Miscellaneous Portugal stuff

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Sixteen days after we left home,
we left Portugal behind, on July 16.

But before we end the tour,
here are just a few more pictures and comments.

One thing is that we noticed a number of interesting names in and around Peniche.

Another is that we saw a lot of very interesting graffitti around the country.

Gary was delighted to find beer for sale in vending machines on the streets, even in some of the smaller towns.
There were signs for Super Bock all over the country, including one with the slogan "Mouth to mouth resuscitation" (a problem with our camera caused us to lose the picture we had of that sign).

One day Gary looked up the word for "hops," thinking he'd ask for "a very hoppy beer" (that is, one with a lot of hops flavor and aroma). Unfortunately he found only the verb "to hop," which could have made for a very funny question to the waiter, something like: "Do you have any beers that really hop?" But later we saw a Super Bock commercial on TV featuring hopping cartoon cows, so he probably would have just ended up with Super Bock anyway.

You can check out the Super Bock website by clicking here (but it's all in Portuguese).

And given her career in public health, Melissa found it interesting that there were condoms for sale on the street in vending machines, not just in Lisboa (below left) but even in smaller towns like Peniche (below right).

We have implied repeatedly that the driving was rather hairy in Portugal. We were warned ahead of time: one of our guide books says that Portugal has the highest highway fatality rate in Europe, and even the rental car agency warned us about "Portuguese drivers."

But some of the stupidity was ours (well, Gary's, since he was doing the driving).

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    For instance, it took us over a day to figure out that the speed limit outside of towns was 90 km/hour unless posted otherwise, so that as you leave the city limits the speed limit goes up to that even though there's no sign saying so.

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    The signs to the right indicate that you're entering the city (and the speed limit drops to 50 km/hour) and leaving the city (but notice that there's no "90 km/hour" on the "leaving Obidos" sign.)

    And leaving the airport headed for Peniche, Gary abruptly pulled off onto the berm of the road in a panic after the sign to the right appeared and neither of us, in our sleep deprived state (having just flown across the Atlantic over night), could tell what it was announcing. It turned out to be the beginning of the toll road, and all we had to do was stop and take a ticket from one of the two right hand lanes.

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      That being said, however, the traffic circles take some getting used to even when you know who has the right of way from where.

Here's one last picture that we took for Gary's father, who was a career U.S. Postal Service employee.

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This is Melissa mailing postcards from Gerês, with the Portuguese Postal Service's emblem above her.

Chiao!

We hope you've enjoyed this virtual tour of Portugal.

To go back to the beginning of the tour, click here.