We have lost track of time; it must be a good vacation!  According to the calendar we are now at the halfway point of the trip.

We have turned the corner and are now headed north up the Atlantic Ocean coastline, heading to our destination of Lisbon, Portugal today. Our ship is extremely stable; we hardly know we are moving. Also it is very quiet; the rooms are well insulated and even though we have neighbors on both sides we have never heard them.

I continue to be plagued with the inability to upload photos for my blog. Yesterday I even got off the ship and sat in the lobby of the port building to see if their Internet was better. Alas, it was not. I am now wondering if the issue is with Word Press, the blogging app I am using to write the blog.

The weather has been marvelous so far- sunny and not too hot, although it is predicted that today it will be 85 in Lisbon. Note to self: Do NOT come to Spain or Portugal in July or August as it can be ungodly hot! Yesterday in Cadiz we were told it can reach 118 degrees (48 degrees C) in the summer and it is humid!  No thanks.

It was another marvelous weather day- sunny with a predicted temperatures of 85. We do not arrive in Lisbon until 10 AM so we finally will have time to have a leisurely breakfast in the main dining room this morning. Yvonne has yet to have her favorite item-eggs Benedict, so this is the day!

We have been to Lisbon many times and have seen also the local attractions so I chose to visit something new-the medieval town of Obidos, a town that was a wedding gift from the king to his wife in 1298. It certainly sounds intriguing.

I have decided to publish this without pictures for the time being. Here are the highlights of our day. We, indeed, go to the main dining room where Yvonne did get her Eggs Benedict and I ordered eggs & corn beef hash with a side of crepes and lingonberry sauce. Marvelous!

We docked on time at 10AM ( I am amazed on how these ships maintain their posted schedule) and joined Ron/Marlene and Dave/Gael for the excursion to Obidos as they had all selected the same tour. The locals were adamant about wearing masks when indoors and on the bus bus we were free to not wear them when outdoors. There were less than 20 people in our group. It took about an hour to arrive at Obidos so many of us grabbed a quick catnap along the way, even though our local tour guide provided some commentary about Lisbon. Once there she led us through the small, two street village to the local church and viewpoint over the valley. Unfortunately when we arrived at the church it had already been closed for the usual extended lunch hour locals take. She did point out where we would be able to purchase the simply fabulous local Portuguese delicacy- the “pasteis de nata”, a warm custard tart baked in a phyllo dough cup. It is one of my favorite treats when visiting this part of the world and I had been concerned if it would be available in the small village.

It was lunch time and we found ourselves at a small outdoor cafe on a side street of the village that was quite busy, so we figured it must be good. And luckily one of the waiters spoke English and provided us with English menus so we knew what we were ordering. The fun dishes were a local beer, a plate of chorizo and small loaves of bread as appetizers, followed by platters of either chicken salad or fried pork steaks with fries.

What made the lunch memorable and ultimately laughable was a discussion about our river cruise with Ron & Marlene Massa 2014 on the Douro River some time ago. Marlene & Ron then started searching their iPhones for photos taken during that trip and discovered we had visited Obidos as part of that trip. No way, I said! Sure enough, she had photos of us here. So much for visiting some place new on this trip. The good news for me was I did not remember any of it (obviously a senior moment) so to me it was new! We all had a hearty laugh.

I purchased “pasteis de nata” for us to eat as we walked back to the bus for our return trip to Lisbon. They are still as wonderful as I remembered.

We arrived back at our ship just in time to play trivia once again, still looking for a win! It turns out today was the day!  We got 13/15 answers correct, only missing the following questions: what year did the Cold War end and how many eyes does a bee have? Answers are: 1989 (we guessed 1986) and 5 ( we said 4). Our score was good for 2nd place. We each received tickets worth 2 points, which can be used at the end of the cruise to redeem for “gifts”- like pens, tee shirts ,etc..We are making progress!

Dinner tonight is back at the specialty restaurant called Pacific Rim for a second time, which specializes in Asian inspired dishes. Although we tried a few new dishes the obvious favorite was the tempera fried lobster!

The evening entertainment will be provided by our tour director, who also happens to be an accomplished singer. We were impressed.

Our next stop is Porto Portugal.

 

Steps today were 10,086:  Good for us!

Final note: quit complaining about gasoline prices. Prices here are close to $8/gallon!