Don's Camino

Today we had a full day to explore Lisbon.

The city is vibrant, busy, and full of people. The concierge made us a map of some areas to visit, which we cross-referenced with our trusty Rick Steves travel guide.

Both the old town and the Belém neighborhoods were a little far from the hotel zone, so we took a taxi in the morning to the Grácia district.

Wow, I’m sure glad we left our rental car parked in Lisbon! The taxi took 45 minutes to go just a few kilometers in the congested, narrow, windy streets.

The buildings in the Grácia district were interesting, but it quickly became clear that we would be challenged to navigate to the other sites in the area.

Victoria had noticed a train of tuk-tuks providing tours in the area. Her spontaneity and intuition led her to say, hey, why don’t we get on one of those? (This thought May have eventually occurred to me, but I may also have tended to stick with the original plan with the tourist map).

After some consultation, we made our way down the hill toward where the tuk-tuks seemed to be coming from. There was an empty tuk-tuk about halfway to the bottom of the bill, which Victoria managed to flag down.

Sure, I can give you this tour for this much, said Hugo (“Oogo”), this other tour for this much, etc. We picked an hour-long tour of the old town and strapped in.

It was an inspired choice. We saw everything we could possibly want to see, and got more education than we could have hoped for.

After 2 hours with Oogo, we gave him a nice tip (which he thought was an accident and tried to return) and left us in the central market near the bus station.

The no. 15 bus was the most efficient way to get to Belém on the other side of town, so we sat down in the market for a bite to eat.

We had hoped to take the cable car—Lisbon calls itself the San Francisco of Europe—but settled for a more convenient bus instead that got us across town in half an hour.

The famous 25 de Abril Bridge, renamed after the revolution that overthrew the Salazar dictatorship, is a credible model of our Golden Gate Bridge. Built by the same designer in 1966, the towers have a similar construction and are painted the same shade of oxide red.

We saw the Biarro Alto, Alfama, and Baixa districts, the São Jorge Castle, the Lisbon Cathedral, the statue of St. Vincent (who, like Santiago in Spain, has a colorful, century-spanning backstory with miraculous appearances and a hand in driving out the Moors.

The Carmo Convent has been left as a ruin from the huge 1755 earthquake that destroyed the town and killed many of its people. The (Spanish) king brought in his own people to RE-lay out the major thoroughfares of the town, as Napoleon did with Haussmann in Paris.

The other side of town was equally fascinating. We didn’t do a tour, but visited the stunning Monastereo Jerónimos and the Torre de Belém. Both buildings, from the 16th century, are in the style of King Miguel I, whom some say prefigured Gaudí (I could see it).

An unexpected surprise was going to the top of the Monument to Discoveries. Dedicated to local hero Prince Henry the Navigator, it also features huge casts of other figures from Portugal’s maritime history.

The view from the 180-ft observation deck was remarkable.

We caught a cab through the twisted streets to our hotel and had dinner in their lovely restaurant. We were their first customer and had the place to ourselves at 7:30!

Setting the alarm for 4:00 AM for tomorrow’s early flight to Heathrow.

Unfortunately, my cold has continued to linger after almost 3 weeks. I’ve promised Victoria I’ll call the doctor if I’m not 100% better when we get home on Wednesday.

Not as bad as the days I was trying to figure out how to get through the next 30 kilometers, but not great, either. No Covid symptoms—tastebuds, sense of smell, etc.,—but I’ve certainly never had a cold like this.

Of course my body is still recovering from my long hike, so the cold is lasting longer. While I’ve had all of the shots, my theory is that I’ve gone 3 years without meeting a single microbe, and am now meeting them from all over the world.

We took Kevin’s advice and followed the coastal route to Lisbon. It was longer, but we got to see a succession of small, New England-style beach towns bustling with surfers and skateboarders.

The beard is staying for a couple of weeks, mostly to amuse my mom.

We have a family story about the time we joined Mom, with baby Micheline, in Kauai for her 50th birthday in 1990.

I had been living in Europe, and had grown a beard (then brown).

I strode across the airport to give Mom a big hug, which she enthusiastically returned.

Having no idea who I was.

The Intercontinental Hotel in Lisbon is as lovely as you’d expect. Amex gave us an upgrade, a $100 credit, and parked our rental car for us. Good thing, as we learned you don’t want to be driving around Lisbon if you don’t have to.

It had been a long day of driving, so we ordered room service and turned in early.

But for a “slip of the lip” 500 years ago, we would all be speaking Portuguese today instead of English.

Portugal lays a credible claim to being the first country in Europe, with roots before Rome, plotted the routes to both Asia and the New World, and ruled the seas in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The language is beautiful, a cross between Spanish and French to my ear (and also close to Galician, as I have learned from my recent immersion). Sort of an organic Esperanto.

I worry a little about dying languages, but Portuguese is actually one of the fastest growing languages in the world. Not in Portugal, but in Brazil and African countries like Angola and Mozambique.

Victoria and I had a memorable morning in old town of Lagos, with its narrow streets paved with Portuguese tile. It is a resort town, with many European families and young people.

We dodged the boat-tour vendors on the promenade, but enjoyed all of the tiny shops and cafes.

We visited the closest beach. Beautiful, with sand like California beaches. Victoria put her feet in the water but said it was cold.

Later in the day, we drove to the famous local rock formations and took some photos of the emerald green water.

At dinner, Victoria tried to eat a mackerel but couldn’t quite get it down. We had delicious local fish and tiny local clams–amêijoas–for dinner, a lot of work but delicious.

We arrived in Lagos at the Boavista Resort and checked into our suite.

It’s a huge development outside of town with a golf course, a spa, a swimming pool, and various other things we won’t use while we’re here.

The room is beautiful, though, and Victoria was happy to find a washing machine in the kitchen (where such things tend to be in Europe).

We decided to defer our sightseeing until tomorrow and ate in.

Before we left Nazaré, we drove toward the plaza and eventually found the Forte de São Miguel, from 1577. The views of the sea were breathtaking. The fort at the end of a long hike to the point had an exhibit describing how the biggest surfing waves in the world are formed here.

We found our hotel in Évora just outside of the old walled city. We were tired when we arrived, but hope to explore a bit more in the morning.

We’ve been passing huge, truck-sized gas stations for two days in Portugal. But guess when we couldn’t find one? When we needed it. I won’t push it to 1/8 of a tank the next time.

I learned a number of new words for gasoline when I finally found a station. Gasolina and Gasoléo which sound similar, are completely different. Other pumps say diesel, and others say “super green.”

Seems like “diesel” was the right choice today, but I’ll need to stay on my toes. I learned later that gasoléo is in fact diesel.

The BMW is amazingly peppy for a 1.8-liter diesel. Doesn’t sound or smell like a diesel, either.

The toll roads have been another saga. At one toll station, the machine asked for our ticket. We didn’t have a ticket. I pushed the “call” button as the cars lined up behind me, before being presented with a bill for 53 euros. Perhaps this included a fine for not having a ticket, but there weren’t any choices to be made at the moment.

We had an unforgettable dinner with my old friend Kevin Lossner and his partner Glória.

The small local restaurant in the old city was on a street so narrow that the taxi had to let us out at the corner. Kevin had remembered eating there years ago, but didn’t remember if the owners spoke English.

I took a chance by sending a WattsApp message to their number asking for a reservation. João was very gracious, and took particularly good care of us. It was a “chef’s menu” of perhaps 20 or 25 dishes, and I tried everything! Even Victoria tried about half of what they served.

Kevin has been living in Portugal for over 10 years and has invited me to visit several times. He was a year ahead of me in high school, but we ran in all of the same nerd circles (German Club, annual staff, Dungeons & Dragons, etc).

We spent a ton of time together back then. He went on to Occidental College in nearby Eagle Rock, where one of his classmates was a dude with big ears named Barry (long before he transferred to Harvard and subsequently served as our nation’s 44th president).

Kevin is quite simply one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known, with a sharp memory and a quick wit to match.

He remembered stories about me that I’d rather forget, and vice-versa. The ladies had quite a few laughs, and it was no mystery that Kevin and I had been friends for so long.

Kevin and I established that the last time we’d seen each other was around 2005, when I met him during a business trip to Berlin while he was living in Germany. Then, as now, our conversation picked up right where it had left off in 1977 or 1978.

Glória, a retired orthopedic surgeon from Lisbon, was delightful. They live on a small farm near, Elvas, where they raise chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and hunt wild boars. Kevin owns a successful translation business, but is also now, as I call him, a gentleman farmer.

About an hour into the meal, I realized that Glória was wearing a Charles Bukowski T-shirt. I mentioned that my copy of his book of poetry, “Love is a Dog From Hell,” had been purchased from the famous beat-era City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, while over (and poet laureate ) Lawrence Ferlinghetti was still alive.

Pretty good and wholly unexpected conversation ensued. Bukowski was a genius, but a challenging figure. He died of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in 1994, about 5 years too early. I was lucky enough to get it in 2008, when monoclonal antibodies had become mainstream (at Stanford, at least).

Glória pointed out that he didn’t exactly take care of himself. Fair point.

Kevin and I have lost touch several times over the years, but have always been happy to reconnect. We both realize that such chances will become fewer and further between as we tiptoe into old age.

In Porto, we decided to take a taxi to the Gaia side of the Douro River to visit one of the famous port facilities.

The concierge recommended Taylor’s, so we went there. Didn’t recognize the name, but it was next to Sandeman’s, which we have on the shelves in California. (Taylor’s too, we learned later).

There was a peacock waiting for us in the driveway!

Turns out that many of the original Portuguese port producers were owned by English companies, hence the lack of Portuguese names. Taylor’s goes back to the 17th century.

The tour was interesting enough, even if you live a stone’s throw from California’s wine country and have seen it all before. I hadn’t known that port was the first terroir-designated appellation, before Bordeaux, Rioja, Champagne, etc.

The tasting at the end was quite a production. They pour the 10 and 20 year old port for free, then entice you to pay for a taste of the “good stuff.” Victoria came away from the shop with a small bottle of 30-year-old tawny.

We decided to take the gondola back across the river. They call it a cable car here, but being from San Francisco, a cable car is a different sort of thing.

Another tuk-tuk ride later and we were back to our hotel, then navigating the urban maze out of Porto. (I am accustomed to seeing thousands of tuk-tuks in India, but Cisco executives were not allowed to ride in them).

A 2-hour drive away, Nazaré is a coastal fishing town turned seaside resort. I have nothing against roundabouts, and recognize their utility, but there can be too much of a good thing. The waves in this area are among the most powerful surfing waves in the world. Very Mediterranean, white stucco and red clay tile roofs.

He had a quiet afternoon. Victoria did a great job of breaking up the drive to Évora tomorrow. 2-3 hours is about all we want to drive at a time. I feel fine, but 3 or 4 days later I am of course still recovering from my Camino.

I went to the Santiago cathedral when it opened at 10:00 this morning to try to see the Portico of Glory before we leave.

The Portico de La Gloria was the cathedral’s main entry when the original Romanesque version was built in the 12th century. It is remarkably detailed and well-preserved, and underwent an extensive renovation ending in 2018.

Because of its significance and fragility, the portico requires a separate timed entrance ticket from the rest of the cathedral.

There were lines at 3 of the 4 cathedral entrances at 10, so I picked one and stood in it. Figuring out where to get the appropriate ticket required standing in the line to ask the attendant. There were a dizzying number of options, requiring each visitor to craft their specific visit and obtain the correct ticket. Not a very efficient process, but I somehow managed to stand in the right line.

I somehow got in to the next timed entry, and was led up and down several floors of stairs to a waiting area.

It was worth it. I had seen the portico 30 years ago before its restoration, when it was still accessible from the main cathedral.

The stonework, depicting heaven, hell, Christ, the apostles, angels, demons, and various biblical stories, had been covered in so many centuries of dust that some of the original polychrome paint was visible after the restoration.

Don Vicente called me unexpectedly to thank me again for the visit, and to ask me to send him copies of the wedding photos from 1989 that I had showed him on my phone. I hope that means that our meeting struck a cord with him in some small way, and revived a pleasant memory during this time of transition.

Our visit to Santiago complete, I picked up the car from the parking lot to start the 2-hour drive to Porto.

Victoria couldn’t find her phone, so we had to go back through the labyrinth to the hotel after a few miles. It was on her seat when she got out of the car.

I had rented a Mercedes A-class midsized car “or equivalent,” as rental companies like to say.

The car they had for me was a Škoda, a Volkswagen brand from Eastern Europe. I upgraded to a BMW X1 compact SUV for $30 more, hoping it would be more familiar. (The car has been fine, but very different from the last BMW I owned).

Our arrival in Porto was inauspicious. Like most European cities, its streets were not designed for automotive travel. After a long lap around the hotel, we found 15 minute parking and checked in.

Victoria outdid herself on our reservation at the Infante Sagres. Because she used American Express, we got a VIP upgrade to a nicer room, a bottle of champagne, and a free dinner. Built in the 19th century, the hotel is stunning, with dark wood, stained glass, and attendants in top hats. They did not seem to mind having a dusty pilgrim in zip-off hiking pants in their midst.

After we got checked in and parked nearby, we took a walk to the famous Ribiera on the Duoro River.

We had Victoria’s VIP dinner in the evening, and walked around this beautiful, hip city after dark. This is perhaps the only time live experienced “night time” on this trip, since Portugal kept GMT time when Franco moved Spain to Central European Time. Little did he know that Central Europe would soon move east to Belgium, and later perhaps to Hungary.

I met Father Vicente here in Santiago de Compostela in 1989, when I was 27.

Patty and I were living in Paris at the time, and our friends Michael and Nancy, classmates of Patty’s at UCLA, told us that they were coming to Spain to get married.

Michael had met Don Vicente (“Don” is the common form of address for a priest in Galicia) during a previous trip to Spain, and asked him to marry them in Santiago de Compostela.

We were expecting Micheline by that time, and had already abandoned our plans to run with the bulls in Pamplona in July.

Robin, with her husband Eliot, was on her way to celebrate her 50th birthday in Paris that same week in July of 1989 (her birthday is July 14th, Bastille Day). But with some juggling we were able to spend time with Robin and made it to Santiago by train.

Nancy’s mother, sister, and brother in law traveled from Bolivia for the ceremony. It was lovely ceremony, in an older chapel of the cathedral called Corticelia, since incorporated into the larger complex.

After the wedding, Don Vicente invited us to his home in the village of San Andrés de Teixido, 150 km east of Santiago in the Rias Gallegas (Galician fjords). His village had a small Romanesque church from the 12th century, a variety of stone homes (cows on the bottom, people on top, for warmth), and a single telephone attached to a pole in the square near the church.

I don’t believe Don Vicente actually remembered me, but he did remember Michael and the wedding. He remembered Nancy when I reminded him that she was a twin. The photos from our old album that Patty sent were helpful.

He asked about Michael and Nancy, and I told him we had lost touch over the years, but that Michael had helped me track him down through the Diocese. I said that both couples had had three daughters, and that two of Michael and Nancy’s were twins.

Don Vicente had been at the Seminary in Mondoñedo for less than a week. He had been living with his sister near Santiago in the year since he had retired in the home he had grown up in. But his sister had a husband and two sons, and there were simply too many people in the house.

There were 7 other priests living at the Seminary, but thy all had assignments outside of town during the day. Vicente was unsure whether he would have an assignment, or whether he would spend his time studying.

He said that when he became a priest, 200 people had matriculated in this facility, but that last year, there were none. Like many Spanish cities, the population was also down, to 1,000 in the case of Mondeñedo.

When I called Vicente after reaching Santiago, he apologized that he had forgotten about my letter and had recently moved. We quickly established that the distance was drivable in a day. Victoria and I picked up our rental car a day early, and she thoughtfully offered to come along with me on my not/exactly/logical errand and help me navigate the highway system, roundabouts, Galician signage, etc.

Over lunch, Don Vicente told me he was 79. I showed him some photos from 1989, in which we all looked incomprehensibly young. I asked him about his health, and he said it was only okay (equivocating gesture). He looked and sounded good to me, but I sensed that there was some sadness about the move.

His English was rusty, and my Spanish only marginally better than when I was 27. As he told me back then, he still enjoys opportunities to practice English.

I kept a written journal in those days, a page of which I read at Micheline’s wedding (“today I learned that I was going to be a father…”). Don Vicente seemed pleased that I remembered his house, his village, and his recipe for tortilla Española.

I brought him some Galician chocolate, since he is now living outside of Galicia for the first time in his life.

Don Vicente led us up the hill to visit the cathedral, but it was closed.

As we said goodbye, I told him that my Camino was now complete.

Victoria took exception to my observation that today represented a kind of “bookending” for me. Not to be fatalistic, but I am statistically much closer to the end of my life today than I was to the beginning in 1989.

I thanked Don Vicente for his kindness all those years ago, and told them that seeing again had made my heart happy.

It was a good day. I will write him a thank-you letter when I get home.

I found the Pilgrim’s Home this morning in Santiago and made a donativo of my hiking poles for another pilgrim who might need them. Told them the brief story of how I came to have them and they were appreciative of the donation.

Victoria went to the shopping neighborhood nearby. Our clothes from yesterday’s deluge have dried out except for our shoes, which will take a few days.

I booked an English-language tour of the Cathedral at 5:00. It is one of the most important cathedrals in the Catholic World, after Jerusalem and Rome.

We’ll go pick up our rental car this afternoon. Taking a taxi to the airport and picking up the car will be straightforward, but navigating the labyrinthine parking situation in Santiago is likely to be a challenge. Just need to cross off one challenge at a time.

Victoria has been pressing me for my reasons for visiting Father Vicente tomorrow, since it will now require a bit more effort than I had anticipated. I don’t have a succinct answer. It’s not as though I’m trying to revisit a time in my younger life that I miss today. It was in fact an amazing time in my life, but not as amazing as now!

I think it is just a simple matter of returning a small kindness that someone one showed to me. It was extraordinary of Don Vicente to invite 4 near-strangers into his home in 1989, show us how to cook tortilla Española, and practice his English (primarily with me, since all of the others were fluent in Spanish).

I brought him a bar of Galician chocolate, since he spent his whole life here and now lives in neighboring Pulga.

We took at taxi to the airport to pick up the rental car. Driving in the area around Santiago was a little bewildering, with multiple roundabouts, etc. But we conquered the logistical challenge of finding parking not too far from our hotel.

In the afternoon we had a tour of the cathedral and surrounding area with a wonder English-speaking Galician guide named Begoña. As one of the most important cathedrals in the Catholic world, Santiago has a wealth of history, intrigue, and mysteries dating back to the 9th century.

I told Begoña that Victoria and I had been raised in the Christian tradition, but not the Catholic tradition. At first she seemed not to understand how this was possible. Then, she said, “oh, you know the Bible, but not the saints!” Exactly.

Begoña suggested that they might be deploying the botafumeiro in the Cathedral after the 7:00 pilgrims’ mass. They only do this a few times a year, so it is kind of a big deal.

Unlike many peregrinos I’d met, I had yet to attend a single pilgrims’ mass. So I took a chance.

It is a lucky pilgrim indeed who gets to see the botafumeiro in action, and it was amazing. At the end of the mass, 6 or 8 monks in red robes hold onto the ends of a long rope and swing the huge censor back and forth across the transept over the heads of the packed pews.

The tradition started in the Middle Ages, when dirty, sick, and exhausted pilgrims gathered in the upper galleries to rest. The incense was thought to have health benefits, not to mention improving the smell. Napoleon absconded with the original one during the French occupation, but the one in use is an exact replica.

We ended the day with a delicious meal at the Parador. Victoria and I shared a local cheese ice cream with hazelnuts and blueberries— very Galician!

We got stuck in a deluge after being dropped off from our bus tour of the coast. Rain, hail, and ankle-deep runoff in the street. Fortunately, we only got soaked.

Most peregrinos have at least a few days of rain hiking, especially in Galicia. Somehow I avoided this.

It was a calculated risk booking a 9-hour bus tour on Victoria’s fist day here, but it was a great experience. Many pilgrims tack on a week or so onto their Camino to continue to Finisterra, the “end of the world,” and Muxia, where several miracles related to the body of St. James are said to have taken place.

Both places have their own version of the zero-mile marker, in perhaps an ambitious gambit by the department of tourism to extend the Camino.

Our favorite place was at the end of the day, the Ponte de San Xoán de Furelos near Melide, about 20 km outside of Santiago.

The bridge is a 12th-century structure built on a 3rd- century Roman foundation across the Furelos river. An ancient mill also sits on the site, with millstones still intact.

On the way out, we bought a pair of umbrellas at the front desk for the bargain price of 10 E each. Chances are we will need these in the coming days.

Marianne and Stefan from Ingolstadt were lovely dinner companions. They are almost exactly our age, and he had just finished a very long 3-month Camino tent camping from Germany.

Stefan is a recently retired internal combustion engineer in Ingolstadt (Audi, of course), and Marianne is a political science professor in Dresden. They have an unconventional marriage in two houses in two cities. They have a vacation home in Florida, and travel a lot for her job. Two sons in their twenties.

Sudden friendships happened to me frequently for me the Camino, but Victoria met some people we might actually see again in the future.