Portugal 2025 ============= We spent three weeks in Portugal. I thought October was great since the main season ends mid September. But there are still a lot of people in the Lisbon region! #Portugal #Pictures 2025-10-04. The first day we went for a walk from Estoril to Cascais with my stepmom and her sister. Me, my stepmom, my wife, and my stepmom’s sister, all with sunglasses and grinning into the camera, with the bright sky and the blue ocean in our back. 2025-10-04. The second day we went to Ericeira with my mom and two of her friends, watching the ocean and then going to eat seafood. Very nice. The beach of Ericeira, protected by a long arm of rock and concrete, with a beach that’s very empty, with fishing boats and boxes and cages all pilled high behind the beach, a 10m cliff (or more) and houses above. A picture from the foot of the cliff where big chunks have fallen from above and white houses lean precariously close to the edge above. The view from above where my wife and I are waving, if you zoom in far enough. 2025-10-06. On the third day we went to see Sintra. So many people! So many cars. So little parking. My wife and my stepmom in front of a wine bar. Looking at a forested hill with a castle wall at the top. A few houses and a church from above, with lots of green trees. My wife in the gardens of the old royal summer palace in Sintra, leaning against a wall with geometric ceramic tiles. 2025-10-07. We ended the fourth day at Severa, one of the Fado places in Lisbon. I usually go to Clube do Fado but my stepmother knows the places to go and Faia had no tables left. 2025-10-08. On the fifth day we went to in Palmela, an old fortress town north of Setúbal. The view is great. From now on it's just the two of us. Driving over a long bridge. The concrete looks like a big H with “rays” of metal streaming towards us. Looking down a dry hill with a winding unpaved road towards a harbour city. The region is famous for Muscatel wine. We tasted some and it was great. And we had some dried sheep cheese, a very soft cheese from Azeitão, pumpkin jam and bread. Super tasty. And we didn’t even have dinner. The old town and a park and the hill with the old fortress at the top. Cobblestone streets, house facades covered in ceramic tiles, clothes on washing lines out to dry, iron wrought balcony railings. Sadly, also cars. 2025-10-09. We went towards the Cape Espiche and walked to an old ruin and back. Perfect weather. This is the area west of Sesimbra in the Serra d’Arrábida. A dirt road loading towards the coastline. Up here the grass is very dry. Some dry thistles in the foreground. The small strip of coast that drops off towards the ocean is green. It looks like a 30 degree angle, and then a steep drop. At the far end, a ruin and the ocean in the sun. I had never seen a praying mantis before. This one was moving very slowly on the dirt path. A green insect on red dust, a bit like a grasshopper, but the back legs are very thin and the front legs are huge. At the Cabo Espichel there was a closed church and a ruined building that looked like a two storey hostel with windows walled shut. It looked depressing and I did not take any pictures. I preferred looking at the coastline and the sea. The steep coastline at Cabo Espichel where the flat land drops into the sea below. On the way back we stopped in Sesimbra, had coffee and watched people walk by. A perfect way to chill out before returning to the hotel. Claudia and I drinking coffee. A galão is usually a morning drink: a glass of milk with a shot of espresso and no milk foam, unlike a latte macchiato. 2025-10-10. Today we drove to Évora and on the way we stopped at Alcácer do Sal. The region produces a third of Portugal’s rice, apparently. From across the river, the old town with white houses and tiled roofs plus a church with two towers. Away from the river, flat lands with a big field of rice. Standing on a bridge, a view of the city where all lines converge on a point: wetland, mud, river, street, houses, horizon. From the same bridge, a picture of the rice landscape where all lines converge on a point: water, mud, reeds, rice, trees, sky. This is Portugal, too: an old house facade, totally ruined, windows walled shut, paint falling off, bricks visible, graffiti, ads. Everything is falling apart. We stopped at Nossa Senhora de Guadelupe for the standing stones. Rounded standing stones. Nearly one hundred of them. More standing stones and a cork oak. A trail between wire fences. Left and right are cork oaks or olive trees. A standing stone, many metres tall. We reached Évora. A ruin of a Roman temple in the middle of a Portuguese town. A few columns reaching into the sky are all that remain of the old Diana or the old imperial temple. A reminder that all billionaires must eventually die. A view of Évora from a slightly elevated position. The buildings are white, with yellow highlight at the ground level and the corners, two stories high, with tiled roofs. The cobble-stone roads are narrow. 2025-10-11. Seeing so many martyrs dying, so many tortured Jesus sculptures, so many golden dresses, fancy hats, silver and gold, I am sick and tired of churches. The ceiling is white, the walls above gold encrusted and full of paintings, the the walls below are made of blue and white ceramic tiles. The columns support an impossibly high ceiling and in the far distance shines a golden altar. I’m standing on the cathedral’s roof with sandals, long trousers and a white t-shirt and sunglasses, hat in hand. Looking from the roof of the cathedral into the cloister. Coffee culture is very much to my liking. I also like the ceramic tiles, I guess. Very cool in summer and very different from what I see in Switzerland. The backstreets of Évora with white walls, yellow color accents, and cobblestone roads. One of the rooms in the university. Feels like a wizarding school! Deep bordaux chairs, a band of painted tiles, white walls, and a wooden ceiling. A traditional pastry and coffee place. You eat and drink while standing at the counter. Arcades at the university with blue on white tiles along the lower part of the walls. The doors lead to small lecture halls. Me, in a stairwell, looking up. Blue on white tiles decorate the lower part of the wall. The university courtyard. Cobblestones, yellow accent, arcades, two floors. They say that the Marquês de Pombal closed the university after two hundred years to kick the religious orders including the Jesuits out of Portugal in order to end the Inquisition. That doesn't sound so bad. He also helped out when the big earthquake struck in 1755. But when you read the Wikipedia page, a different man emerges. Optimizing the slave trade, for example. Uuuuugh. I feel like “no war but class war” would apply to him, too. I lived in Oeiras as a kid in the eighties and remember a part of his estate still exists. 2025-10-12. We went on a long drive around the reservoir behind the Alqueva Dam. It has a catchment area of 250 km² – it was filled in 2003, long after I had left Portugal, so it was all new to me. We visited Monsaraz, first. Looking from old fortifications towards the lake. Looking from old fortifications onto a small village on a hill with a church in the background. A panorama shot showing a cemetery at the bottom, the lake in the distance, and the dry land if the Alentejo with occasional shrubs, olive trees or cork oaks. We went to Mourão, next. The town is small, the fortress is crumbling. The dry grass with the occasional olive tree and a huge water reservoir in the back. Crumbling fortifications and a white church in the middle of it. A panorama view from the old fortifications with Claudia standing in the middle. By that time we were hungry and in the middle of sleepy Mourão we found a little park with a coffee stand where we had queijadas, café (espresso), galão (espresso with a lot of milk) and a small bottle of Pedras Salgadas (salty sparkling mineral water). Me, on the main square, with the park in my back. A kiosk hiding under some trees. Claudia sitting at the table, eating cake. Me, drinking coffee. We crossed the Alqueda Dam and went for a small walk. The lake, seen from the dam. It’s big. The dam infrastructure behind the dam. It’s big. There are emergency overflows and electrical things. Not shown is the gazillion doves nesting here. The river downstream from the dam is wide and quiet. It’s big, too. Like a lake. And finally, we went for a small walk from Alqueda to a side arm of the lake. There, I saw a water snake, a gazillion fish, a hare, several herons (big grey ones and smaller white ones), and then, suddenly, at the bend in the distance, a commotion. The water was wild. We saw three or for cormorants, hunting. And then, after moving slowly along the shore, they took flight. Claudia started counting and got to 25! So the three or four we saw where the ones on the surface and the madness in the water was the remaining twenty cormorants. Amazing. A number of sheds to protect agricultural machinery. The dry Alentejo landscape. I need to come here one day when everything is green. Me, on a gravel road. A picture taken from a small bridge over a tiny corner of the lake. The sky is overcast, surprisingly. 2025-10-13. We drove from Évora to Estremoz. Our first two stops were Redondo and Vila Viçosa. Apparently the region between Vila Viçosa and Estremos has had marble quarries since Roman times and the region is still the second largest European marble export after Carrara in Italy. Or so it says in our tourist guide. A paper book! It must be true. They have so much marble that they use it for sidewalks and road signs, set into the cobblestone streets. Typical one and two story houses, chalked white, with yellow or blue accents. The one on the right is Porfirio’s restaurant (closed). Old fortifications with a gate and white buildings visible inside the old town. The sidewalk is made of white and purple marble. Also my feet. The castle has a dry moat and this is draw bridge to a back entrance. Marble everywhere. A church with a half a facade made of marble. A large square and an old royal palace made of marble. Me, in front the palace showing how its facade is made of white and light greyish blue marble. A city square with benches and small trees, and the cobblestones are marble pieces and half the benches are made of marble. Sadly, Estremoz is also a throwback to older times: wild dogs defending their territory. Wild cats and their young being fed in the street. Chained dogs barking and howling with fear and rage and torment. Bull fighting arenas. They don’t kill the bulls, they just torment them. And everywhere, ruins. Ruined industries. Ruined buildings. These pictures are from Vila Viçosa, Borba and Estremoz. A ruined factory with plans of a luxury hotel posted. Looking through an opening of a building in the old town. Fallen ceilings, crumbling walls. Another broken factory in the evening sun. We didn’t go on a tour into the marble quarries but we went jogging and took some pictures from the street. There are no easy access points. Everything is fenced off. Zebra crossing using white and pink marble in a cobblestone road. A look into towards a marble quarry where it looks like a minecraft cave entrance with blocks of stone forming walls. The marble quarries are wounds of the earth, with ramps and elevators descending into these holes. Some older holes have filled with water. Surprising, in the heat! Perhaps those will end up being interesting reservoirs as the world heats up. The Portuguese are very discrete. Their front entrances don’t have names. Their doorbells don’t have names. Their mailboxes don’t have names. Your letter might say for whom it is, in what village, street, number, floor, left or right – but the name is optional since the post people won’t be able to check. When they answer the phone, they just say “I’m here” but they don’t say their name. If you ask, it’s rude. The caller is supposed to state their name and who they’re trying to reach. This used to be very confusing for me and my family because in German-speaking phone culture the person picking up the phone says who they are, then the caller says who they are, and then the conversation proceeds. Sometimes I wonder whether such privacy-consciousness is a consequence of having lived through a dictatorship. The view of a corporatist state (super into unions and against parties) who is opposed to both communism and liberalism is super interesting, if you want to know more: Estado Novo. 2025-10-14. Some more impressions of the fortifications – and here, too, a throwback to the eighties: people just dumping garbage over the wall. A marble tower! It is not quite white but clearly made of a different material. A marble gate in the city wall with my wife on the drawbridge. We saw cars drive through here. Behind the gate the old town and cars can be seen. From a rampart, looking back at the draw bridge, and the road leading up to it – on a bridge from an outer rampart. The oldest part of town (and the marble tower) are visible in the distance. Another rampart, another view pack towards the marble tower, but this time there is a lot of garbage at the foot of the wall. 2025-10-15. Today we were in Elvas. Without a drone, we couldn’t take any pictures from above. But we walked a lot. 😄 I’m skipping all the interior rooms, bunker-like tunnels and the nationalist and pro-army messages from 1959 on the walls. The UNESCO site has some nice pictures. From the bulwark over the entrance towards the marshal’s office. The inner wall looks like a ship coming towards you with it’s pointy end sailing the moat. From the innermost wall towards one of the four sections with officer’s quarters. The fortifications towards one of the hills extends even further. A labyrinth of walls to trap invaders. Elvas itself is similar except there’s an entire town up here. Similar fortifications as on the Forte da Graça but less maintained. The multi-story aqueduct delivering water to Elvas. Another view of the aqueduct from a lousy perspective. One of the gates into the old town with a chapel on top. 2025-10-16. We drove to Marvão, another fortress town on the Portuguese side of the border. > “The Portugal–Spain border, also referred to as "the Stripe", is one > of the oldest geopolitical borders in the world. The current > demarcation is almost identical to that defined in 1297 by the > Treaty of Alcañices.” -- Wikipedia (This is not the Treaty of Tordesillas that divided up the globe.) Personally the most amazing thing is that there are Eurasian griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) nesting in the cliff below. No phone pictures of these, however. The outer walls with a little park The main tower and more walls on a hilltop. The fortress seen from the city park. The surprisingly green valley below. Actually, if you zoom that one picture far enough, there’s a vulture far below. A vaguely bird-like shape of grey flying above some trees. And look at that! Another praying mantis: My second praying mantis. My wife spotted it while we were walking past it. We went on a long walk from Marvão to Castelo de Vide via Carreiras. I took a lot of pictures of the road. Often, we were walking on a medieval road. Cork oaks to the left and right, skinned. Where the bark has been taken off, they are rust-coloured. Dry stone walls to the left and right. Thorny shrubs to the left and right. More dry stone walls to the left and right. A paved road and dry stone walls on both sides. My wife and I, both with sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats. A gravel road towards a green hill. A medieval road through a light forest. As we approached the end of the hike, we descended a slope that must have burned not so long ago. A paved road through a black and brown burned forest. A medieval road past some blackened trees. It looks like a nightmare. Some trees show green leaves sprouting. So many autumn crocus were peeking out of the road. 2025-10-17. Today we went on a 60km drive to see the gap where the Tejo river breaks through the mountains to continue its journey to Lisbon. These are the Portas de Ródão. Not quite the Gates of Rohan, but close. 😂 The paper industry loves Eucalyptus trees and the summer forest fires do, too. As a kid I was surprised to learn that the eucalyptus tree is not a Portuguese native! So now we imported both: the trees, and the forest fires. When we left the village, the dirt road lead through dry meadows and light eucalyptus forests. I feel that we’ll see more water reservoirs in central Europe as the climate heats up. Unless the North Atlantic Gulf Stream breaks down in which case we’ll get Canadian weather. Ugh! A surprising number of water reservoirs. The water is a horrible green but we saw big frogs. Coming from Switzerland, mountain chain is not very impressive. More eucalyptus trees. Further up, some pine trees. We got to the top of the Serra de São Miguel and walked towards the gap. Looking back at the flat lands we came from. Some bright green bushes. Claudia standing next to a hole in the rock wall. It’s an old gold mine and the sign says not to enter. Looking east, the river is wide and slow. Trees. A bridge. A village in the distance. Looking west, the river is also wide. An island. More hills. Trees. What did impress us to no end, however, were the forty Eurasian griffon vultures we saw circling above us; the countless young we saw in the rock face; the adults coming and going. Such impressive birds. 6s of vultures circling above. 4s of vultures flying below. 11s of vultures returning home to their cliff. I wanted to take a funny selfie of Claudia and me so I'm pulling a face but Claudia has spotted some vultures and is no longer interested in the selfie, excitedly pointing elsewhere. Claudia and I smiling at the camera. Our walk wasn't over, however. It was a long way back along the river and up another chain of hills. I'm walking in a light forest on a rough track. 2025-10-19. We left Portugal's east and drove towards Leiria. We're staying in Alvados near Porto de Mós, hoping to do some hiking in the Serras de Aire e Candeeiros Nature Park. It's near Fátima, if you know your way around famous pilgrimage destinations. The view from our hotel window shows a wilderness trees and shrubs and a hill in the distance, 2025-10-20. We went on the Fórnea walk: First along the foot of the hill through some olive groves, then into a valley where a waterfall shows up on rainy days, and finally onto the hill itself, to see the plateau, and back down. Claudia and I are ready to go, wearing sunglasses and grinning. A dirt road winds itself through shrubland towards the hills in the distance. The grass is dry, the thistles brown. The olive trees are small so that the olives can be harvested without ladders. We saw a few farmers -- often a man and a woman -- cutting branches and stripping olives over a big net they had spread beneath the tree. Small olive trees to the left and right of the dirt road. The trail turns towards the mountains. It's aiming for a gap. The waterfall is try. All we can see is a rock layer breaking through the hill side. This is karst, where water disappears into underground caverns and the surface world is dry. But here, in this valley surrounded by hills, there is enough humidity to allow some lushness. The trail is narrow and greenery rises on both sides. The sky is overcast and Claudia and I are no longer wearing our sunglasses. The dirt road continues and begins to rise in the distance. We're further up now, looking back at the olive groves below. The autumn crokus growing out of the ground without leaves, just a flower on a short stalk, continues to amaze me. The plateau at the top of the hill features a gazillion little meadows, each surrounded by a dry stone wall. The plateau up here is very humid. Is it the altitude? I don't know. We also saws four dead fire salamanders. Huge ones! Apparently, the Portuguese fire salamanders are suffering from a fungus that damages their skin and kills them within a week or two. Was this the reason? The animals did not seem run over by a car or eaten by a carnivore. Our trail led around the back of the hill top. And finally, the view into the natural amphitheatre. I keep thinking about the enclosures. The sun is back and so are our sunglasses. We're still on the plateau with the green meadows and the dry stone walls. The trail doesn't cross any meadows. It always goes between two walls separating these meadows. Down there somewhere is the green valley we had seen before. Claudia and our goal in the valley below. Claudia 2025-10-21. We went to see some Dinosaur foot steps, Fátima and Batalha. The dinosaur footsteps are in a plain of limestone that used to be the bottom of an old quarry. The very nice and knowledgeable person who let us in during lunch break explained that the scientists had washed the depressions of the sauropod footsteps in order to make them more visible. The just cleaned the limestone of algae and lichen. They had also errected a wooden walkway above the limestone to protect the sauropod footsteps from humans. Unfortunately, the wood used had unexpectedly leaked fungicides and other toxins, killing off the lichen and algae growing on the limestone. The effect is that it looks just as whitewashed as the actual footstops the scientists had washed. It'll take fix or six years to grow back, we were told. The footsteps above the walkway are easy to spot, though. Seen from above, we can see how the grey limestone is in fact washed white below a wooden footbridge, as if the wood had leaked white colour onto the grey limestone. In black and white the footsteps above the walkway are pretty easy to see. Claudia and I on the walkway, in black and white, grinning. The limestone comes in layers that are easy to spot as they look like irregular stairs. The limestone forms a karst landscape where the water disappears into the underworld. Here we see a hole in the limestone that looks like the beginning of a cave! Looking away from the limestone for a moment, we see the landscape around the hill we're on. Shrubs, trees, meadows in the distance. Fátima is an important pilgrimage destination for Catholics in Europe, like Lourdes in France or Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The square is huge. The church is huge. There are chapels underground. Some pilgrims do the last part of their pilgrimage on their knees. It drives tears to my eyes to see grown men and women debase themselves like that, in the rain, on the cold, hard stone, in 2025. It's revolting to see the prayer at the beginning of this passage say: > Most Holy Trinity > Father, Son and Holy Spirit, > I adore you profoundly. > > My heart rejoices > For the many blessings > You have bestowed upon me. > Accept this pilgrimage on my knees … It's heart wrenching to see how these people believe, to imagine the torment and fear that brought them to this place, and to think that the church felt this was the best way to help them. A big square, mostly empty. The sign mentioned above marks the beginning of the passage where some people, mostly middle aged women, are on their knees, in the rain. The Monastery of Batalha was erected in commemoration of the 1385 Battle of Aljubarrota where the Portuguese and their English allies defeated the Castile and their French allies as well as their Genoese mercenaries. I keep thinking about all the poor people that built all this shit. An impressive old building, looks like a humongous church. A huge church, impossibly high ceiling, unadorned columns, an altar in the far distance. I'm admiring the ceiling and the columns. Everything is tall and I am small. What I see when I look up is an impossibly high ceiling. Between a huge column and a huge sarcophagus there's a gap where we can see Claudia reading a poster about the people buried here. The sarcophagus again, showing how big it is. These are actually two sarcophagi side by side, for John I and Philippa. The one sweet thing is that the tomb effigies are holding hands. There are many more sarcophagi in this chamber and I'm standing there, not knowing what to think. Looking up at the ceiling and its many windows. The cloister. Overlooking the little park in the cloister. Claudia standing in a chapel in front of a stained glass window. A detail of a well in a corner of the cloister. 2025-10-22. We drove to our last hotel in A-dos-Cunhados, near the beach. On the way we stopped in Nazaré and Peniche, hoping to see some waves. I was hoping, against all odds, that we'd see those 30m high waves in Nazaré. Sadly, no such luck. I'm standing in front of the famous lighthouse from where people stare at the high waves, if there are any. I'm cold. There are some tourists, here. The northern beach with almost nobody on it and a grey sky above. A sign warns of the crumbling cliffs. Claudia and I, with the wind raising my hair so that I look quite silly. Peniche is another surfer hotspot but the waves where not impressive. A wooden walkway leads through the dunes. Looking at the beach. A handful of surfers in their neoprene suits are waiting for waves. Claudia and I having a good time, grinning at the camera. We arrived at our hotel near Santa Cruz and discovered that there was a footpath to the beach! Claudia is walking through the hotel gardens. Close to the hotel, the dunes are not protected. Claudia looking wonderful, smiling. Claudia walking through the dunes. I'm sitting on a little bench, looking at the sea. Looking from the top of the cliff at the ocean. I'm standing on a wooden walkway that leads across the dunes towards the cliffs and the sea. We found the stairs down to the beach. Claudia is standing on one leg at the beach, looking joyful. The beach ends at a cliff that somewhere 15m high, I'd guess. The water cold and I'm hesitating to go in. Claudia and I, happy at the beach. Claudia and I, making funny grimaces. The hotel we're staying in has a the best bathtub I have ever seen. It looks like a concrete bathtub set into the floor. 2025-10-23. We met my mom in Mafra, saw the royal summer palace, built by 45,000 people over 13 years (including a lot of forced labour) and then it was only used for a few years. Royalty is misery. The lazaret looks remarkably like an emergency entry of a hospital to day with each bed having a little alcove and a curtain. What dates it is the huge altar at the end. Before the invention of corridors the rich just had room after room after room. In this case opening all the doors reveals over 200m of rooms. The royal prayer room, small but luxurious. A marble ceiling in light red, blue and yellow. Marble floors and long hallways. A garden on the inside. 2025-10-24. We spent our day on the beach. The plant that’s growing in large green-reddish patches on the sand up here is Gelbe Mittagsblume or Carpobrotus edulis, with thick, sharply triangular fingers reaching up from the ground. An invasive species, if I remember correctly. The beach! Not pictured: the constant roaring of the waves. A view of the sea from the cliffs above. Claudia literally pulling my face into a grin. So happy! Claudia and I, laughing. The footpath along the coast between patches of Carpobrotus edulis. Looking at the beach from above as we haven’t taken the stairs down to the sea, yet. We’re at the beach, now. The waves keep rolling in. Me, walking along the beach, grey clouds above and the waves to my right. I’m so happy. Red algae washed ashore, with oily air bubbles in many colours. A blue one is reflecting the sky and me taking the picture and Claudia overlooking my shoulders. A large rock at the end of Guincho beach reflected in the water of retracting waves. Rocks peeking out of the sand. Me, looking at the camera, with the sea and the waves below me. Santa Cruz has a lot of vista points. Here we’re looking back at that rock on Guincho beach. Looking north towards where we need to go. The haze prevents us from seeing our goal but the beach is long and empty and there is enough sunlight left. Our footsteps in the sand as we walk back to the hotel. This is our last evening of the trip. 2025-10-25. Time to return home! Claudia and I, looking happy in black and white. Claudia has a mischievous grin.