Portugal

Portugal's rocky cliffs form the southwest tip of Europe. Here you see beaches on the Mediterranean and glimpse the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. This was the primary training ground for navigators in the Age of the Great Discoverers. We launched a note in a bottle not too far from this site. It should be landing on a Florida Beach any day now.
This is Henry the Navigator, the fourteenth century monarch who founded a school here for navigational training. As a result, the Portuguese had colonies all around the globe.
The bustling city of Lisboa is a delightful place with many historic sites. It also has beautiful inlaid mosaic sidewalks of black & white slate, with a different design on every street! Most everyone in this small nation of 10 million people speaks some English, because their movies have not been dubbed, they use subtitles.

This fabulous glass train & bus station was built for the 1998 World Exposition at Riverfront Park, just outside of Lisbon.

Within an hour's ride from the city, you can walk along the remains of this castle wall built by the Moors in the 13th century. Like in Spain, Portugal boasts quite a number of fine castles that have been converted to guest accommodations. We visited such a castle inside one of Europe's last wall enclosed cities.
The beautiful 500-year-old cathedral and monastery is near Leiria and Fatima, a town now famous for recent sightings of the Virgin Mary.
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Fred & Melody Squires
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