best experiences of the previous trip: the train ride from Pinhao to Pocinho and back. The train follows the river closely and at times, is almost on the riverbank and level with the fast-flowing waters. It remains a spectacular trip, even on a cloudy day.

Our late lunch at Toca di Riposa, a small, plain village café that has garnered a large fan base, was a bit disappointing.

They do serve lovely, unfussy food (I had grilled octopus) in which the ingredients are the star element. The service, though well-meaning, was negligent – we sat unattended for long periods in the nearly empty restaurant – and not especially deft.

The restaurant must be a goldmine for the owners, though one wonders for how long: A carafe of what appeared to be tap water cost 3E50. A glass of their house wine was 10 E – an unheard-of price in rural Portugal, I should think.

Late in the afternoon, we took the motorway to pretty, quiet, unpretentious Viseu, which we knew from last year. We had a three-night booking at the grand, mammoth, well-renovated Pousada.

Too full to eat dinner, we wandered around the steep, granite-built centre, pausing to admire the Misericordia and the cathedral on the handsome main square. Then to bed.

April 16-18 – Pousada de Viseu, Viseu:

http://www.pousadas.pt/historic-hote...ages/home.aspx

We stayed in one historic pousada last year and visited a couple of others, so I knew the general model:

A historic building or a building in an especially attractive setting;
Grand public spaces, including perhaps a formal garden;
Spacious rooms, sometimes with rather dated décor;
Gracious, old fashioned, formal service; and
A mediocre restaurant serving overly “fancy” food.

Sleep there, dine out.

This huge, un-cozy property, a former city hospital totally re-designed and rebuilt by a distinguished architect, fits right into that mould.

Pousadas offer a range of discounts, including an automatic discount for over-55s. In January, they may offer some very significant discounts for winter and spring bookings.

I booked three nights in a suite on this year’s January sale and paid an incredibly low 83 Euros/ night with breakfast.

My Trip Advisor review reads:

“On arrival, we were given our choice of a duplex or one-floor suite. We chose the latter. It was huge - probably 750 sq feet plus 100+ sq feet of bathroom.

"Spotlessly clean, well equipped. Nice but tiny balconette. The suite's décor was perhaps a bit austere, like everything in this gargantuan granite fortress.

"But the welcoming gift of fruit with a handwritten note from the management made the place seem home-like and warm.

"Breakfast the next day was abundant and of good quality. [….] Most notable: the youthful, enthusiastic, polite and helpful staff at the front desk.

"My only critical comment: the cavernous central lounge, converted from an open courtyard, magnifies every sound. On evenings when there is music in the lounge, the sound can be heard in the rooms that open off that space.”

Ted...your breezy, informative reports are always pleasureable reading. I especially enjoy reading of places I've been before..sort of nostalgic, with the passing of my #1 navigator, wife Roz.. Portugal qualifies for the cliche'..."one of Europes best kept secrets." Waiting for the rest, Ted.
stu

Glad to read of your trip which was very different from ours in Iberia last October. We had less of Portugal, wonderful sites in Andalucia (see report). We were in a group and being older than you I did drag behind. But also years ago we spent study weeks in Salamanca and have always loved this old university city.

Salamanca, we did see the Coco Chanel exhibition at the Casa Lis. I am not sure it would have changed your impression. The best part of this rather odd museum is the view from the street in the back, the deco windows are fantastic.

Thanks for the kind words and the personal reminiscences from past trips.

I need to wrap this up shortly but I'm at the lake with only an Android - not the best for posting.

I'm going to do Lisbon and Barcelona in a very summary form. Lots has been written here about both places and I haven't much new to add.

Deadline for wrapping this up will be Wednesday, 4 days from now, when I head to London. I am far from ready.

Sorry to hear of your loss, Stu. Couples that travel well together and amplify each other's pleasure are special couples, I find.

Reading along to enjoy your writing and your trip.

I totally agree about (most) pousadas: "sleep there, dine out." Not sure why that happens, but we found it quite often to be true.

Have enjoyed your photos on Facebook, now enjoying this report!

Thanks, Taconictraveler. I will try to get this finished in the next couple of days. I'm back at the lake after yesterday's wedding in the city, so posting via Android is a challenge.

Day 10: VISEU, CONTINUED:

Day trip to Coimbra, which we’d been unable to visit last year. In principle, a drive of less than an hour from Viseu but slower because of heavy logging trucks and road repairs.

We parked at river-level, then climbed and climbed to get to the University – on a map, it looked practically adjacent to where we parked but it was a huge vertical distance.

You pick up your tickets at the University bookshop just outside the grand portico to this ancient royal-palace-cum- public institution.

There was no 11 AM English tour, contrary to what we expected.

A graduation ceremony was underway and we saw the students, male and female, in their capes.

The King John library (Biblioteca Joanina) is the star attraction here: on a timed ticket, you have 20 or 30 minutes to visit three huge rooms of Baroque carving, with tens of thousands of books and a resident colony of bats to keep down the book-devouring insects.

Next we visited the austere Se velha (the old cathedral) and its cloister. If anyone in official-looking gear asks to photograph you “for a record of our city’s visitors”, I suggest you decline. You’ll be asked to pay for the photo when you exit the cathedral.

Our final stops: First, the rather lacklustre Santa Casa da Misericordia. It was notable mostly for the view from its belltower and the long conversation we had with the English-speaking guard, a man who’d never had the education he wished he’d had. His computer-engineer son has been offered a job with Google in Seattle – should he accept it? And would he ever come back to Portugal? We debated at length.

Next, we saw the azulejo-filled Igreja de Santa Cruz (church of the Holy Cross) and its monastery, with its magical, neglected cloister, then the austere Romanesque church of Santiago, a place consecrated to silence and prayer, hence neglected by tourists.

We were just too sated to visit other key sights on my list: The old convent of Santa Clara and the Machado de Castro museum.

Calling it a day, we decided to drive home by back roads, through the vicinity of Bussaco. As is often the case in Portugal, the scenic route wasn’t worth it: slow roads, too much local traffic and the constant risk of getting lost.
We resolved to stick to highways from here on, for our major trips.

Dinner at tiny, lively Tasquinha da Se (at Rua Augusto Hilario 60. Telephone: (35) 1 964209802) was a great success.

We ordered a number of small dishes and were overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of what arrived at our table. At the end of the evening, we thought there was a mistake in the bill. But no, we were not undercharged – that really was the price.

Day 11: VISEU, CONTINUED:

On our final day in rural surroundings, we visited the Serra de Estrela national park, SE of Viseu. One of the most dramatic landscapes I’ve ever seen – and we were up close and personal, racing up granite mountainsides… driving on the edge of chasms… pulling over every 10 minutes to savour the panorama spread before us.

Throughout the day, the sky would first clear, producing brilliant light effects, then 20 minutes later darken again with menacing cloud. At the highest elevations, we even had a bit of snow, whipped into a fury by what felt like gale-force winds.

We entered this mountainous landscape at Seia. It was already blustery, with powerful winds driving thick clouds over our heads.

Despite the grey skies, we had magnificent views down the escarpment to distant civilization. Scrubby vegetation covered an undulating green plateau dotted with huge boulders, some of them balanced one atop another. Very “Wuthering Heights”.

Shortly past the village of Sabugeiro, we were stopped by a policeman, who explained the road to Torre was closed for a bike race. A tiny road, barely more than a cart track, took us back to Seia, where we started again – this time toward Manteigas.

Here, we descended hairpin turns to the town, then launched out along the river valley in the direction of Torre. We constantly had to slow down or move to the shoulder as police vans and cars - loaded with cyclists and pointlessly flashing their hazard lights – raced toward us.

Torre was the climax of our trip: elevation 2000 metres. Jagged peaks surrounded us. Up close were weird cones and towers of rock, sculptural in their beauty. Brilliant sun alternated with fog (we were at or above cloud level) and a sharp, driving snowfall.

We were on such an adrenaline high that we couldn’t go home: we headed down (via Covilha) to the picturesque hillside village of Belmonte, where I toured the ruined castle and we wandered around a mysterious square Roman building, roofless yet grand, that stands in open fields outside the town.

By the motorway, we headed home to Viseu.

Dinner at the Tasquinha da Se – another very good meal at a very reasonable price.

Days 12, 13, 14: LISBON:

On Sunday morning, we headed off by motorway to Lisbon airport, where we dropped off the car and caught the subway into the city centre.

Alighting at Baixa-Chiado station, we reached our rental apartment in five minutes – where we waited 20 minutes for the rental agent to arrive for our 1 PM rendezvous. Alex turned out to be a tall, good looking, androgynous youth. His manner was so pleasant and so solicitous (and the apartment was so spacious and comfortable) that I quickly got over my irritation at being kept waiting.

Lisbon is a place that charms and disappoints in equal measure. I have little to add to what has already been said about this beautifully sited, run-down and grimy yet much-loved city.

Accordingly, I won’t attempt a day-by-day account of what we did there. In any event, much of our time was spent sauntering along the main avenues, scaling the tiny vertical alleyways of Alfama and sitting in cafés and parks.

Instead, I’ll focus on a couple of highlights:

The Gulbenkian museum: A diverse and eccentric collection, formed by “Mr Five-Percent”, the middle-eastern oil broker Calouste Gulbenkian. I had the feeling he had said “Get me one of each” of the works of the major European painters, from the Renaissance onward.

It’s a prestige collection, rather than a connoisseur’s collection. Of these, the Impressionist works were the most appealing to me. The most impressive part of the collection, though, was the works of the French glass artist and jeweller Lalique – prodigious works of art in miniature scale.

The National Azulejo Museum: This was the one site we were committed to re-visiting, as it was one of the most memorable features of our previous visit, 12 months earlier.

The idea of covering walls with tiles came from the Moors and the Portuguese word for these tiles, “azulejo”, actually comes from the Arabic word for a small, polished stone. From the 16th century onward, Portugal was Europe’s leading producer of decorative wall tiles and azulejos are an essential decorative element of many of Portugal’s greatest buildings, both religious and secular.

As I wrote after last year’s visit:

“The museum’s first rooms provide a useful grounding in the azulejo tradition but no prior study is required to appreciate the tiles themselves. The non-figurative tiles, some of which attempt three-dimensional effects, are attractive enough.

"But I especially like the 17th and 18th century figurative panels and murals composed of entire walls of tile. These are often painted in a loose, flowing style in blue-on-white. The effect is much fresher and more casual than oil paintings of the same (Baroque) period.

“The absolute high-point of the museum is the Madre de Deus church itself. Though the church was completed in the mid-1500s, the ornate Baroque and Rococo decoration dates from two centuries later. The Rococo altarpiece was added after the 1755 earthquake.

“Every available surface has been covered. At ground level, there are large azulejo murals in blue and white. In contrast to this comparatively spare and simple treatment, the upper walls of the church and the barrel-vaulted ceiling are entirely covered with a richly sculptural framework of gilded carving, within which are set huge canvas panels depicting religious subjects.

"The best view of the upper walls and the ceiling may be from the grand rooms one floor above, which look out over the rear of the nave. These upper rooms – which include the Chapterhouse and other administrative offices, as I recall – are likewise covered from top to bottom with Baroque paintings, gilded cornices and frames, precious woods and eight-foot high azulejo murals.“

Heady cultural experiences.

But mostly, we meandered – in Alfama, in Chiado, in Bairro Alto, along the waterfront past the cruise-ship and ferry terminals (the latter is breathtakingly lovely).

Everywhere we found charming little surprises: the pristine Art Deco of the Cais do Sodre train station; the hip new food halls at the nearby city market; the restful, sunlit, sadly neglected but still impressive Botanical Gardens; the splendour of the Sao Roque church.

It is, finally, a very easy city to navigate, with a downtown so compact that we frequently passed tourists whom we remembered from other sites, in other corners of town.

I'm not sure we'll return soon but I'm glad to have seen it and it was indeed worth a second visit.

DAYS 15, 16, 17: BARCELONA:

Our 1 PM flight on Portugalia from LIS to BCN was a standard short-haul flight. The plane was late arriving and the crew handled it badly – loading us on buses to travel from terminal to aircraft, then unloading us and returning us to the terminal.

In the end though, the flight did get us to BCN – for a fare comparable to EasyJet, which would have been more cramped and no less disorganized.

BCN, like everything else in Barcelona, is huge and new and glossy.

The only thing I could fault is the inconvenience of the train connections to and from downtown. The train runs to and from the old Terminal 2, whereas most non-charter flights use Terminal 1. There’s a free shuttle bus, not necessarily coordinated with train departures, and a very lengthy walk to get from bus to train or vice versa.

Before I describe our Barcelona visit, I will add in the commentary on our air transportation that I promised long. long ago.

FLIGHTS:

Our outbound flight was on an Air France Airbus A340-300. Our inbound flight from AMS was on a KLM Airbus A330-300. You can find details of these aircraft on Seatguru.

I’m no expert on the minutiae of seat pitch, seat width, cabin spacing et cetera. And the AF overnight flight was almost five weeks ago – my memory of it is getting fuzzy. But here are my bottom lines about the two flights:

I’d read negatives about AF business class seating on some planes– hard seats, a lie-flat bed that is really at an angle, not horizontal. I slept rather badly but discovered in the morning that a bottle of water had slipped down along the side of the reclined seat – it cut into my side all night long.

I mistakenly blamed the seat itself. With the bottle removed (!) we found the seats perfectly fine.

BTW, Air France offers puffy duvets in place of the usual blankets – a nice touch. We had two seats in the middle part of the 2-2-2 configuration, so no need to climb over the outstretched legs of a sleeper.

The KLM seats, which seemed new, were great – lots of adjustment options and lots of room overall.

On this flight, we had a window and an aisle on the port side – probably not a good choice, in retrospect. The sun on this southern side of a westbound plane was so brilliant we had to close the shades and block the view (from three windows).

Another time, I would think first of our elderly bladders and choose middle seats for their ease of egress.

The big difference between the two flights was the service. On the AF flight, there was relatively little personal attention. Drinks were offered sparingly; the crew vanished as soon as the lights went out. The food was okay but not special.

By contrast, on our daytime KLM flight, the staff were constantly present, offering refills and checking that we had all we needed. The food was markedly superior and the options more varied. The manner of the crew was extremely gracious, too.

Our connecting flights – CDG to LIS and BCN to AMS – were regular short haul flights. Business class is in a small front cabin with standard seating, with the middle seat left unoccupied.

A few short notes on the flights:

At CDG we experienced a two-hour delay, due to job action that day by air traffic controllers. This has been intermittent for a while and will continue through the Spring. The job action affects all flights over French airspace, so the impacts are broad. I hadn’t heard of it and was caught unawares.

I quickly discovered there are websites that report on planned disruptions in all modes of transport.

In addition to the air traffic controllers, I learned, TAP pilots were planning strike days in May, in protest against the planned sell-off of TAP. (Our TAP-partner flight from LIS to BCN was not affected.)

The Lisbon metro has also been disrupted by staff unhappy with government austerity measures.

In future, I will do an online search on planned industrial action before traveling to Europe.

As for the airports themselves: I am starting to appreciate Montreal airport, now that its seemingly endless renovations appear to be coming to an end.

CDG is an airport I would normally avoid but our transfer from Terminal 2E to 2F) was speedy and uncomplicated.

LIS is a small and easy airport where you seldom see a line-up. As I mentioned above, we did have a one-hour delay, very badly handled by the TAP partner Portugalia, on our LIS-BCN flight. But that was the airline’s problem, not the airport’s.

April 22, 23, 24 – Apartment in Carrer de Valencia, Eixample district, Barcelona, booked through Air BnB:

https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/1396721?s=zMqk

When we got to central Barcelona (Placa de Catalunya, via the airport bus) we were only 10 minutes' walk to our rental apartment.

By prior arrangement, Roberto met us and showed us over the property. He was the personification of gracious hospitality and professional thoroughness. He was, indeed, a pleasure to deal with - prompt, respectful and very helpful.

The apartment is a portion of a mammoth flat that once occupied the entire floor. It must once have comprised about 4000 square feet of living space.

Our slice of that was still ample for two: a spacious entrance hall; a sitting room with very new kitchen section; a glassed-in sitting area overhanging the street; a large and very modern bath with rainforest shower; and a quadruple-glazed corner bedroom with two balconies, one overlooking the busy Carrer de Valencia, the other overlooking a quiet side-street.

At $170 Canadian per night (about $130 US) this flat was our most expensive rental – but so worth it.

As I wrote in my review of the property, this is a “bright, immaculate, spacious, high ceilinged apartment in the most fashionable area of Barcelona. One block from Chanel, Dior, Gucci - and Gaudi!”

Just steps away is the Passeig de Gracia; the apartment’s neighbours are the highest of high-end international labels, including jewellers Bulgari and Chopard.

There’s a Louis Vuitton, of course. And some great, bustling restaurants – nearby La Flauta is our favourite place for tapas. We tried several times to get a table at La Catalana, the famously trendy tapas bar just a few doors from our flat, but the wait time was always an hour or more.

The Eixample is also the home of the best of Modernisme architecture. From the flat, you walk a block and a half in one direction to reach Gaudi’s Casa Battlo. Two blocks in the other direction brings you to his Casa Mila (“La Pedrera”).

The Sagrada Familia is a 20 minute walk, the Placa Catalunya is 10 minutes away. We walked everywhere, except for really distant destinations such as Montjuic.

And don't forget about the DeutscheBahn engineers strike. Three words that are necessary to know in every European language--bathroom, beer and strike.

I'd substitute wine for beer but: Agreed!

Tedgale, thank you for the informative tr...we will staying in the Douro valley for one night. Which do you think is a better accommodation: Quinta Pacheco or Delfim? Thank you.

Tedgale, as always enjoyig your trip report. We will be travelling a similar route in the month of March.
How far in advance did you make your hotel reservations? I usually organize our stays months in advance but would like to be a bit more spontaneous on this trip.

Also wondering if you would recommemd your auto rental agency in Lisbon and if there were any difficulties with taking a rental cross border.

Thanks.