Ines and Pedro

Most people know about Romeo and Juliet.

Many people know about Tristan and Isolde

But the story of Ines and Pedro, an equally tragic love story of epic proportions, involving real people, should be equally as well known.

Pedro the prince married a princess, but at the wedding fell in love with his new bride's young cousin Ines. He dutifully fathered a son by his wife, but met secretly with Ines. When his wife died, Pedro and Ines lived together as a married couple in Coimbra and had several children.

However, Pedro's father, King Afonso IV, worried about these children laying claim on the throne ahead of the "legitimate" line and he had Ines murdered. Beheaded in fact.

In rage, Pedro rose up against his father with a small army, refusing to ever forgave him. After Afonso died and Pedro became king, Pedro ordered the arrest of the men who had killed Ines, ordered them to kiss her now exhumed (and probably pretty stinky) body before he cut out their hearts and ate them. 

Pedro swore he had been legally married to Ines, insisted that she be recognized as the Queen of Portugal and had two magnificent tombs built for both her and himself in Alcobaca so that they could be beside each other for eternity. 

In fact, the tombs lie foot to foot, so that when the resurrection happened they will rise up and face each other.  

Now that's amore

Judgement day, when everyone is rewarded or punished,
overseen by Ines and Pedro from their expensive seats
 there on the right of Ines tomb  

Ines's tomb

Angels supporting Ines

The Wheel of Fortune, showing Ines's beheading and vindication on the right

 

Angels supporting Pedro

One tomb at one end, with the other across the hall

Big Changes on Big Dates in Portugal

There have been humans living on this land for over 400,000 years, The Celts came, then the Romans, then the Visigoths, blah, blah, blah, but all the different peoples that occupied this part of the Iberian peninsula over the centuries moved around, occupying other parts as well. It wasn't yet Portugal. 

You can pretty well tell Portugal's story in five days:

June 24, 1138 - Portugal sends the Moors packing.  Afonso Henrique proclaims himself King of Portugal which is now a proper country. 

August 13, 1385 - Portugal sends the Castilians packing in Batalha, with the help of England, thus securing the country. John 1 marries the remarkable Phillipa of Lancaster and they create an incredible family (their eldest son was Henry the Navigator, one of those rare people who change the entire world)

May 20, 1498 - Vasco de Gama lands in India and brings back riches and bragging rights. Portugal becomes the most powerful seafaring nation in the world.

September 3, 1758 - Portugal sends the Jesuits packing and welcomes the Enlightenment

May 28, 1834 - Portugal sends the monks and nuns packing with the dissolution of the monasteries (and convents). The buildings and their property became part of the public's cultural inheritance.

  

Everybody's Gone Surfing, Surfing Na-zar-e

The  largest waves in the world are not in fact in California or Hawaii, but here in the sleepy seaside town of Nazare Portugal. The summer throngs with families and locals and visitors who hang out on the fabulous demerara-like sandy beach, but between October and March, the world's surfers come here in throngs to catch a record breaking wave.

Heights of nearly 100 feet have been recorded. The waves are so large that the surfers must be towed out by seadoo.

But what causes these waves is possibly a scarier proposition than the the thought of leaping off a ten-storey moving building made of water - the underwater Nazare canyon. It a 230 km long, 5,000 metre deep - that is almost as deep as the Andes mountains are high! - canyon perpendicular to the Portuguese coast. It abuts the shore at Nazare with a slight northward turn meaning that a huge volume of water moves parallel to the Nazare north beach at enormous velocity sending it into the air squished by Atlantic currents in a massive watery cannonball.

Experienced and legendary Brazilian surfer Marcio Freire died this very January surfing a giant wave here at Nazare.

There is an odd coalescence of surfing, fishing (the traditional Nazare occupation, and a 12 century of a nobleman hunting a deer on a foggy September morning in the year 1182 - yes that is over 800 years ago - when a heavy fog rose up from the sea. Suddenly the deer disappeared, and, realizing he was a the top of the cliff  he cried out to the Virgin Mary to help him. His horse miraculously stopped in time to prevent going over the cliff to certain death. 

He immediately built a small chapel in the spot to give thanks to Our Lady. (I hope he also gave some thanks to his horse!) This chapel is still there, as is a large church built in 1377 to accommodate all the visiting pilgrims.

The cliffs also host a fort (first built in 1577 and added to), from which surfing audiences come to get the best view of the incredible winter waves. The fort also houses donated surfboards from surfing greats, looking odd standing by stone walls used as fortifications for several centuries.  

Given Jenny and my history with surviving ocean sinkholes over the Tongan trench, we were keen to see Nazare - but not from the ocean. While we were there, lovely 1-2 metre swells whooshed over the sands. Clearly April is too late. However, even now the water remains dangerous on a balmy April day. Red flags identify when no one is to go into the water and no one did on the days we saw them fluttering on the beach. People being washed out to sea is an annual occurrence. 

So all we did was paddle in the chilly waters and sit on the sugar sands watching the waves crash. No more near-watery-graves for us.

Jenny Climbs the Rigging

One day, the crew offered to to show any willing passengers how to climb the rigging of the Royal Clipper. Of course, Jenny accepted! And here is the evidence.

Apparently the only fearful part was moving from one rope ladder to the next forty or so feet up from the deck in a rolling Atlantic ocean.

Martin valiantly stood taking photos from the deck thinking "never in a million years!"

getting instructions

first step for Jenny-kind

keeping focussed while both ropes and ship
moved in opposite directions

don't look down!

getting to the tricky bit

 moving across to another ladder means taking hands off the ropes, yikes!
Good thing she was clipped on 

made it!

feeling proud and not thinking about having to go back down

Martin down below grateful not to be up here

wonderful view

coming down was harder as the ship
hit some deep swells just at this point

almost back to not-so-steady deck 

posing with my Canadian climbing mate

our climbing group

It felt like such an achievement until we saw the crew taking in the sails, standing on a thin rope, and along the yards right to the yard arm over the ocean itself. 

Fado and Food

 We did not get to the Fado Museum, but did experience this musical form in person.

Essentially vocal laments, accompanied by guitar/s and a sort of mandolin, fado songs have been sung in Portuguese pubs and cafes for over 200 years. The singer, generally female but sometimes male, is melancholy about life in general, such as losing one's fisher husband to the sea, or about missed opportunities, or longing for home. The word "fado" means fate and there is an air of resignation in the face of hard times. 

Sigh.

Nowadays it is typically heard in a cafe accompanied by cod or pork stew, washed down with wine. Minimum charge applies.

We went to a recommended place, not flashy, very typical in the neighbourhood of Barrio Alto. Good singers, good musicians and hearty food.

The opposite of our fado meal was a blowout in one of Lisbon's two Michelin star restaurants, Belcanto, and it did not disappoint. We went for lunch, knowing the degustation menu would be many courses of rich food and we would need several hours to digest it before bedtime. Did we go for the wine pairing with each course? We did. 

anticipation

elderflower and egg white with tiny puffs to start

fois gras on the spoon, tuna belly in the glass and chicken skin shrimp sandwiches  

carrot mackerel salad

bread and butters were never like this at home!

beetroot three ways

egg yolk, Jerusalem artichoke cream, rise ashes, bone marrow, smoked eel

prawn in kaffir lime curry and cauliflower, with flowers! 

sea bass with sea lettuce

squab with bok choy, salsify and deep fried fois gras parcel

we had to put on a sleeve for dessert items to wipe our mouths,
as that was something the chef did as a boy

too late for a photo, but it was sweet egg, almond,
pine nut milk and frozen green olive oil balls

Portuguese french toast, candied peanuts, rice cream, melon sorbet,
apple and pear petits four to end

With a wonderful buffet breakfast at our hotel each morning, we needed only one other meal in the day, or  a couple of snacks.

One great meal was across the river, via ferry, at a low key place that gave us excellent seafood, perfectly matched with a small "jarro" of vino verde, literally green wine, which is young, slightly fizzy and delicate.  Martin finally got his sardines.

I think maybe one of our favourite meals was our first night, with two new friends from the ship, when we had decided that we didn't want too much food or drink, maybe just a few tapas. Jenny found a hole in the wall place, up anonymous stairs into a moorish tiled courtyard, then off to the side to another tiny courtyard, where we asked for the waiters favourite tapas and a jug of house red wine.

7 dishes and a litre of wine later we emerged, determined to finish our night with ginja, a sort of cherry fortified wine served cold with sour cherries in teh bottom of the shot glass (watch for pits!). You have to know what to look for - a tiny place with a few people standing under bad lighting. We went to one, blue and white tiled of course, who told us the oldest one in the city was just along the way, opposite the church and we should really try that one too. In fact, the three oldest ones were in close proximity.

Well, in the interests of fairness, you have to try all three don't you? Very full, a wee bit tipsy, and very happy we parted from our friends at about midnight. 

Bom Apetite!