Festival of the Sorrows
This post is about Viana, a lovely costal town we visited before Ponte de Lima. It is being created on the phone, so be forgiving. . We arrived almost by accident. We were leaving Barcelos, Village of the Gigantic Cocks (I am not making this up: seems a pilgrim enroute to Compostello was falsely accused and covicted of stealing something from the church, but when the judge tucked into his dinner after the sentencing, the cooked rooster on his plate stood up and crowed. So he knew the guy was innocent (???) and set him free. The pilgrim in gratitude built the Chapel of the Crowing Cock. Local artists started putting them everywhere, and some little old lady ceramic maker (think Grandma Moses) made one that went viral and is now the folk emblem of Portugal. So Barcelos has these iconic cocks everywhere, WAY bigger than life size. We have a photo of CT standing beside one 20' tall, and if we can ever make the " add an image" function work, we'll post it.).
Anyway, we were leaving Barcelos, headed to Braga when the folks at the bus stop told us that the morning bus to Braga wasn't running that day, but the afternoon bus would-be right along in 6 hours. So we hustled over to the train station and caught the train to Viana instead with seconds to spare.
It was raining when we got there, and we both had a bit of "tourista". This seemed appropos for a town where the main church is dedicated to "Our Lady of the Sorrows" and the BIG annual celebration is the oxymoronic "Festival of the Sorrows". Anyway we took a hotel room and settled in for the afternoon. Fortunately, the Tour de France was on our tv. After the stage was over, we walked over to the ancient sqat fort guarding the harbor, and then had dinner of wood-fired pizza that was pretty good.
The next day we toured an archaeologic museum, had a nice picnic, climbed the 700 steps to the church on the hill and enjoyed the view and the Celtic pre Roman ruins and got back to our room in tme to catch the finish of the Tour stage. That night we went to the riverside park to see the book fair and to listen to Celtic music (start time 10:30pm). The band was good, the large crowd was enthusiastic. But despite the large area, nobody wanted to dance. CT and I could hardly stand it.
The next am we took in the traditional costume exhibit, learned how to make linen, and caught the bus to Ponta de Lima.
SC
Anyway, we were leaving Barcelos, headed to Braga when the folks at the bus stop told us that the morning bus to Braga wasn't running that day, but the afternoon bus would-be right along in 6 hours. So we hustled over to the train station and caught the train to Viana instead with seconds to spare.
It was raining when we got there, and we both had a bit of "tourista". This seemed appropos for a town where the main church is dedicated to "Our Lady of the Sorrows" and the BIG annual celebration is the oxymoronic "Festival of the Sorrows". Anyway we took a hotel room and settled in for the afternoon. Fortunately, the Tour de France was on our tv. After the stage was over, we walked over to the ancient sqat fort guarding the harbor, and then had dinner of wood-fired pizza that was pretty good.
The next day we toured an archaeologic museum, had a nice picnic, climbed the 700 steps to the church on the hill and enjoyed the view and the Celtic pre Roman ruins and got back to our room in tme to catch the finish of the Tour stage. That night we went to the riverside park to see the book fair and to listen to Celtic music (start time 10:30pm). The band was good, the large crowd was enthusiastic. But despite the large area, nobody wanted to dance. CT and I could hardly stand it.
The next am we took in the traditional costume exhibit, learned how to make linen, and caught the bus to Ponta de Lima.
SC
posted by Axolotl at 10:18 AM
1 Comments:
Muito bem. Boas viagem. Até terça-feria!
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