The Events of Wednesday, April 13, 2011 – HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY ABBY‼

 

                After a late night yesterday, Abby (our Portugal guide and birthday girl) wanted a later start. So we planned on a later, relaxing morning. But because of the time change between Spain and Portugal, our bodies woke us up before eight. Soon, breakfast was on the table. For most of us, the meal was our simple, boring cereal. But as Taylor birthday traditions dictate, Abby also enjoyed her birthday chocolate donut. After the meal, we brought out her gifts: the Damascene necklace she loved in Toledo (she was so surprised!) and two huge packages of gum.

                We rotated through the shower and had some chill time until ten, when we headed out to find free WiFi and shop. A long pedestrian bridge connects our neighborhood with the mall across the freeway. Once inside, we were amazed. This is the largest “hypermarket” in Spain and Portugal, and we had no clue where to go. Trying to find free WiFi, which was supposed to be everywhere in the mall, we headed to a courtyard. No success. We then walked over to the post office. While Abby and Dad went inside to make purchases, the rest of us searched for internet in the courtyard nearby. We found one connection that would let us on, but it involved an overly complicated payment method. So internet-less, we headed to do our grocery shopping at the Continente, the giant everything store.

                We eventually found everything on our list and headed back home for a lunch of PB&J. With our stomachs full, we packed up for the day’s outing: Portugal’s coast. Our first stop was Sintra, a small town nestled in the hills overlooking the Atlantic. Our GPS’s took us to the city center, where we hoped to find signs to the Pena Palace. We reached Sintra without any problems, but could not find a sign to the palace. And neither one of our GPS’s could find it. We resorted to try to find a Tourist Information center to get directions. But just as we pulled near, we saw a sign for the Palacio de Pena. What luck!

                The road to the palace grounds was steep and much too narrow for two-way traffic. This made navigating the tight turns slightly nerve-wracking, especially when we saw a huge tour bus come around a blind corner, heading straight towards our van. Yikes! We backed up, gave it some room, and eventually made it around the corner. At the top, we found a parking spot, paid the entrance fee, and started the near-vertical hike up to the palace.

                This walk took us through the lakes section of the Parque da Pena. This park, unlike the other parks we’ve visited so far in Europe, felt much less manicured and more natural. It was a welcome break from the perfectly cubic hedges flanked by flawless rows of flowers. A strange black swan with a red beak, pretty flowers, and unique buildings made this walk interesting. Before we knew it, we were at the top.

                Pena Palace is a strange palace. It was built between 1840 and 1885 by Prince Fernando II, who was born in Germany. This castle, his dream palace, was a mix of styles, combining Gothic towers, Renaissance domes, Moorish minarets, and Manueline carvings; some nice Italian art here and strange Indo-Chinese furniture there. Rick Steves calls this a castle “casserole”. As we walked through this mess, it was clear he didn’t know which style he liked most. One point of interest was the sundial on the Queen’s Terrace.  It required a lot of complicated calculations to translate the readings on the silver plating to accurate information. One such example was the automatic cannon. If you set it in such and such a way so that this thingy points at this data point and you turn this so it is pointing to today’s date, the sun will come through a magnifying glass, light a fuse, and fire off a mini-cannon precisely at noon. Personally, I like digital watches better.

                On the walk back down from the palace, we took a side path that was not as well maintained as the other, more heavily trodden roads. It gave us a chance to really appreciate the park’s natural setting as it might have appeared when the royal family of Portugal strolled through it—quiet, peaceful, and not a bit crowded. As we walked, we solved a very significant problem. Until this point, our vehicle has not been named. To some in our family, this is devastating. So we decided on a name: Destiny Winthrop Felipe Renault, or simply “the Baguettes” for short. Don’t ask how we came up with that.

                Back in the parking lot, we hopped into the Baguettes and headed out to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in Europe. There isn’t much to see besides one point on the coast. We drove there, found a parking spot, and picked up some information about the area. Abby’s plan was for us to spend some time just relaxing on the beach. However, several key factors came to work against us here. First: it was a bit windy and really foggy. Accustomed to Portugal’s highs in the 80s, we left our extra layers at home. So we didn’t exactly want to spend hours here. Second: there wasn’t much of a beach. When Abby asked at the information center about beach access, the lady said “Well, it’s 140 meters down.” Innocently, Abby replies, “So where do we go to get there?” “No, it’s 140 meters straight down.” It was a bit of a cliff. Although plans didn’t quite work out, exploring the monument area was fun. We took a few pictures, walked along the ice plant, and admired the monument inscribed with Luis de Camoes’ words: “Where the earth ends and the ocean begins”. Was that America over there?

                To get away from the tourists crowding the coast, we headed next to Praia Adraga, a more isolated beach. We would have arrived there half an hour earlier if we had gotten better directions. We missed several turns and ended up on a steep, skinny road that turned into a skinnier, grassy alley with high stone walls. No thanks. It took several tries to get turned around, and then we missed some more turns. But we persevered and found the beach—an empty, great, big, sandy beach, huge waves lapping at the shore, and a rock archway. With sunset drawing near, it was awesome. We eagerly shed our socks and shoes to walk barefoot in the sand and foam. Before heading in for dinner, we watched a pair of young surfers start into the freezing cool water for some afternoon fun. It reminded Mom and Dad of a beach near San Francisco.

                For Abby’s birthday dinner, we headed to the restaurant right on the beach. Even though it was almost seven, the place was empty. This turned out to be better for us, as we got to know our friendly waiter (who luckily spoke pretty good English). After an appetizer of cottage cheese-like mixtures on bread, the fish arrived—grilled swordfish, mackerel, cod, and sea bass. The bass was definitely the best, followed by the swordfish. Like great art or music, good fish is impossible to describe with words, so I won’t even try.

                For a special dessert, our waiter brought out a cake, looking somewhat like flan, with two candles. So we sang Happy Birthday, in English, in a Portuguese seafood restaurant with no one else who spoke English. It was awkward but fun. The cake turned out to be an orange pudding with a sweet sauce on top and caramelized sugar on the bottom. Dad, Caitlin, Lindsey, and I thought it was delicious. Mom and Abby preferred to hand over their slices and enjoy the beautiful sunset instead. It was a dramatic reddish pink, brilliant when the sun cut through the sea mist. It was awesome.

                After the long drive home with a few more navigational errors, we were exhausted. We cleaned all the sand off our feet and headed to bed. Looking back, Abby did a great job planning the perfect birthday for herself.