Ok, back at it. This is Zadar, Croatia, another ancient walled city:

We had a delicious lunch there. Croatian wines and olive oil are certainly among the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s such a shame that they don’t export it as far as I know.

I didn’t mention that the cruise on the Adriatic was aboard the Cunard ship, Queen Victoria. The first leg ended in Trieste. We were only in the downtown area, but it seemed like a very nice city. We had an excellent pizza for lunch in a little restaurant that wasn’t full of tourists. One of the bad things about cruises is that you’re surrounded by a bunch of stinking tourists. (Exclusive of Frau G and moi of course)

They were preparing for some big celebration in the main square.

This is the Verdi Opera House. I’m a big opera fan, especially Verdi.

This is the old walled city of Kotor, Montenegro.

We flew from isbon to the port near Rome and got aboard a big boat. We sailed through the Strait of Messina,

Around the boot of Italy to the Greek Islands of Cephalonia,

and Corfu.

Vacation Slides ctd…

We had rented a car in Lisbon. From Lisbon to the southern coast of Portugal is a drive of about two and a half hours. As I posted yesterday, we stayed at the Capela das Artes in a little town called Alcantarilha. We were there a week and took day trips to the towns and cities along the coast. They were packed with vacationers, not necessarily tourists. In the old parts of the town the streets are very very narrow. And it’s like a rat maze trying to get through them.  I would start down a street and it would get tighter and tighter, and finally after a half hour or so I could find my way out. There was never any place to park, so I didn’t get any photos. We visited Carvoeiro and Alporchinos and Albufeiro and some others, but we weren’t able to get any decent photos. Lucky you. The city of Silves which is about 15 miles inland was nice. It wasn’t crowded and there was a huge free parking lot. We went there twice to do some sightseeing and shopping. I bought a hat made out of cork and Frau G bought a cork purse. Nice stuff.

The beaches at Lagos are separated by sandstone cliffs.

Some gals shouldn’t wear thong bikinis.

The city, Portimao was not so touristy, and it was quite nice. From there we took a boat tour along the coast which is famous for it’s caves. They are quite impressive.

We had a wonderful seafood dinner in Portimao. Mighty tasty!

Ok, more scary comics!

OK, I warned you yesterday. Vacation slides time. Frau G and I  made it to Lisbon about a month ago. We spent three nights there.

Lisbon is your typical European big city with your typical European big city statues.

Prince Edward Park runs through the middle of it down to the really classy part of the town, and then to the ocean.

But we spent about a week down on the south coast. That’s where the Portuguese go to the beach. We decided to pass up the big resort hotels, and we stayed at a wonderful older hotel, Capela das Artes in the little town of Alcantarihla. Our lovely hostess was a lady named Julie. She was a gem. The hotel was build and owned by Angel, who was quite an accomplished artist.  It was built on the site of an ancient olive grove. There were still some of the old original buildings.

Julie told me that this olive tree was 1500 years old. I’m not sure I believed her.

The place is like a museum. Lots of Moorish furnishings..

According to Angel the furniture is made of camel teeth.  Lots of other stuff, sphinxes and stuff like that. Even the Blues Brothers.

  We had to have a few bottles of Madeira. When I was young the only wine yo could buy was Madeira, Lancers and that chianti that came in a bottle in a basket that y0ou put a candle in when it was empty. Madeira is still pretty good.

Look at the price of wine. A Euro is a bit more than a dollar

 Ok, enough of that for now. More tomorrow.

Halloween is on it’s way. Here’s some pretty scary stuff…

Guess what! I just got back from a month in Europe. Mark Twain said that when women get old they want to travel. Geeze! When men get old they just want to sit on their butts and drink beer. I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to respond to your comments and email. I bought foreign phone service for a month from Verizon. The only place it seemed to work was in Lisbon. So I was pretty much hors de combat the whole time. Not only that, I was sick mostly. Bronchitis. I’m still hacking up big stinking loogies. But here’s the good news! (Or bad news maybe) All this week I’ll be posting vacation pictures! If I have the energy. Which reminds me of a very naughty cartoon that I drew many years ago. It was about showing vacation slides to friends. It was so naughty I didn’t put in in my Suckling Pig book. You’ll just have to stretch y0ur imagination.

This is from November of 1997…