Last night we had a very enjoyable evening in Pontevedra. First to a Tapas bar next to the church with no sign. It’s owned by an Argentinian friend of Colin’s. Only those who know of its existence go there. We had a dish of pickled shrimp and a bowl of mussels + a bottle of Ribeira wine. Then we went to an outdoor café and had drinks with Colin’s Spanish lawyer friend Elena and her British boyfriend. We got a lot of very interesting information about buying property and practices of real estate agents. We walked back to Dabarca after midnight and crashed.
We left our hotel in the morning and set out towards Portugal. We got to the town of Ponte de Lima. Portugal is different from Spain. This town is one of the oldest towns in Portugal has a Roman bridge from the 11th century. We had a great lunch in a restaurant overlooking the river Lima and the bridge, and set out to our next destination, a historical city of Guimaraes, which was not too far. However, we made the mistake of trying to get there on local roads. We got seriously delayed in traffic jams and road closures. When we finally got to our destination city we started an ascent up a hill to what we thought was our hotel, Pousada de Marinha. We went up and up and up and up on a very narrow and steep road and Bo was closing her eyes not to look down. It seemed like this ascent will never end, When we finally got to the top of the mountain, we saw a big stone building, which we hoped would be our hotel. When we asked a man inside, he told us that our hotel was 5 km down he same road. Somehow we must have missed it. We were terribly frustrated, but since were already were at he top of this mountain, which seemed to be a big tourist attraction, we started to explore it. It has a sanctuary/church on top with a magnificent view on the valley below. It also had a nature park and walking trails. We finally managed to find a tourist information office where a very nice young girl gave us very detailed directions how to get to our hotel. When we saw it, we were stunned. It is a huge and gorgeous building of a former convent that was originally built in the 9th century, but subsequently rebuilt several times. It has incredible interiors, huge grounds, a great outdoor pool and a lot of atmosphere. There were quite a few people there because of a wedding. In the evening we decided to walk to the city just to take a look at another little historical Portuguese city. It is picturesque, but it doesn’t have the same appeal to us as Spanish cities. The atmosphere is just not the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment