Day 55: Lamego

April 25, 2023

Heart

Comment

`When you look at our medieval street, and our apartment up against the castle wall, it's amazing how high tech and organized it is inside compared to outside. In fact we realize now that it is literally the embodiment of one of those avant guard Ikea demos of how you can have a complete apartment in as little as 12 square meters (130 square feet). Ours is way bigger than that (at least double), but you can see the principles at work. In fact, when we first walked in we were a little disappointed because the kitchen area seemed to have nothing but a sink. But we found out is has a fridge, freezer, cook top, microwave, dishwasher, garbage can space, coffee maker, and more! Much of this (like hidden fridges) is well known to Europeans, but honestly, we have to go to an Ikea diorama to see this at home.

Funny story - Dodie very cleverly found the fridge and put some of our food supplies in there. It was comprised of three bins, and I thought that it was a quirk of a tiny fridge - sort of mini bar -like. In the morning we went to take our stuff out and found it all frozen. So that had me crouched down looking for a temperature control. That's when we realized we were dealing with the freezer. The large refrigerator was concealed above. Duh.

There is cleaver design throughout the studio. For example in all cases in North America, there is no drawer under the bathroom sink, because that is where all the plumbing spaghetti goes. But here, the plumbing is ultra compact and the drawer is cut out to just fit around it. While we are here, look at the ultra sleek toilet flush push panels on the wall.

Our objective for today was to walk up to the sanctuary of "Nossa Senhora Dos Remedios" (Our Lady of Remedies) that faces the town on its own hill, opposite our castle hill. To do this we had to descend our hill, walk past the Cathedral (which unusually is on the flat) and the long central park, before mounting the steps to the sanctuary.

Mostly, only the castle tower remains, up by our apartment.

This arch became a bit of a familiar sight, as we passed through a few times, going from our place to the lower town and back.

The first square down has some attractive buildings.

At the minimercado, oranges can get very big, some like grapefruit.

It's a good thing there is no snow to contend with on these very steep lanes.

A store window preserved the posters from past years of the festival of the Sanctuary. Since 1778 there has been a Semana Sancta style procession associated with it, on September 8. The poster shows that the festivities do extend beyond this.

Before reaching the steps up to the Sanctuary, we passed by the Cathedral. One of its striking features was the ceiling, but strangely I could not make out what was being depicted on it. I concluded it must be some sort of "modern art". There is a bit of a closeup below. See what you can make of it.

Inside, the ceiling catches your attention.

Ornate, golden, sculptured chapels like this are common in Portuguese churches.

Soon we reached our main objective for the day, the stairway to the Sanctuary. Different sources quote various number of steps to the top. We have seen 686, but the official pamphlet mentions 925. We think they are lying with statistics by counting steps on the left and right sides of the same staircases.

This Sanctuary is another of the many "Mary" based monuments, and this one tells her story - from conception and pregnancy to birth of a child and ultimate ascension to heaven. Dodie read that some people having difficulty conceiving a child would climb each step on their knees, presumably to strengthen their plea to the Virgin, at the top.

Hearing this story and looking at the steps, I wondered just how one would do this. I mean, I wondered if this implied basically crawling up. But no, Dodie no doubt correctly inferred that one would kneel on a step, pray, and proceed to kneel on the next one. That sounds simple enough, but I tried it and found I was only kneeling on every second step. It took me a while to get the body mechanics figured out. But when Dodie pointed out that I should not be pushing up with my hands, but rather using stomach muscles to rise, I gave up. You know what? I don't need to be pregnant anyway!

There are left and right staircase sections. Not fair to count them both!

As you walk up each staircase, there is a frescoe in traditional blue tile depicting a stage of Mary's life story, from finding out she is pregnant to winding up in heaven with God and Jesus. In the panels we see angels that look Portuguese, or at least European, as does Mary. This is quite common, and something that we usually put down to ancient church artists or authorities wanting to portray the most locally acceptable image. But for sure it is not unthinking or random, because in one tell tale panel, a bunch of carefully portrayed presumably "lesser" people of the world: East Indians, Negroes, Moors are watching as a crowned Mary ascends far above them. A crazy part is that we can not attribute this to some medieval attitudes, because the panels are dated 1954!

She winds up in heaven with presumably Jesus and God.

Third World stereotypes come to see her ascension.

The Sanctuary has a history that goes back to at least 1360, and Nossa Senhora dos Remedios dates from 1565. But the present building was commissioned in 1748. The Chair of the building committee is buried directly under the main entrance. He had held the post until 1776. However the building was only completed, with the addition of the second tower, in 1905.

There are many tile frescoes lining the inside walls. We were surprised to see that these are dated 1912, and were done in Coimbra. When looking at a church it is natural to see it as an integrated artistic statement, but in fact different altars, chapels, and such, (especially organs), may have different artists and have been done at much differing dates.

We walked around the outside of the church, and found a chestnut tree that is said to be 751 years old. A sign said that it had gained a meter in circumference between 1870 and 1967.

The church now has two towers. You can climb the non bell one.

Just below the church is a strange place called the "Patio dos Reis" (Kings' Yard), which has 18 statues, identified as the "last 18 names of genealogy of Jesus".

The question of the genealogy of Jesus is a new one on us, but apparently the gospel of Matthew has 27 generations and Luke has 42. These sources do not wholly agree. But whoever did the statues also had an idea of what these people looked like. They seemed rather Moorish to us, which is puzzling.

Taking one last look at the town, we charged down, looking for food!

We had spotted at least four makers of the Bolas de Lamego. There is the often mentioned Pastelaria da Se, Dalila Bolas, Katedral Cafe, and others. We were interested to learn, first of all, what the darn things were. It turns out they are sort of foccaccia like sandwich with various usually meat related fillings. We landed up at Dalila, which we chose mainly because we liked the shaded table outside that was available. They also made fresh orange juice, which is a big plus. Dalila offered four "classic" flavours: shaved ham, cod, chorizo, and meat marinated in wine and garlic. I got delegated to do the ordering, and chose the first and the last items. I had forgotten that the last time we ordered a ham sandwich in Iberia we had had to feed it to a dog.

Without knowing at the time that the last choice was wine marinated, we thought a purple filling to be rather unique. I ate it all anyway, but to say Dodie was hesitant would be an understatement. More accurately, she hated Bolas de Lamego!

You can buy a whole, half, or slice. They have boxes, like pizza boxes for these things, and people could be seen carrying off lots of them.

I rather preferred the pastries I had seen at Pastelaria da Se, so we headed over there for two tartelettes and an Americano. Once again, Portugal can not compete with France, and the pastries were relatively weak. It is true, though, that the costs are low. Our bill at the da Se was a mere 3.35 euros. I had gone in with a ten, hoping not to be embarrassed by being short!

It was clearly time now for a nap, so we began the trek back up to our castle. On the way, I noticed a couple in a old Peugeot convertible. They clearly were intent on doing the N2 in style. I also noticed my first VW ID.5 in the wild. I can add this to my list of European electric cars I will never own!

Today's ride: 8 km (5 miles)
Total: 2,377 km (1,476 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	6
Comment on this entry	Comment	0