We are off the the Prinsendam!This morning Paul did a handover with his counterpart and then we headed into the port terminal to meet up with a taxi to take us to our hotel. Town was busy and there were problems with the traffic lights and also problems with traffic. Our poor driver had difficulty getting us to our hotel because some of the roads were closed but there were no diversion signs. We later learnt that there was a vintage car show/rally so roads had been blocked off near the vintage cars - which happened to be near our hotel! Instead of taking about 10 minutes to get to our hotel, it took us over half an hour.
It was too early to check into our hotel (Hotel Lisboa) so we left our luggage in the hotel's luggage room and hit town. Yes, we came across the vintage cars during our walk. It was no wonder the roads had been blocked off. The cars were lining the road so vehicular access to them was blocked off - probably to prevent theft or problems.
We made our way through the streets to the market where there was a food market in progress. We had a nice mug of mulled wine to warm us up. Yum!
We continued along the streets, to the waterfront and came across a man playing music on a long two-handled wood SAW! He vibrated the saw with one of his legs, the one hand held the upper saw handle and in the other hand he held a violin or cello bow. As the saw vibrated, the chap drew the bow across the edge of the saw to make the sound. The hand holding the saw handle end was also used to manipulate the angle of the saw so that the saw would produce different sounds or notes whilst the bow was pulled across it. Fantastic!
We made our way up to the hill to the castle, visiting two churches on the way. Inside one church there was a choir practicing. So we sat and listened for a while. The music was lovely and made more beautiful in such a good acoustic setting within the church. At one point I let tears flow - thinking of my parents and twin who passed away in 2015 and 2016; a time to reflect on my life and theirs.
We had hoped to visit São Jorge Castle at the top of the hill but unfortunately there was a long queue of people waiting to get in so we didn't. Instead we walked around the outside perimeter of the castle and a little bit through the village on its outskirts.
We were thirsty so we stopped briefly to have a smoothie before making our way down the hill, back to the waterfront, to wave the Prinsendam goodbye. Unfortunately I think we got our timing wrong. We waited a while but she wasn't leaving so we headed back to the food market for something to eat and more mulled wine. It left us feeling pretty full!
Once back at the hotel we were able to check in properly and put our feet up. We had done quite a bit of walking so our feet deserved a break.
PHOTOGRAPHS
No comments:
Post a Comment