Santa Tecla, Spain

Santa Tecla, neolithic ruins of a village of over 3,000 high on a mountain above A Guarda, Spain. You can see the blue of the Atlantic at the top of the picture. On the very top of the mountain there is a viewpoint, along with cafes for ice cream, coffee and beer and stalls selling souvenirs. I was a bit bemused to see a topless witch who laughs when you walk by (think Big Lots Halloween decorations) hanging on a broomstick in one of the stalls. I suppose the connection being pagans...witches. Sonrisa thought that it made sense...

more pictures

Scott took this picture in Guimaraes, Portugal. It was a little rainy that day, but we had to walk up hill to the castle, so the weather was perfect. By the afternoon, it was warm enough that I had a Cornetto, soft ice cream while the other three had coffees. That was our habit...
Scott and Marc on the walk beside the harbor in A Guarda. Our restaurants and tapas bar were right here at this end overlooking the water and our hotel, the San Benito convent, built in the 1500's, was at the other end. We loved it here.
Marc and Sonrisa having a brandy in the hotel bar after dinner.
Sunset in A Guarda

a few vacation pictures

Cool scary carving at the Pena Palace, Sintra, Portugal
Bouganvillea, Lisbon
Boston...the wharf by the Constitution, which we did not get to visit because it was closed

Yep, he's definitely two. After two days of being so good for grandma and grandpa, Alex reverted to his typical two-year old behavior last night at the restaurant with his mom. (Note: very often we see that kids are good at school all day every day and act like brats when they get home, I theorize that it's because they feel safe enough at home to Let It All Out!).

Lacey said "I think that it's time to G-O." Alex said "Nooo G-O!"

Then Lacey said, "You must hold someone's hand in a parking lot. That's non-negotiable."

Amd Alex said, "Noooo gotiable!!!"

He was actually pretty good...not as bad as Sam and Aiden were in restaurants at this age...

Porto, Portugal

Scott snapped this great picture from the boat we took on the Douro River. We enjoyed a short hour long cruise, but they have longer ones, all the way up to 8 day cruises. The Douro River is the "highway" to ship the port from the vineyards up river to the caves, where the port is bottled and shipped out, in Porto. The house we rented was an hour drive up the river from Porto and from our veranda we watched big cruise ships slowly drift by. Porto is a very hilly city, a lot like San Francisco. The houses are as old as they look. The Portuguese seem to like the peeling plaster, rusty iron, loose tile look. In America, we try to replicate it, in Portugal, it is the real thing.

Boston ghosts

OK....

So I was just going through our pictures from the trip and I got to this one. This is in front of the old State House, on the Freedom Trail.

Do you see what I see?

Hmmmm, I thought, there are no street vents that would make steam here, it is in the middle of the intersection. No fog...I took many pictures before and after this one and there are no smudges on the lens of any of them. So what is that wispy cloud behind Scott?

Scott, I say, I think we took a picture of some Boston ghosts.

I saw that too, he says, you know where that is?

Yeah, in front of the old State House...

No, the exact spot...there is a brass plaque on the curb there memorializing the...

Boston massacre!

I swear, this is the truth, I did not doctor this picture in any way. And I swear that I see the shape of a soldier holding a gun and wearing a tricorner hat...Don't you?

Dinner in A Guarda, Spain

I have lots more pictures to show you, but this will have to do for now. This was our last night, in the unique and beautiful town of A Guarda, also known as LaGuardia. This is in the northernmost part of Spain, on the Atlantic coast, which was settled early on by the Celts. They speak a language there, Gallego, which has Celtic influences. There are some very cool looking ruins of a old Celtic village on a mountain above the town, Santa Tecla. They look like Hobbit houses, perfectly round walls and thatched roofs. You can see the harbor behind us, and a bit of the town built up on the hills. It reminded me a bit of Iceland, the way the houses are brightly colored and appear to be stacked on one another above the harbor. This is where we stayed in the old San Benito convent. http://www.hotelsanbenito.es/ was a lovely hotel decorated with 16 and 17th century antiques. We made friends with the owner of a tapas bar, his name was Pedro, but we called him Senor Tranquillo. He brought us plates of olives, tortilla patata, bread, and made a delicious pitcher of sangria for Sonrisa and me. We noticed women and girls in traditional clothing walking by and finally asked where they were going. He explained that there would be a parade and a show. Sure enough, a little later, the bagpipes and drums and many dancers from all over, paraded down the walkway where we were sitting and collected in the plaza behind our convent. Sonrisa took some video, it was fun to watch all the groups do their particular dances. It was not a tourist thing, it was the local people celebrating their traditions, all ages and from all over northern Spain and Portugal. We felt lucky to have stumbled on it...