Ready For Home

We have had a wonderful two weeks here in Portugal. We are all now ready to come home though. There have been a lot of beautiful things we have seen here and of course like any country some very ugly things.

The good
Weather: 1.5 cloudy or rainy days, 12 very dry,warm and crystal clear days.
Natural Beauty: The mountains of the Serra Da Estrela and the coastline of Nazarre and the north shore of Lisboa (Sintra)
Historic Beauty: Palacio Pena, Castles at Linhares and Obidios
Food: Some of the local vegetables, fruits, wines, cheese, bread and olive oils were incredible. Home made meals in the apartment were awesome.
Family: It was great seeing my Great Aunt and my cousins.

The bad
Rude drivers: Has in my opinion the rudest drivers in the world. They would cut you off as you were backing up and already in the lane when doing a 3 point turn. Even our cab driver said that even the Italian drivers come second compared to driving rudeness and agressiveness. Constantly beep at you for little to no reason although the beeping has improved.

Grafatti in Bairro Alto and in the broader cities:
When my wife and I visited 15 years ago we ate at the Bota Alta in the Bairro Alto. The Bairro Alto is a very narrow set of streets with traditional apartments that have the tile facades. Many of the restaurants here play the traditional Fado. The entire area has really fallen into disrepair and now has lots of Grafatti. This is a great example of how Portugal really has lack of leadership. This is the type of problem that could easily be fixed with proper legislation, education and controls on the sale of aerosol paint. Also by limiting the areas within the Bairro that could be business establishments would encourage them to be better kept up to par.

Food: Some of the meals we had at the restaurants tasted great but left you feeling pretty ill afterwards. Flies seem to exist in more abundance and I don't think there is as much care with regards to sanitary conditions both in markets and in restaurants.

We checked out Sintra today. Mary you and your husband live in a beautiful place. You could easily spend 1 week exploring this town. We unfortunately had only 1 day, really half a day since the kids got sick. The pictures here were taken at the Palacio de Pena.

We get on the plane tomorrow at 6 pm. Hopefully I can convince the kids and wife to come back soon.