What a wonderful trip starting in Lisbon and ending in Porto. The end of the Best Of Spain in 14 days lined up perfectly with the Heart Of Portugal in 12 Days tour. With a super team of 28 guests lead by Fatima Bugarin, we saw and explored numerous places with excellent guides From Lisbon to Porto. In the Baixa neighborhood of Lisbon, we saw St. Nicholas Church, Santa Justa Elevator, and Rossio Square. We also toured Castelo S. Jorge, the Ruins of the Royal Palace Of Alcacova, the Church of Sao Roque, and enjoyed wonder free time and food at every turn. Statues galore and beautiful weather. From there we moved on to the Belem district where we toured the "Mosteiro Dos Jeronimos", the "Museu De Marinha", and the Maritime Museum. We took a boat taxi across the Tagus to Pragal and went to the top of "Sanctuary of Christ the King" right before it closed. What a great city ! WE took a TukTuk back to the port and crossed back to Lisbon to Mafia das Pizzas for dinner before retreating to our fabulous hotel. The next day we went to Evora to see the massive aquaduct and the Chapel of Bones from the 17th century. Creepy but cool !
Did some wine shopping in Evora at Courelas Da Torre Organic Wine shop. Had several bottles of wine, chocolate cups, olives, etc. shipped back to the US. The wine and olives arrived without issue, although UPS took several weeks to deliver. Unfortunately, the chocolate cups all broken in shipment. RJ and Courelas Da Torre resent the 4 boxes of chocolates, but, US Customs in Lexington Kentucky did not clear them and indicated "they have been destroyed". Kind of suspicious since they cleared the 1st broken shipment. Lesson learned, probably NOT a good idea to have Portugal chocolate shipped in the the US. Better to carry in luggage and declare it on Customs form when returning to US.
From Evora we traveled to Tomar. On the way we stopped at a working Rovisco Garcia cork farm. It had been passed down through numerous generations. We also saw some wild boars running around during the tour amongst the cork trees and were treated to a marvelous lunch and Rovisco Garcia Wine.
The next day we toured Tomar's Castle of the Knights Templar and Covent of Christ. So much history to absorb and ancient massive churches. That night, on our own, we went to the "Convento De Cristo" where we saw a play about Aurora Rodrigues. Although the play was spoken in Portugese, a bilingual college student translated the facinating play. After she attended a student demonstration and spoke out in 1973, the Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE) arrested her and put her in prison. After her release, she became in 1977 a magistrate of the Public Prosecution Service in Évora and Santarém, Portugal.
Aurora at age 71, was there and led a discussion after the play. What a treat ! Highlighted how important freedom of speech in the US and how fragile it could be.
From there we went to Coimbra and visted a pottery factory. There was the visits to the Grand Monastery of Santa Maria and several other historical sites in Baralha and Fatima.
After travelling through the beautiful mountains in Douro Wine country and visting the , we ended up in Porto where we toured the Templar Church with all its rooms and history dating back to the 16th century.
There were so many unique and wonderful places we visited on this tour I did not mention here. This was my favorite Rick Steves tour thus far.
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