It's been a year since we left home, and we're coming home for Rusty's brother, Kevin's wedding on August 7. We decided to cross into Portugal and fly home from the far Western side of mainland Europe. Here is what we did on our last stop in our odyssey..
Our first stop in Portugal was a small village called Sagres. They have great wind, so we decided to try wind surfing lessons. Rusty had tried kite surfing in Morocco, but the two sports are not really at all alike. The boards you ride are quite different, and the power mechanisms are different (kites versus sails). We had a great time with it in any case!
Kelsi got the hang of it pretty quickly, although Rusty was a little too salty from repeatedly falling off of his board to get an action shot of her cruising around!
Sagres had a pretty nice fortification which was built to protect the shipping routes back in the day.
We thought this little old fisherman looked particularly precarious standing on top of the cliffs inside the Sagres fort. We just hope he didnt hook into a big one after we left!
After Sagres, we took a bus ride to the capital of Portugal, Lisbon. Aside from enjoying the fine dinning (loved the relatively inexpensive and delicious fish dishes), we also hiked around town and took time to check out a few overlooks and fortresses. The one behind Kelsi is called Castelo Sao Jorge, and was originally built by Muslim Moors when they were ruling the area. The views of Lisbon were amazing here.
Lisbon is a beautiful city, and we loved it as our last stop in the old world. Portugal and Spain were also a perfect last stop for assisting in getting used to the time back home because the locals here keep strange hours. They are on the late to bed, late to rise schedule. In fact, in Spain they had a big problem with siestas on the job, so the government had to pass a law a few years back officially limiting government employees to a 45 minute lunch. In any case, the advantage for us is that the schedule here put us closer to the actual times we should be sleeping back home. Our Lisbon hostel's quiet hours were Midnight to 8 am, which is like a typical quiet hours around 10 or 11 pm to 7 am where no one actually makes it to bed at the early end of that bracket. We never went to bed before midnight and only got up early a couple of times, which usually ended up being a waste as nothing opens before 9:30 am at the earliest. Breakfast usually starts around 10 am.
It is crazy for us to think that when this blog posts, we will be 30,000 feet in the air flying back home to Utah. It feels as surreal to head home as it felt to leave for our trip, but we both feel ready to be home again for a while. We were thinking a year or two at a desk job is a good way to revive travel enthusiasm:) Thus ends this part of our Odyssey!
Our first stop in Portugal was a small village called Sagres. They have great wind, so we decided to try wind surfing lessons. Rusty had tried kite surfing in Morocco, but the two sports are not really at all alike. The boards you ride are quite different, and the power mechanisms are different (kites versus sails). We had a great time with it in any case!
Kelsi got the hang of it pretty quickly, although Rusty was a little too salty from repeatedly falling off of his board to get an action shot of her cruising around!Sagres had a pretty nice fortification which was built to protect the shipping routes back in the day.
We thought this little old fisherman looked particularly precarious standing on top of the cliffs inside the Sagres fort. We just hope he didnt hook into a big one after we left!
After Sagres, we took a bus ride to the capital of Portugal, Lisbon. Aside from enjoying the fine dinning (loved the relatively inexpensive and delicious fish dishes), we also hiked around town and took time to check out a few overlooks and fortresses. The one behind Kelsi is called Castelo Sao Jorge, and was originally built by Muslim Moors when they were ruling the area. The views of Lisbon were amazing here.
Lisbon is a beautiful city, and we loved it as our last stop in the old world. Portugal and Spain were also a perfect last stop for assisting in getting used to the time back home because the locals here keep strange hours. They are on the late to bed, late to rise schedule. In fact, in Spain they had a big problem with siestas on the job, so the government had to pass a law a few years back officially limiting government employees to a 45 minute lunch. In any case, the advantage for us is that the schedule here put us closer to the actual times we should be sleeping back home. Our Lisbon hostel's quiet hours were Midnight to 8 am, which is like a typical quiet hours around 10 or 11 pm to 7 am where no one actually makes it to bed at the early end of that bracket. We never went to bed before midnight and only got up early a couple of times, which usually ended up being a waste as nothing opens before 9:30 am at the earliest. Breakfast usually starts around 10 am.
It is crazy for us to think that when this blog posts, we will be 30,000 feet in the air flying back home to Utah. It feels as surreal to head home as it felt to leave for our trip, but we both feel ready to be home again for a while. We were thinking a year or two at a desk job is a good way to revive travel enthusiasm:) Thus ends this part of our Odyssey!
4 comments:
It's been so fun to keep track of your travels through this blog. I'm going to miss the traveling posts. you've inspired me to go to more places (not as many third world countries as you however). You'll have to do a post of the things you've missed most while traveling. I think you take the cake for the best and longest honeymoon ever! Regular life will seem so boring!
Welcome back to the USA! : )
Give Kevin my best wishes and congrats. After all, he's getting married on my 10th anniversary. My parents will be there also.
Anyhow, thanks for sharing your travels with all of us!
Welcome back! It has been so fun to read about your adventures. Can wait to hear what's next for you guys!
Wow I can't believe you really traveled nonstop for a whole year. You guys are some hard core serious travelers. I hope it is not to depressing now to come back to the mundane real life. But welcome back! Keep me posted on what you do next...
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