Solipsism Gradient

Malmedy (Belgium) was excellent! Definitely one of the prettiest towns we’ve ever been to. Highly recommended. Then we drove southwards, spent the day in Luxembourg, which was also very interesting, then spent the night in Thionville (France).

Today we’ll follow the River Mosel into Germany, probably as far as Koblenz, and then we’ll see what happens next.

I just put some selected pictures on Flickr – first from our January Amazon trip, to get that out of the way. More to follow soon.

Progress report after a few days offline. Siegen and Netphen were excellent. We then visited a friend near Düsseldorf, tried to find a place near Düsseldorf or Köln, but every hotel in a circle of maybe 80 Km around Düsseldorf was booked up (and at outrageous prices too!).

So we decided to drive on and finally stayed for the night in Düren, an old papermaker’s town. The Paper Museum was fascinating! We then dropped in by surprise on friends near Aachen, and are now spending a day in Malmedy, Belgium. More anon.

Spent one more day in Bremen – the old town is a fascinating place. Then it was on to Osnabrück, which was also well worth the visit, and now we’ll be spending the weekend at a friend’s place near Siegen. Weather has been holding up well.

Hi Mariana!
mari wrote:

What was that piglet with oranges thing??? I got really interested.

…Anyway, that´s just a tiny bit of what is going on…Show me the pictures!

“Leitãozinho com laranjas”, a specialty of the region just north of Coimbra, if I’m not mistaken. At any rate, it was great. Pictures will be posted as soon as I find a place with a reliable no-limit upload connection; might take a week or two, not sure.

Made it to Hamburg OK. Impressive town. Later in the afternoon, rented a car; larger than I expected, a Hyunday 4×4 with GPS , and drove to Bremen where we visited the old town today, then met family. Will stay in Bremen at least one more day, then it’s southwards.

Southwards from Viana do Castelo, visited Barcelos (beautiful), visited Tibães near Braga (unfortunately closed for lunch), then stopped at Mealhada for one of the local specialties: roast piglet with oranges. Delicious!

After lunch, visited Batalha which was one of the highlights of the trip. Then stayed overnight near the sea, in Colares. Afterwards visited the “Boca do Inferno” (Hellmouth) in Mafra and arrived in Lisboa again around noon… time for a last afternoon visit into the city, and now we’re resting and packing. Tomorrow very early it’s on to Hamburg (Germany). Stay tuned…

Off early into Spain, to Santiago de Compostela, where we arrived just before noon. The weather was extremely unstable but – thanks to a suggestion from a helpful local – we found a convenient parking spot just behind the cathedral. It’s really worth an extended visit. The rest of Compostela isn’t too easy – the usual winding little roads, all alike, and very few parking spaces.

Then later in the afternoon the weather cleared up, and we had a very nice drive southwards back into Portugal. We’re now staying overnight at Viana do Castelo and tomorrow we’re going slowly downwards to Lisboa, where we have to arrive Sunday morning.

Whew, 3 tiring but excellent days in Lisbon. Tomorrow we rent a car and go off into Northern Portugal. On the list are Sintra, Mafra, Óbidos, Santarém, Fátima (maybe), Coimbra, Porto, hopefully a fast look at Salamanca and Compostela, and Marvão on the way back down.

We’ll be back in Lisboa on the afternoon of May 25th and the next day it’s off to Hamburg, Germany.