Olá Portugal!

We just finished three full days in Porto, Portugal which also included a day trip to nearby Douro Valley. The Douro is where soooo many grapes are grown and eventually turned into port. But that’s another blog post coming very soon.

The weather has been fantastic! It's nice to be
back on the coast, too. Woodhaven isn't super
close to the ocean, but it's close enough to get
marine influences in our air and weather.
I forget how much my body and spirit like
being near the water.

Porto is – as you might deduce – a port-side town. Strategically positioned in northern Portugal where the Douro River empties into the Atlantic, the city dating back to Roman times has become quite the tourist destination in the last decade or so. Porto comes complete with scenic bridges, river boats, and a gondola ride over the river like you find at county fairs. Sadly, we never had time to take a glide. It looked like a wonderfully romantic and unique way to take in the beautiful vistas.

Porto is surprisingly hilly!

Lots of lovely spots to grab a snack.

We later learned that J.K. Rowling of
Harry Potter fame lived in Porto when
she first started writing her books. 
We're pretty sure the winged
lion statues in this fountain inspired
Gryffindor.

Pretty architecture that sort of looked like
Spanish Victorian, if that's a thing.

The inside of a store called "O Mundo Fantastico
da Sardinha Portuguesa" aka "The Fantastic
World of Portuguese Sardines" – for all your
sardine needs. I had none. Ewwww.

The hilly city of about 250,000 residents (the metro is about 1 million) sits on the north side of the river. We stayed in a hotel on the south side, in a small town called Gaia. It provided easy walks to port houses and also offered stunning views of Porto. Porto is old and occasionally steep, with narrow, bumpy cobblestone streets, palm and eucalyptus and pine trees living together harmoniously, and lots of red tiled roofs topping light-colored buildings. It is so pretty! And sort of magical.

There is a foot bridge at the bottom which we
never got around to walking across. Also,
locals gather nightly on the top bridge to watch
the sunset. That makes my heart so happy!

The bridge is to the right, the Atlantic Ocean is
to the left. A few of the blobs that look like
boats are actually gondola cars.

We spent one day learning all about port. Another day was spent in Old Porto, eating and drinking our way through the town with a local guide. The third day was spent leisurely cruising down the Douro River about 2 hours upstream, watching the vineyards reveal themselves as the first rain of our trip slowly gave way to sunny humidity.

The Douro River Valley

Along the way, we got to have a mind-blowing dinner. The food and drink were quite tasty. However, what made my head explode was that we enjoyed it with friends. In Portugal. What?!

Teresa and I worked together a lifetime ago at a Really Big Oil Company in San Francisco. We became fast friends and stayed in touch as our lives and careers took different paths. For several years – after we moved to Woodhaven and Teresa and her family moved to Idaho – we met annually in Walla Walla, Washington to enjoy wine weekends. They were always filled with laughter, authenticity, and great food and drink.

A couple of years ago, as their daughter was preparing to launch from college, Teresa and Jack started to put into action a long-held dream to live abroad. With Portuguese roots, it didn’t take the Abbotts long to figure out where to graft their American roots onto old stock. Now living an easy Uber ride north of Porto, Teresa and Jack motored down to Porto and joined us for a lovely dinner overlooking the Douro River. I’m still utterly amazed. It was soul-warmingly familiar and stunningly unexpected to catch up with dear friends over a meal in Portugal. A huge highlight!!

Never in a million years would I have predicted
this photo when I first met Teresa in a San Francisco
conference room in the mid-1990s!

With much prodding from fascinated friends, Teresa
agreed to start a blog about their adventures moving
to Portugal. Check it out here!

As I said, the dinner was tasty. Honestly, it had a lot to do with me ordering a very unPortuguese pumpkin risotto. I tried so hard to enjoy local Portuguese cuisine. I don’t normally consider myself a picky eater, but I just couldn’t find anything to get excited about food-wise. Once a very poor country living under a dictatorship (until 1974), Portuguese people have incorporated all of the pig “from snout to tail” into their daily diet. Plus a fascination with sardines. And salting cod like movie theater popcorn. Rob asked me if I could live in Porto. As lovely as the city and people are, I would pretty much starve and mope around dreaming of fresh salads and spices.

Salty cod with chickpeas

Tasty sausages and a steak tartare thing.

Street food! So much bacon. If I lived
in Portugal, I would survive on bacon.

Much to our monolingual relief, Rob and I have had absolutely no issues getting around without speaking Portuguese or even Spanish. I learned to say “thank you" (obrigada for female speakers; obrigado for male speakers), but otherwise I just listened to Portuguese around me and was grateful when I was correctly sized up as an English-speaker and the language was graciously switched. 

Portuguese spoken in Portugal is a fascinating language. It’s not Spanish. And it’s different than the Portuguese spoken in Brazil. Seeing it written, homeland Portuguese looks like Spanish that is written in puffy paint. It has lots of round letters and includes lots of squiggly accents and tails. To listen to it, Portuguese sounds like a weird mashup of Spanish and Russian, with lots of soft “shhh” sounds and words that seem to run into each other.

As I do, I have spent a lot of the past few weeks observing (or staring at) the world around me from behind the safety of my sunglasses. Here are a few things I have noticed:

• Spanish and Portuguese people do not carry around their drinks. No water bottles, no toddler-sized Stanleys, no bespoke coffees in Venti cups. And yet somehow, they all appear suitably hydrated. While white sneakers used to be the tell-tale sign of an American tourist, I’m starting to wonder if our emotional support water bottles are now the beacons of Americanism.
  
  
• Tattoos are not really a thing. Nor are body piercings. Coming from Portland, the folks on the Iberian Peninsula look naked and remarkably untouched.
  
  
• Similarly, very few people color their hair unnatural colors. The only people I have seen with purple, pink, blue, green, or Raggedy Ann red hair have been women in their 70s who have clearly reached the age of not caring what anyone thinks.
  
  
• North Face is THE brand of travelers and outdoorsy people here.
  
  

• Portuguese women are more about hats and less about scarves.
  
  
• Leggings as public attire is definitely an American thing.
  
  
• Smoking is super common, even in outdoor restaurants. Vaping is very popular, too, especially among 30-something women.                                                                                       

Something else I observed:
a street musician in Porto using
chickens (sitting on his knees)
as musical accompaniments.
Click here for a video!

Rob and I are currently on a train zooming three hours south to Lisbon. We will spend tomorrow being tourists and then gawdawful early the next morning, we start our trek home to Woodhaven. I’ve heard lots of people say Lisbon reminds them of San Francisco. Can’t wait to see if I agree!

Beautiful sunset over Porto and Gaia. 
I totally get why gathering on the bridge to watch
the sunset is a daily local tradition.

 

Blown Away by Barcelona

I have wanted to visit Barcelona for years. Decades, actually. I don’t remember for sure, but the Mediterranean metropolis might have hit my radar during the 1992 Olympics. Well, 34 years later… Barcelona, you were worth the wait. WOW!

Rob and I spent today on our own. No pre-arranged tours or tastings, no guides who knew our names. Today it was just the two of us, anonymously hanging out on the top of a double-decker tour bus winding its way around a spectacularly beautiful Spanish city on the Mediterranean. It was wonderful.

On a bus! With the Futbol Club Barcelona
(Soccer) Stadium behind us.

We spent about 6 hours touring the city, only getting off the bus once to walk around the perimeter of the famed Sagrada Familia Basilica (more on that later) and grab some mid-day snacks. It was a beautifully sunny day, mid-70s, that produced a slight sunburn and the purchase of a new baseball hat. I had all the provisions – they were just unhelpfully chilling in our air conditioned hotel room.

I realized I was falling in love with Barcelona when I started making a mental list of the tour stops I wished we had time to come back to. 

The old bullfighting colosseum that was turned into a marketplace when Barcelona officially banned bullfighting in 2012.

The Arenas de Barcelona bull ring now shopping
center. The last bull fight here was in 1977.

The stunning Olympic Park area on the top of a mountain with incredible views.

I desperately want to go back to soak in this view!

The funicular ride down a mountainside.

The sparkling cruise port and beaches with the calm Mediterranean waters.

The beaches looked soft, uncrowded, clean, and
super relaxing.

The late-1800s amusement park on the top of Barcelona’s tallest mountain peak that reportedly boasts an elegant blend of new and old.

At each turn of the bus into a different section of this beautiful city of nearly 2 million lucky residents, I yearned to hop off the bus and dig deeper.

I was struck by how parts of Barcelona reminded me of other cities I have visited. The walkable, palm-lined section along the water was very similar to San Francisco with its sparkle and occasional outdoor art. The way the city creeps from the ocean up to tall mountains reminded me of Acapulco. The wide avenues and Spanish-style stucco buildings with ornate metal work reminded me of Buenos Aires. I occasionally caught glimpses of buildings that looked oddly Parisian. Meandering through the Old Town of narrow, stone streets reminded me of countless cities outside of the United States. Maybe it was the variety of familiarity that made me so oddly comfortable?

All that's missing is the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge
off to the right

And yet, despite all the ways Barcelona feels like someplace else, it is also uniquely itself.

It has the widest diversity of architecture I have ever seen in a city. Modern, post-modern, Spanish, French, wood, stucco, brick, metal. Pointy buildings, rounded buildings, simple buildings, elaborate buildings. And so many buildings proudly described by using the architect’s name. Buildings are art in Barcelona. Not to mention the outside public art.

Casa Batllo, designed by Antoni Gaudi
Once a house, now a UNESCO World
Heritage Site

Random building that looks both
French and Spanish to me

Beautiful blend of old and new 

Much more modern near the waterfront

Random outside art
This is called "Woman and Bird"
If you say so...

And then the streets. There are SO many trees lining streets in Barcelona! A taxi driver told us that since the city doesn’t have many public parks, it has trees instead to give a sense of nature and green and calm. I’m there to tell you, it works. All the trees somehow make the enormity of Barcelona feel cozy and neighborhoody instead.

View from our hotel room
downtown

We were also told that the major intersections throughout the city are intentionally designed with chiseled edges to increase airflow and visibility for safety. So instead of your typical plus-sign shaped intersection, imagine the 90-degree points are lopped off like slicing off the corner of a piece of cake. What you have left is an intersection that is more open and rounded and almost feels like a tiny town square. Not only are cars and pedestrians more visible, the feeling is more communal and friendly. A resident revealed that this design feature provides more room for outdoor tables and places to chitchat al fresco. Such a small change but it makes a huge impact.

See how the corner is chiseled off? Imagine 
that on all four corners. So spacious and inviting!

Of course, any first trip to Barcelona must include a visit to the enormously tall and enormously unique Sagrada Familia Basilica. Designed by architect Antoni Gaudi, it started being built in 1882. Despite recent reports to the contrary, it still isn’t finished. Note the cranes in my photos.

I have soooo many variations
of this photo...

Described by Wikipedia as having a style of “Gothic Revival, Art Nouveau, and Modernista,” the basilica is made of stone and concrete and metal. It is crazy tall (at 566 feet, it is the tallest church in the world), and it features all sorts of religious scenes and persons and symbols on the outside. It has three sides, each telling a different part of the story of Jesus Christ’s life. One side is the Nativity (Jesus’ birth and childhood), one is the Passion (Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection), and the third is the Glory (Jesus’ path to God and eternal life).

Close-up of a section of the
Passion Side. The first column is
the Jesus Column (it is much taller).
The second is the Thomas Column.
The third is the Phillip Column.
Each Apostle has his own column.

We slowly walked around the perimeter of the basilica, which took about 30 minutes. We had been warned that pickpockets are rather active in Barcelona – and we assumed especially so around The Main Attraction – so we were not as lingery as either of us would have preferred. It was quickly clear that you could make a full-time job studying the Sagrada Familia and noting all the details, both architecturally and religiously. So even if we had spent all day gazing at the structure that mythically birthed the word “gaudy” (it’s a great story; I’m bummed it isn’t true!), we still would have only scratched the bizarrely intriguing surface.

We didn’t go inside the basilica; the first available tickets are a month away. We searched online to see what the inside looks like. Wow, so much stained glass! Rob and I agreed that if we ever make it back to Barcelona (already on my radar again), we will make sure to plan ahead to go inside the Sagrada Familia instead of just stalking it from the outside, clutching our cellphones and wallets.

I suppose at this point the cranes are
the Modern part of the Post Modern
vibe

As we sat at the rooftop bar of our hotel tonight, gazing at Gaudi’s iconic landmark, Rob and I agreed we wouldn’t mind living in Barcelona. I think it might be the first foreign city we have ever said that about. Of course, Rob’s interest was qualified with “If I had to live in Spain…” I leaned fully in and said, “I could live here.” We haven’t left yet and I already miss it.

Click here to see a short video of
Barcelona from our hotel's roof

So tomorrow we say adios to Spain and head to Portugal to learn about…port! Much to my surprise, our day in Barcelona today did not allow me to cross “Visit Barcelona” off my travel bucket list. Instead, I have added “AGAIN!”

Barcelona, you captured my heart!

We will be back, Barcelona!

Spanish Wine Education

If you have hung around Woodhaven Ramblings for any length of time, you know that Rob and I are wine fans. We drink wine, we make wine, we talk about wine, we travel for wine. We realized long ago that the more we learn about wine, the less we really know about it. Nevertheless, we keep trying to crack the code on la vida de vino.

Driving our desire to travel to Spain was to learn about its wine. We didn’t know much about it before we got here. Now that we’ve spent about a week touring the northern wine-making regions, we know a bit more. We hung out in two main areas: the Ribera del Duero and Rioja. Here’s what we know!

• The world of Spanish wine is a LOT less complicated than, say, French wine. Or even American wine.
  
  

  

  That's Rioja behind us!

  
  
• There’s basically one grape that dominates Spanish wines. It’s a red grape, called Tempranillo. It accounts for about 40% of the grape vines planted in Spain.
  
  

  

  The vines already had little teensy grapes on them!
  Everyone was saying the harvest is going to be 
  early this year.

  
  
• Tempranillo is an early-ripening, early-harvested grape. The grape is named after the Spanish word “temprano” which means “early.”
  
  

  

  Rob checking out the tiny clusters.

  
  
• Since there’s really only one grape in Spain, the winemakers pay a LOT of attention to things like soil and fermentation vessels and aging techniques. They experiment and play with these factors to try to distinguish their wines. They also care a lot about the differences between tiny plots of vines, determined to suss out which plots yield which wine characteristics.
  
  
• The main soil types in the areas we visited are clay, limestone, and sand.
  
  
• Spanish winemakers ferment and age their wines in a variety of materials including stainless steel, cement, oak, and clay.
  
  

  

  Sadly, these cement eggs do not come in
  home-winemaker sizes. I desperately
  want a mini one to name Mork.

  
  

  

  We have stainless steel tanks in the US, but these
  look more European for some reason. Or like a
  blender base. Very kitcheny. Speaking of which,
  I still don't have one. A kitchen I mean.

  
  
• There are 96 designated wine regions in Spain (called DOCs). They all have pretty strict rules. Like France, Spain controls how much grapes farmers can harvest per hectare (in weight) in order to concentrate the quality. The typical restriction is about 7,000 kilograms per hectare which translates to about 3 tons of grapes per acre (shout out to Rob and his mad calculator skillz!). Basically, they are focusing on quality over quantity.
  
  
• The designations of Crianza, Reserve, and Grand Reserve for Spanish Tempranillos do not necessarily indicate quality. Instead, they only tell you how long the wine was aged before being bottled. A Crianza is aged for less than 2 years; a Reserve is aged for 3-5 years; and a Grand Reserve is aged for more than 5 years.
  
  

  

  It smelled wonderful in this barrel room!

  
  
• The Tempranillos Rob and I have had made from grapes grown in the United States (or South America) are not nearly as good as the Spanish versions. Now that we can compare, American Tempranillos tend to be lighter, chalkier, and more tannic. Spanish Tempranillos are all about red fruits (strawberry, raspberry, cherry) but can also have the weight and dark fruitiness of a Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. Nevertheless, Spanish Tempranillos are a great BBQ or pork or fancy pizza wine -- lighter than a Merlot, heavier than a Pinot Noir.
  
  
• Spanish Tempranillos tend to have a subtle undertone in their nose (smell) of Magic Marker or a light, sweet chemical smell. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s just a really cool discovery that will help us identify Spanish Tempranillos in the future!
  
  

  

  This photo doesn't really have anything
  to do with Magic Markers. I just love
  the photo and the memory of us being
  in a wine cave standing next to an
  enormous barrel that was well over
  100 years old.

  
  
• There ARE some other grape varieties in Spain. Most of the red ones are used to blend with the Tempranillo. Main red blending grapes are Garnacha (Grenache), Graciano, and Mazuelo (Carignan).
  
  
• The main white wines we tried were Verdejo (as the name suggests, this wine had grassy notes) and Albillo (my notes included descriptors of pickle, barnyard, and litter box. Yeah, not a fan). I also tried a few rosés made from Tempranillo. I wasn’t a fan of those either. They were more farmy and less fruity and floral than my preferred rosés made from French Rhône varietals.
  
  

  

  Super cool winery architecture! And our most
  fabulous guide -- and now friend -- Itzi!

  
  

Cheers to traveling for educational purposes!

Hola España!

Well, here we are! We have been in Spain for almost a week and we are about half-way through our trip. We have completed our Spanish Wine Education and are making our way to Barcelona in a few hours. We’re excited because we get to take a train! In Spain! And it might rain!

I will write separately about my Spanish Wine musings, in case that’s not your glass of vino. This post is more about my thoughts and observations about Spain.

In a word:  GORGEOUS!

Just a random view out of a hotel
window. STUNNING!!!

I had no idea what to expect from Spanish scenery. What I have found are mountains and rolling hills and steep cliffs and fields of grain and slopes of vineyards. There are rivers and mesas and pine trees and lots of leafy trees. Because it is mid-May, it is also SO GREEN! Apparently it will turn golden brown and yellow in a few months, much like California.

This is looking mostly north towards the
Basque region. The Atlantic Ocean is on the other
side of the mountains.

Vineyards in the Ribera del Duero wine area.

And that was an early observation by both of us – how much parts of the Spanish countryside remind me and Rob of California. Especially the central parts of the Golden State – inland from Monterey, where there is agriculture and wide plains.

This could easily be in the area inland from
Monterey, California.

We’ve toured the northeastern part of the country. At times we were closer to France than to Madrid. As we made our way south yesterday to a city called Zaragoza, the terrain flattened, the soil dried, and it looked much more desert-y. I’m really curious what Barcelona – on the Mediterranean and about as far east as you can go in Spain – will look like.

About an hour north of Barcelona. MUCH 
different terrain! From the train!

The weather has been fun. Very Springlike. Sunny, fits of showers, cloudy, cold enough to wish I had brought jeans, warn enough to wish I had brought shorts. Mostly, menopausal.

We’ve gotten along fine with English. Rob said “Ocho” for our room number and shocked the hotel employee that he – clearly an English-speaking American – knew Spanish numbers and used them. It really doesn’t take a lot to graciously try to express some international respect. Nevertheless, we haven’t had any sizeable language barriers and have only leaned on Google Translate a few times.

Google Translate has its limits...

Photo added later – from an
announcement in the Lisbon airport.
The "finger walkway" ended up
being the jetway to the airplane.

The food. Well, we – and especially me – have struggled. I didn’t really know what Spanish cuisine is. It’s a lot of seafood and parts of cows and pigs I don’t really want to nosh on (cheeks, elbows, ears)... Our dinner menu last night was a great representation of what we’ve encountered. Squid, octopus, eel, truffles, mushrooms, tuna, and eggs plopped on top of things. At this point, I’m mostly surviving on bread, cheese, prosciutto, potatoes, almonds, and olives. Sure, not a bad life, but I’m really hoping Barcelona cuisine might offer some new options.

A pretty typical menu. Things sounded
good at first and then they turned 
weird and unappetizing.

This is what I ended up ordering 
from the other side of the menu. It was
called "Melted Brie Toast with Iberian Ham"

We’ve had a couple of “gastronomic experiences” arranged by our travel agent. We just canceled the final one scheduled for Portugal because it seems like a waste of fancy food, and the anticipation was prompting a gag reflex. Rob has been a champ, eating sardines and anchovies and squid ink. I’ve been less adventuresome and had chanterelle mushroom sprinkled with truffles. I can eat a lot of weird stuff (see years of Fair Food Feast Parades), but I have found my limit in Spain. In related news, my pants are a little looser…

This was the green course.

This was the yellow course, featuring
the mushroom I bravely ate.

I got excited because these looked
like tacos. They were not tacos.

I think this counted as 4 courses. The bowl 
had broth in it.

This was dessert. We didn't eat the grass.

Much like France, I have determined I am a bigger fan of street food, local stuff, pub fare, Spanish food that might be served in a home. Yesterday we went on a “Tapas Run” with Itzi, our tour guide. It was so fun! It felt like what every food cart pod in the US wants to be but will never achieve. Because the US doesn’t have the history, culture, or sense of just slowing down to enjoy life.

Tapas Run!
Without actually running...

Our tapas run was two streets in a town called Logrono. Each doorway was a different specialty. We browsed from one tiny restaurant to another, ordering just one or two items. The food arrived quickly and we stood at small tables, nibbling, sharing, sipping on uncomplicated wine and beer before moving onto the next round. The street was full of energy and noise and just people enjoying life and food. WAY more my speed than fancypants celery sticks coated with a pea-based béchamel sauce.

Roasted peppers -- so good! And 
fried cheesy things and potato things.
YUM! 

Potatoes and a kicky red sauce.

Hey look! It's meat and cheese!

Our hotels so far have been unique and striking. The first was a 12th-century abbey that has been converted to a tranquil hotel and spa in the Ribera del Duero wine area. It was quiet and peaceful and lovely. And a touch echoey.

The hotel's dining room and scene 
of the Gastronomic Adventure.
And breakfast.

The second hotel was a work of post-modern art designed by Frank Gehry who was the Guggenheim architect. The locals assured us they are grateful for the purple wavy eyesore (claimed to be a loping animal of some sort) on the edge of a medieval Spanish town, as it has “put the town on the map.” Have you ever heard of Elciego? Cuz that’s the town that’s now supposedly map worthy.

There are only 14 rooms across the front.
We stayed in one of them. The room was "normal"
but the view was anything but (see below).

Last night’s hotel was a city hotel boasting it itself  as a “bleisure hotel” where you can seamlessly blend both work and pleasure. Honestly, it was a little too hip for us, what with the provided yoga mat and biodegradable toothbrush. The bed slept like a glorified futon – just ask our backs, hips, and necks. The view out the window was also much more urban than our prior views. So, amusing for one night but I’m grateful we are moving on.

View from our room in the Abbey

View from our room in the purple
wavy hotel

View from our room in the bleisure hotel.
The homeless woman relocated at night
but returned to her spot during the day.

So, so far we are having a great time and are thoroughly enjoying Spain. But we are also a little hungry and a lot tired. I have been smacked hard by jet lag and can’t seem to fall asleep before 2:00am local time. So, I’m getting about 4-6 hours of sleep per night but it starts with frustration. I fully expect I will finally be acclimated when it is time to head home.

Next stop:  Barcelona!