Update from Porto

If this is Thursday it must be Porto. Since we were last heard from we've gone to the farthest southwest corner of Portugal to the largest city in its north. We're still having fun, too.

We made it to the fado restaurant, or at least one our Lisbon hotel recommended that specialized in a folklorico show. There were some fine singers, and a trio: two men who played a bass drum and an accordion (is that the Portuguese national combination of instruments?) and a woman who played tambourine and sang. Occasionally she and the drummer danced as well. It was altogether a most enjoyable show.

The next day we picked up a car and Ron drove us to Evora, an attractive old town east of Lisbon with a Roman temple of Diana right beside the 12th-century cathedral and the former offices of the Inquisition. (We keep encountering disquieting reminders of Christianity's darkest days). That afternoon we explored some megalithic remains: a solitary standing stone, and a field full of dolmens that seemed oriented towards sunrise at the equinox.

We spent the night in Beija at a posada - a government-run high quality inn - in a former convent. It was a huge building, quite attractively made into a hotel and with a fine restaurant. But it had a strange, haunted, sad, cold feeling. I slept well but woke feeling like something had drained my batteries overnight. I wouldn't go there again even though it seems like a good enough hotel.

The next day, Tuesday, we drove to Sagres at the southwest corner of the country, stopping first at Vila Nova de Milfonte on the coast - a very pretty fishing village and summer resort (for the Portuguese, not Europeans). I could have spent days there; we didn't even get to explore the castle. Definitely a place to see.

Sagres is the place Prince Henry the Navigator established a navigation school for his fleet of explorers. The fortress there has a large wind rose laid out on the ground that I think the captains used to help plot their anticipated courses. They may have had Chinese sailing directions for at least the seas around India and Africa and have been translating them into charts they could use in their voyages. Sir Francis Drake raided the place once, I think for the maps - they were worth more than gold at that time.

A little further along the coast is Cape St. Vincent, where the body of St. Vincent the martyr was said to have washed up as it made its escape from his hometown of Zaragossa in Spain. It's the furthest southwest point in Portugal, and the Romans said the sun sank hissing into the sea just beyond it. We watched the sunset later from our balcony in the very comfortable posada in Sagres, but we didn't hear any hissing.

Gotta go now. The wireless connection is becoming intolerably slow and unreliable. To be continued later.