Day 38
Easter Sunday
Coimbra E Madrid (name of Hostel)
We got up really early to get on our tour (that wasnºt booked so we figured if we missed out, bad luck!) and headed down to the plaza, with no breakfast. Greg did finish off the port that we brought from Porto, but thatºs another story!
We waited where we thought the tour was leaving from...and then realised we were at the wrong spot, again! And walked over to where we saw a crowd...and booked a city tour, and Sintra!
We hopped on the small, cosy bus and had our English speaking tour guide, Catarina, tell us all about Portugal. Honestly she was so gorgeous. We just felt so at home and she spoke 3 languages to accomodate everyone on the tour (French, German and English). I reflected how tourism is obviously important to Portuguese people.
And about the people, they are so happy, friendly and just gorgeous. So different to the Spanish which surprises us, given how close the countries are. I wonºt go into the history here but i read about the history of the celtics, Moors, Spanish and Portuguese last night and i recommend anyone reading about it. Itºs fascintating and gives a good perspectives as to why the people are so different in their temperaments.
The tour told us about more of the history and we stopped at Belem. Where the Portuguese national custard tart is made. Ohlala....itºs yummy. So funny though because Catarina told us we could go and see the Cathedral or go to the pastry shop and we chose the latter motivated by the fact that we hadnºt had breakfast and also because, it was Holy Day, Easter Sunday, and the church was full totally.
I lined up at first with all the others from a tourist bus then decided to peer into a side door..and walah, i was able to order our delicate pasty. THE thing to eat. And so i said..Dos. Spanish for two. Not portuguese for two. And i got two cylindral boxes of these special treats!!!!!
Which meant we had 12 to eat!
THEN....how to eat them. We heard Catarina say that they were best accompanied by cinnamon and icing sugar and we couldnºt see any. When we took them out they looked like pies! Later we found out weºd eaten two stuck together...and the sachets in the bag held the cinnomon and sugar! Duh. Silly.
We ate the next cylinder in style. At a cafe, with coffee after the tour was finished and while we waited to go to Sintra! THEY ARE SIMPLY DELIGHTFUL!
We took off to Sintra at 2.30pm and arrived home later that evening, 4.30pm and what a day it was. It was fantastic. Sintra is a fascinating place. Everything was closed, the monuments etc, being Easter and a National holiday but that didnºt matter. There was a museum open..the Toy museum, and we did go to that. And it had a bear (took photos) like the bear that i inherited from Dadºs estate in 2000. I took a photo of that, i was so excited! (1920´s bear...it must have been Dadºs childhood bear!).
We also went to the western most tip of Europe - Cabo da Roco - and to Cascais fishing village and saw their craypots there. Took pics to show Sam and Elise. We also went to Setuval - the third largest Port on the Atlantic side and also passed the casino where Casino Royale was based on. Casino Studio!
Was a very fitting Easter Sunday. We did think we were actually going to get away wiht not having any Easter eggs or chocolate for the day and probably the only Easter ever but we found a supermarket that had CHOCOLATE!! So we indulged! Bought some neslte chocolate and porto!! Why not..............
