Why?

 It is a question we ask ourselves sometimes.

Why travel?

It is a selfish pursuit, indulgent and unproductive. It is a guilty pleasure.

Why do we find it so important to leave home and remove ourselves from our lives to become vagabonds that contribute nothing to the world other than helping the tourism industry with our travel dollars.

Every Christmas we watch a film of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol - the 1951 one with Alastair Sim is by far the best - and there is a key exchange between Scrooge and his dead business-partner-now-ghost Jacob Marley:

`But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

`Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. `Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'  

For some reason, this exchange always comes to mind when the question Why travel? inserts itself, walking along some dusty street past open doors and almost- hidden courtyards, or escaping a rainstorm in a tiny cafe crowded with others, or blowing on my hand to cool off during a hot, humid, sleepless night. 

Travel provides a tiny window through which others can be seen, how they, what obstacles or expediencies they encounter. We can take in, learn, without judgement, and optimally see ourselves in them. We can also take them home with us in our memories and expanded world view. 

Back in familiar surroundings again, our own lives are a little different than they were before, our sight a little altered, our minds a little expanded. The context is not the same anymore, or ever again. Like looking at a piece of art after learning something private about the artist. 

Becoming Marley-esque (before death) is a good thing, we've decided. Not outside looking in but part of the whole business of humankind. Of the world and in the world. We are where we are meant to be.  

Henry the Navigator pointing the way,
as a modern means of getting there follows his lead

Any Port in a Storm

And you don't need a storm to have port!

The city of Porto is famous for port, the drink. A fortified wine, port is thought to have occurred by accident. According to port lore, two Englishmen brought a shipment of port back to England in the late 17th century and added brandy to it to "fortify" it so that it would survive the long voyage. England went gaga for the new product and thus an industry and a major market was born. 

Porto

Vila Nova de Gaia across the river

the bridge linking the two -
Gustave Eiffel actually built one bridge a little up river -
 this was designed by his student

The fact that port could stay stable on long ocean voyages made it even more valuable as a commodity, as nations involved in travelling and trading around the world required months or even years at sea, and needed to keep their sailors happy.

inside a typical cellar

cobbles and beams and the musky smell of wood and wine

We went to - ahem - several port tastings, where we learned more about the difference between white, ruby and tawny ports. What food might go best with each. How they are all stored, whether by cask, barrel or bottle. That port of a vintage year is labeled LBV (late bottled vintage) with the year, but that port labeled 20 year, or 30 year for example, means that all the port in that blend come from different years and the average year is the year on the label. It is entirely possible to drink a glass of 40 year port that includes a product from the 19th century!

port tasting #1, excellent choices and informative at Kopke

tasting #2 - superb selection and explanation at small,
family-run Vasques de Carvalho, hard to find but well worth it -
its ports are actually made upriver, but this shop and tasting house in Gaia is lovely 

didn't like that at all (haha)

it's possible to sit at a riverside cafe and have 5 ports for 5 euros

Port is generally aged in the Douro valley, up river from Porto, but aged in cellars in the town across the river from Porto, in Vila Nova de Gaia. Those cellars still operate, and give tours and tastings to anyone who can book them in whichever language they prefer (among 6 or so). Cellars are all there, cheek by jowl, along with cafes, wine shops, and souvenir shops, so that Vila Nova de Gaia has a holiday feel to it, even as it is very much an industry town. Some of those cellars have been continuously operating for hundreds of years. Kopke is the oldest wine store (since the 1600s), although not a cellar per se, but it has tastings and a range of products to buy.

Several have English names (e.g., Taylor's Graham's, Croft, Cockburn's, etc.), and that is because they were originally traders not producers. As England was the largest market for many years, these traders became very well known, and now produce their own port as well.

They were all established in Vila Nova de Gaia because it is much easier to transport internationally from there. The 850 km Douro river is extremely difficult to navigate. In fact, only that late 130 km is possible and only the local rabelo boats could handle it. They are distinctive wooden boats, flat-bottomed, with high tails on their sterns and huge external steering rudders. 

rabelo boats with barrels of port

shipyard still operating, although these boats
 are used for tourism now

From the the late 1960s several large locks started to get installed along this stretch river to make it easier. We spent a lovely, hot, lazy day going by boat (not ship) from Porto to the village of Pinhoa, which is beautifully situated between two small rivers that empty into the large Douro. As we travelled we could see the landscape change, and vineyards set on narrow level ledges that climb high up the mountains. 

Of course we tried Douro valley wines too, at the excellent Wines of Portugal centre in Porto. Four from four different regions. Portugal has 250 native grape varieties, and is very protective of them, and also avoiding the more internationally famous varieties for its wines, which makes the blends unique and impossible to replicate elsewhere.

wine regions of Portugal

altitude changes by wine region

our four tasted from the regions of
Vino Verde, Dao, Tras-Os-Montes and Alentejo

We know we will not be able to obtain many Portuguese wine options at home, but when we are back we will try to find more than the ubiquitous Mateus. And certainly some port.

a new product - pink port - served cold at Croft winery high above Pinhoa
in the Douro valley at the end of a memorable day
(not successful in our opinion, but the location was wonderful)

  

Age of Discovery? Or....?

We have a bit of a problem the whole "Age of Discovery" thing.

It is a term used for a period of history whereby European ships landed on foreign shores for the first time.

There is no question these were intrepid sailors, nor that they were doing something no one had ever done before, crossing vast oceans for the first time, with nothing but the hope that they would find there way somewhere, and make it hope again to tell the tale.  

But how could you say you had "discovered" a place that was already inhabited by other people? This of course was the start of European expansionism and colonialism, where the riches and peoples of other lands could be exploited and transferred back home, with little regard for how these things were used or "owned" by the original inhabitants. Including the inhabitants themselves, as slaves became cheap labour for industrial endeavours. 

It is only now, and not even yet for the politicians and historians of many colonial powers, that this history is acknowledged as a legacy to be reckoned with. 

But what if your ship was the first ship to land somewhere, an island for example, that had never been inhabited by people? Ok, then I agree, and I think you could say that you had Discovered it. And what if you had led a voyage that was the first to go from here to there, safely? Is that not Discovery? 

In Belem, near Lisbon, there is a magnificent Monument to the Discoveries that juts out to face the ocean, designed to indicate a Portuguese caravel, with a line of influential leaders that led the so called Age of Discovery. There are different characters carved on each side, although in the front, seen from both sides, is Henry the Navigator. His mother, Philippa of Lancaster, makes it on as the only female, but this is no token - she earned her place. 

It's a wonderful monument, but we prefer to think of it as a Monument of Exploration, rather than Discovery. 

Crazy Caravel

Gather round now children, and I will tell you the story of how it all began.

You see there was this new kind of boat that was developed in Portugal in the 1200s AD. It was small and light, and could be handled by a small handful of men. 

It was also easy to navigate. It used a triangular sail, called a lanteen, that could pivot to catch the wind in any direction very efficiently. This made it very maneuverable, and it could sail closer to the shoreline than the square-rigged sailing ships. 

This lanteen sail was old technology even then, having been used by the Romans, but combined with the new ship's lightness and speed, and it's distinctive curved hull, the caravel became the world's fastest and most efficient ship of its day.

As curiosity and need to find ways to access new products from far away lands, the caravel became an obvious starting point. 

Christopher Columbus set out to find India with three Portuguese caravels. He did not find India, nor even North America, but he did travel all the way across the Atlantic and back in a relatively short time, and successfully, which promoted the advancement of caravel design, which added more masts and a square sail in the bow, with lanteen sails elsewhere.

This caravel then became why the small country of Portugal could rule the waves and advance the exploration and access of new lands for products, making it hugely wealthy and imfluential.

The "caravela" is now an iconic image of Portugal and its history, and its image crops up everywhere. 

Ok, so, now let's go outside and play spot the caravel!

What's Black and White and Tread all Over?

From the Azores to Porto, the pavements of Portugal are cobbled with square tiles that form patterns, all in black and white. To get a new sidewalk put in, the design must be approved. 

This all started in reference to Portugal's past and its Roman mosaic floors have inspired this modern incarnation. 

The Azorean patterns we saw were fairly plain, intended to move the eye as well as the foot. 

But in Lisbon, for example, the patterns became quite ornate. Some seemed unnervingly 3D, or as if the pavement was undulating.

However, wherever in Portugal they reside, these have become a bit of a problem.

For one thing all these "calçada Portuguesa" are uneven. Cobbles are like that. They refuse to lie flat. Especially when there is a requisite space between cobbles. And when those cobbles are decades if not centuries old. The cobbles work themselves loose with wear and weather and create so many big gaps, loose cobbles or portholes ensue. 

And don't get me started on the force of gravity on steep, steep paths, where piles of cobbles work themselves loose and tumble down along the sides and bottoms of roads and paths, becoming traffic hazards as well. Cyclists, baby buggies, suitcases with wheels - these are all culprits for dislodging cobbles and also victims of cobble malfunctions. The women who wear stiletto heels on Portugal's sidewalks are either my heroes or need to have their heads examined.   

Another problem is the question of grippiness. As cobbles get worn down, or wet in the rain, they can become quite lethally slippery. Porto's famed granite is pretty grippy, but in the Azores basalt is used and in Lisbon limestone is cobble of choice. The white ones are the worst. Many traffic accidents have been caused by these lovely but worrisome cubes of stone.

City councils are now discussing the replacement of these iconic patterned sidewalks and plazas with safer materials. The generally quiet and polite Portuguese however have risen up in defense of these historic markers of their country and have petitioned UNESCO to get them classified so they stay.

I say teach and promote local craftspeople to lay and maintain the wonderfully unique cobbled paths. And wear flat rubber-soled shoes.