2019 Family Summer

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Porto, Portugal

We only spent a day here and didn't take many photos, but this is definitely an area I want to return to. There's a train that goes East from Porto into the wine region, and I'm still eager to go there. 

Something happened, still pretty vague to me, where Porto moved up in their rankings for soccer. The entire town was going nuts. They did not stop honking from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening. Seriously, honking ALL THE TIME, even at night. We slept with ear plugs and noise cancelling headphones. They sang and yelled "PORTO!" and sang a chant/song over and over everywhere we went until the game was over Sunday evening. Adults, kids, everyone had such a happy spirit over this.

We tried our best to get tickets to the game but it was too late.

Stairs everywhere!

Our apartment was located a few flights of stairs up, which wasn’t very easy with our luggage even though we traveled light.

Someone offered to take our photo.

We’re sunburned.

Porto goes crazy over football (soccer)

Porto’s ranking in their league moved up the Friday we arrived, and it was non stop singing, honking, and partying until the night of the big game (Sunday). We tried to get tickets but failed. We headed toward the stadium, and it was madness getting there. A fun experience!

Cachorro

Blurry iphone photo, but Kyle kept craving these giant piles of food that people carried around with them near the stadium. We found out it was called a “cachorro” which was funny to me because in Spanish that means “puppy” but in Portuguese it was “hotdog”. It was nothing like an American hot dog. It was a pile of potato sticks with ketchup, mustard & mayonnaise on top of a hot dog to where the actual hot dog was no longer visible. Yummm. We drank beer on the lawn and watched the crowds outside the stadium celebrate.

excitement

People were SO excited about the game, that they got stuck in traffic and just decided to give up trying to park. We watched this driver try to park on the lawn, then got stuck. So he left the car parked there and ran off to celebrate.

chants, yells, flags, and honks

I don’t know that any of these people were actually paying attention to the game. They were just super happy.

Ponte D. Luís I

This is the Ponte D. Luís I bridge at night. This view is from the window of our apartment. The town was finally quiet after the game.

we'll miss this when we get home

It was so easy to grab a beer and get on the train. Here we were headed toward Lisbon to start making our way back home.

Azores, Part 3 - Pico Island

We took a 45 minute plane ride from Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel, to the airport in Horta on the island of Pico. The name comes from the huge volcano sitting in the middle of the island, and it can be seen from almost anywhere on the island. This island had very few people on it. We were usually the only ones roaming around. Our apartment host said it gets more traffic starting in late May through August, but not really crowded. Many people come to this island to climb the mountain, sailing, or whale watching. We did none of those. We just enjoyed the quiet ambiance.

Pico Mountain

The mountain everyone comes to climb. You can see it from almost anywhere on the island. They say it takes 3 hours up, but 4 hours down because of the unconsolidated ground. We heard from locals that the best experience is to climb up, camp there and watch the sunset, then watch the sunrise the next morning before coming down. We plan to do that next time.

more cows

The locals said most of the cows on the islands are for dairy.

lambie

I know this is a calf, but he/she was white and from far away looked like a lamb. My daughter’s favorite animal is a white lamb.

stick shift driver

I forgot to specify we’d need a car with automatic transmission. I don’t drive standard. So he was stuck driving the whole time. Oops.

just hanging out

The roads were narrow but empty, which allowed us to slow down and meet these guys!

Pico Mountain

We were only on Pico island a day or so, and the weather changes quickly. So we were lucky to be able to see so much of the mountain.

Lajes

We went to the town of Lajes to walk around. This is where the whale watchers leave from. We found this cafe with delicious sandwiches, coffee, and wine. We ended up spending a lot of time here just relaxing and planning out the rest of our trip.

walking the pier

This was actually a little scary for me, since my legs are short and feet are small.

adventurous run

I went for a quick run near our apartment. I went down the hill to this little beach area. These are amazing volcanic rocks. This was just west of the town of Silveira.

natural pools

A little hike down I found this pool area fed by the ocean water. Crisp, clear water that I’m sure is very refreshing in the summer.

ocean

The Moana song started playing in my head.

bridges & caves

See the little tunnel under the bridge right in the middle of the photo?

museo do vinho

The wine museum in the town of Madalena is self-guided and informative. To build these stone walls, they broke the volcanic rock and piled them up in sections like this. The grapes grow within the walls, and the walls protect the grape vines from the wind.

view house

path to little red view house.

more stone walls

thousand branch tree

We never figured out what these trees were called, but they seemed to have hundreds of branches that interweaved with those of the neighboring trees to provide lots of shade and somewhat shelter.

tree fingers?

What is this?