Another beautiful day .. We started with a quick stop over at Caso Paco to see our friends. Layde had made laser cut earrings for all the women.. Diane and becky got to pick some

 

From there we headed back to Mafra AGAIN.. it was only 30 min away.. and we wanted to see inside the palace… whihc had been closed yesterday. Walkling aroudn inside the palace was amazing.. so much space.. so much opulance. It was built by King  Joao in the 1750’s just as portuguese empire was at its peak.. and earthquake in 1755 began he decline of Portugals power throughout the world. 

We enjoyed seeing both  the  king and queens chambers.. and the many,. many rooms for all of their courtiers.   There was a ton of ‘trompe l’oil ‘ paintings on the wall.. that used color and shade to imitate depth. The effect was used to create false doorways, reliefs and statues.. very cool !

 

Our favorite part was the library.. it was one of the largest in the wold in the 18th century. To this day there are 3 kinds of bats allowed to live in the library since they eat the bigs that might otherwize destroy to many old manuscripts in the place

 

Then we took a quick look in the cathedral.. its’ famous for having 6 pipe organs.. pieces were written for the 6 that can only be played in this building

 

 

We headed back tot he car.. then back to eriricera

 

We changed clothes, then headed into ericera for a dinner cocktail evening for brit and bran.. we were all given sunglasses that said ‘booya baby !’.. and all wore them for the toast. It was super fun.. lots of good food., drink and music as wel as a skate ramp and soccer field.. Supper good to meet Brit and Brans friends and family from everywhere !

 

So  fun to be here with our friends .. what a beautiful couple !

nite all. nite sam

-me

We started today by dropping  by the Casa Paco.. things were moving slowly up there

 

Max, Becky. Diane and I drove up to Mafra to see the palace gardens and to meet Max’s freinds Amanda and Marco. We had a nice walk around Mafra town and settled at a nice cafe to wait for Max’s friends.. Once htey showed up we went up to walk the beutiful gardens around Mafra palace.

One of the most amazing features was the ancient horse drawn irrigation system.. still in amazing shape

somhow that lead to a peacock pose demonstration

 

it was hot and we were getting hungry .. so we headed back in to the town to look for sustenance. we found a great Poke place.. the world Is truly flat !

We said good bye  to our new freinds and headed back to ericera

 

Dinner tonight was a highly rated seafood restaurant. We ordered the seafood dinner for the table.. it wasn’t what we were expecting. Everything required dissection and it was more of an anatomy lesson than a meal.. but the wait staff was nice.. and it was awkwardly fun.. and somewhat tasty.. don’t need to do it again though

 

afterwards we picked up a pizza (turned out to be a bad idea) and ice. cream for Gabes friend Sam who’d arrived last night. She was back at the house on a class…

Nice long day.. More tomorrow !

nite all. nite sam 

-me

 

We had a great first day in Ericira. We started by walking  over to the Casa Paço De Ilhas where Brit and Bran are getting married. It was an easy mile walk… It’s a sweet place… part centuries old ruin and part modern hobbit house hotel.. We took a look around, said hi to soem friends.. then started walking back to our place by the back road.. On the way we coincidentally ran in to Bran… and then a few minutes later Brit..

A bit later, DIane and I took a run up the coast a short bit to the town of Ribomar… we then walked out to the point of an old fort.. then ran back along the cliffs towards home. Such pretty country !

 

We actually rean into our friend Olivier on the road.. he’d  just biked in from Porto for the wedding (Brit is his sister in law) .. totally coincident timing 

That afternoon  there  was a sweet gathering at the Casa Paco to kick off the week. Great gatherign with spectacular food.. Fresh Chimichura !

 

Its gonna be a fun week !

nite all. nite sam 

-me

Today woudl be Sam’s 31st birthday. I woke today (and many days) wondering what he’d be up to by now.   

Our custom is to climb a mountain like Bolton  on Sam’s birthday and the day he died. We go up to the fire tower there and put a samstone  there.. soemtimes we light a firework. SOemtime we go with others.. soemtimes by ourselves. When we’re not in Vermont, we ask folks to mark Sams birthday in whatever way they’d like… Today we’re in London and heading to Portugal. We’re in the middle of a great trip, we’ll all be together.. and that always brings us even closer to Sam.. 

Happy birthday my son. We love you and miss you and think about you  all the time ! 

We woke early finished packing , closed up the very nice airbnb and headed to the airport.. We got there early and used the extra time at the airport to try out all of the lounges we could get in to.. Kinda fun if you like crowded noisy places.. at least we found coffee !

THe flight to Portugal was quick.. and we had no trouble meeting up with Max and Becky who’d gotten there an hour earlier.. We picked up the car and headed to Ericera.

We checked out our excellent AirBnB.. checked out the hotel where Brit and Brans wedding is happening then went in to check out the town of Ericera.. It’s a really sweet surfing town about an hour west of lisbon.. Super 

 

We placed a samstone together out in a hole on the stone wharf  which felt good !

 

 

we went back to the hopuse and made a ‘cake’ for sam out of the stuff we had around, cookies, dulce de leche , and sour patch rope 🙂 

 

 

It felt so good having the family together …   

We love you Sam !

-me