 |
| Ponta da Piedade em Lagos |
 |
| The Algarve - showing from Sagres on the West to Tavira on the East the Star in the center is Loulé where the Roberts lived and worked |
And, for us, the Algarve had one more thing! A senior missionary couple! For many months we and Elder & Sister Roberts were the only senior couples in the mission. They were assigned to the Algarve district and we were out in the Azores. Sister Roberts told me that at first she felt sorry for us to be stuck out in the middle of the ocean. Then, she had a chance to visit the Azores, and changed her mind!! Now it was our turn to see their assignment area!
The four of us decided it would be really great to get together for Thanksgiving in the Algarve and they could show us around. The missionaries in our city were both Brazilian and most if not all of the missionaries around them were not American and to have a Thanksgiving dinner didn't have that much meaning other than a good American meal! So, on Wednesday, November 23, we left for the Algarve to return on Saturday to attend a Branch activity that evening. It is about a 3 hours drive from Évora, if you drive directly there.
But we didn't take the direct route!!
We had a VERY important task to do. And to do it we had to go to Alvito, about 45 minutes south and west of Évora and just a little out of the way! WHY? We wanted to help Maria João with her family history. She didn't know anything about her mother who had died when she was 2-3 years old. She was raised by a stepmother, but to do her own family history work, she needed to find her grandparents. We thought we would try to find her mother's death record and since that is after 1911 and not online, you had to go IN PERSON to the registry office where they were born. Hence, we had to go to Alvito, her mother's place of death (and birthplace), and get it!
 |
| Maria João visiting with Rocha |
But Maria João didn't have any dates, only general years plus or minus and in the civil registry office, that doesn't work - they want exact dates & places! But then I had a thought -- get Maria João's birth certificate! We knew her exact birth date, and sure enough, it was quick and as usual had both of her parents, their ages at her birth and their birthplaces AND all of her grandparent's names!
They were also able to find her father's death certificate which gave his birth place and birth year thanks to the extra mile efforts of one of the employees.
It was a gold mine of information that was sufficient to find the rest of her ancestors in the online parish records. We felt very blessed! There are no coincidences in family history work!!!
And when we got there, it was closed for lunch!
And by this time, we were hungry, too!
We began talking to a woman on the street and asked her where a good restaurant was. She told us about the Buraco da Zorra, just next door to the tourist center and they had very good food and very authentic!! It turned out that she actually was part of the family who owned the restaurant and while we were eating, she came in and they gave her lunch! I told Dennis that she had earned her lunch! But she was correct. The food was excellent and we learned that we really like 'black pork', a particular breed of black pigs that have darker and more flavorful meat!
We returned to the now opened tourist office, got a map and some explanations, and we were off!! The employee told us when we were finished, to come back and he would close the office and give us a tour of the main church in town.
Then we went sight-seeing, all on foot. This is quite a small village!!
First stop (and the furthest out) though it was only about a 10 minute walk from the city center where the tourist office was.
The São Sabastian church is called an 'ermida'. Basically, it is a small, neighborhood church.
This is our tour guide. When we entered, she took charge of us. “Come here.” “Stand here.” But she loved the church and told us so many things about it. She was very knowledgeable. She is a volunteer that makes the church available for tourists, even on a cold November afternoon! We enjoyed the tour very much.
\
It certainly was a small chapel.
The chapel was built in the 16th century in the particular Gothic style of Alentejo.
It was built on the edge of the town to "use their patron saint -- São Sabastian -- to protect their town from the plague." (quoted from the informational plaque on the building)
Our guide told us that all the walls originally were completely covered with paintings, frescos. They had done some restoration, taking off the layers of cover-up paint. But there was still much work to be done! These are paintings on the ceiling.
The next stop was the palace of the local baron. This village is not on a hill but it did have a castle to protect the palace.
It was just a very large building in the middle of town where the baron's family lived.
It has been renovated to be a Pousada -- hotel. They do a good job retaining the beauty of the building while modernizing it for guests to stay.
The palace is a square with a very large courtyard in the center. It is relatively plain -- except for the fancy windows!
The tower is available for tourists (and not just guests of the pousada) to enter and climb up to the top.
We are on the way up!!
This is one of the floors are you go up through the tower.
Below is the ceiling in this room
Another floor on the way up!
Finally we got to the top and are looking down into the courtyard.
The view of Alvito from the tower. We will be going to the large church after this!
And a beautiful view of the countryside!
Coming down. Janet can stand up straight.
Dennis had to bend a bit!!!
One thing the tourist office told us about is the particular type of door that is very unique to the Alentejo, manuelino, of which there were several examples in the town.
These are two of them.
We returned to the tourist center, and true to his word, the clerk took us to the main (and very large) church. This is one of the street views (it takes up the whole block). These are the main doors where the people would enter. The big bell tower is on the other end of the church.
It was very impressive. The tile work was beautiful.
The tiles in the walls were basically in Persian rug designs.
You can see the intricate designs on this wall. Each tile is painted and then put in the pattern on the wall.
The tile work went all the way up to the ceiling, which was painted in frescos.
Ok! It is time to get moving on south. We didn't need to get to the Robert's apartment in Loulé until about 6:00. We really enjoyed our stop in Alvito. I doubt we would have come here if we hadn't needed to help Maria João!!!
We took off through the countryside, following our GPS, an absolute necessity in Portugal.
We finally arrived at our destination -- according to the GPS, but it wasn't anything like the Robert's had told us. We called them and found that our GPS found the same street name about 30 miles from their house. We had to retrace our steps to the tollway and continue our journey. We were very happy to finally arrive!!!
Thanksgiving Day!! Sister Roberts roasted a perfect turkey and it was delicious to enjoy their traditional Thanksgiving dishes. She had to make some adjustments for what you could get in Portugal and the result was wonderful! Thank you, Elder and Sister Roberts for your hospitality!
We enjoyed walking through the streets of Loulé - at night and during the day.
It was a bit early for the full Christmas decorations to be out. But the area Christmas trees were set up. It would be quite impressive when they are lit up at night. I think the lighting ceremony was Saturday night.
We spent the rest of the time going all over! I must admit, that just being a rider in the car, I don't have a great sense of where things actually were!! I just went along for the ride and enjoyment of a wonderful couple and a beautiful land!!
But I do know where this is!! This is the mercado -- the Loulé town market. Inside there are booths for any kind of fresh produce, including the famous Algarve oranges that are really good! And it is just around the corner from the Robert's apartment.
There are also wonderful artisan shops where we found a lovely ceramic plate and bowl painted with olives and leaves. I also found my cork wallet there.
On Saturdays, it becomes the weekly Farmer's Market and the street on the left and other connecting streets are full of booths selling the local fresh produce. Elder and Sister Roberts do all their fresh produce shopping there. We purchased some local olives that are cured in water and a little salt for about 1 month. They are not your normal olives you buy in a bottle and are very good in their own way.
This is in Alte at Fonte Grande. It is a resort place where the canal is filled with water during the summer and a great place to swim.
The day, being November, was quiet with the leaves turning color. And it was much cooler and you wouldn't want to go swimming!!
Near to the resort is the village of Alte with a huge artesenato (local craft) store. It included just about every type of craft from Portugal, especially ceramics, The first room was quite small, but you kept going back and back to many more rooms. It was astonishing how much stuff was in the store!
This is the display at the entrance.
We drove to Monchique near the top of the mountains that form the north border of the Algarve. Here is a view of Loulé and the coast.
We went to Sagres Point, the most western part of Potugal, according to some authorities, and enjoyed the views of cliffs and ocean.
At the view point.
Continuing down along the coastline, we came to a beautiful rocky point, Ponta da Piedade near Lagos. You could enjoy it from up top, but we went down to the ocean to get the direct view of the rocks.
The Robert's didn't go down with us. Sister Roberts knees said "no".
So, we found another tourist to take our picture at the bottom. There were lots of people there and we had to wait for our turn! And we took some pictures for another group!
Another view
Friday night, we went to a very fun Greek restaurant.
There is only one menu. Everyone gets the same meal.
And it is about 5 courses and every one of them are amazing. I ate way too much at the beginning -- but it was soooo good! We were stuffed by the time we were done.
Saturday morning, we went to what they call the gypsy market. The name is somewhat accurate. There are lots of gypsies in Portugal, and some of the booth owners certainly were of that heritage.
Basically, it was just a big market with lots of souvenirs and tourist things. And some useful household things as well such as clothes.
Here Dennis is finding a cork coin purse with a spring opening. Elder Roberts had one that he had bought here and Dennis wanted to get one for himself!
Among the booths was a belt shop. The man hand made the belts from leather, great quality.
Dennis needed a belt and he found one that looked very good, fit nicely, and wasn't too expensive.
Perfect!
This is a booth with baskets made in Africa. Janet really liked them, but we only had so much room in our suitcases when the time came to travel back to California.
You can see a booth with clothes for sale behind us.
We finished our Saturday morning tour by going to Tavira, the eastern-most branch of the church in the Algarve. It is a tiny branch, we understand, and the city is very beautiful along the Gilhão River, just a few miles inland from the ocean.
There are lots of bridges crossing the river which gives you a good view of the town.
We needed to leave by 3:00 p.m. to get to our branch activity in Évora, so we left soon after lunch.
One thing we noticed about the Algarve were the very fancy chimneys. Up north, they are just plain, square chimneys. It was fun to see the various designs as we drove along the road.
We are on our way home and passing various villages along the way. We are a little too far away to see the details of the chimneys, but they are not plain!
And the villages are a pretty sight along the road as well!
We arrived home to find all well and extremely cold. We had turned off the room heaters to save on electricity and it was frigid!! It took 2-3 days to warm up the cold cement walls and tile floors to a livable temperature. After this, we usually left the heaters on when we left for the rest of the winter!! And we bought another heater for the bathroom!
And, THANK YOU, Elder and Sister Roberts!! They were wonderful hosts! At this point they only had 1 1/2 months left of their mission. We did get to see them again as they passed through on the way from Lisbon to Loulé just before Christmas and spent a couple of nights with us. But that is another blog!! We also visited them at their new home in St. George while we were there visiting Janet's mom. You make life-long friends on missions!!
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.