Mike and Megan's Honeymoon: Day 12 - Well, the Honeymoon's Over...

July 9th

The day of reckoning is near. The honeymoon is almost over and time to get back to the real world...

I swear they filmed this TV show for 24 hours. It's like a marathon of the Portuguese Regis and Kathy Lee

Here they are. I love that they didn't bring a chair and table from a set. This was just from a local diner next door.

The Portuguese Michael Jackson. We saw him walking around town quite a bit and they decided to put him on TV and dance. It was surreal because people were yelling "MICHAEL!" as if he really was Michael Jackson.

Now to cross the river to get on one of these boats ourselves

Enter Sandeman. These boats are known as Rabelos and were used to transport the wine from the Douro Valley, 60 miles away, to Porto. Now, it's tourists.

Ponte Dom Luis by Teofilo Seyfrig from the 1880s. He was a student of Gustave Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame

Little French girls

Living in Chicago, I've grown to learn what a body recovery from a river looks like. Someone jumped or was dumped it seems...

Ponte Dona Maria Pia by Gustave Eiffel in 1877 with the Ponte S. João behind it.

Constructed in 1991 as a modern railroad bridge

Eiffel again

Heading back to the Ribeira district

The Serra do Pilar Monastery

Still filming the TV show...

A huge customs house

Some church from the 1300s. Notice that they ran out of space for a road, so they just built a bridge running parallel to the land

Ponte de Arrãbida opened in 1963

Old mansion or something. They don't tear buildings down, they let things remain until someone wants it again. There's a lesson to be learned from that...

Café Majestic is a very classy place. Too classy for us...

What? Your building isn't at street level? Build a walkway so it is!

Last kiss in Portugal after musicians played to us for dinner.

Porto's airport from the future

Lisbon (Lisboa) from the sky

That's where we stayed. Just north of the perfectly squared streets of the Baixa district.

Megan's sad that the honeymoon is over and we are heading back to the States. Apparently, I didn't get the memo and thought we were just going somewhere else that was awesome. We didn't and now my life is work and groceries again...

Thanks again to everyone for everything related to our wedding! Thanks to all the people who checked out all our honeymoon pics! Thank you thank you thank you!!!

Mike and Megan

Mike and Megan's Honeymoon: Day 11 - Peneda-Gerês National Park

July 8th

Wecome to Parque Nacional da Peneda-Gerês (Peneda-Gerês National Park) !

Megan and I rented a car and drove toward Peneda-Gerês. They have some very, very crazy roads.

Albufeira da Caniçada

Plaid shorts and a striped shirt. I'm a snazzy dresser!

Here's our Hyundai with such amenities as bike tires and a lawnmower engine. I really don't know how they even made this to have 4 doors.

Ok, so around this point we couldn't find a tourist center or anything. So, we saw another couple on the side of the road looking at a map and decided to ask them where they got a park map. They were Czech and didn't know where they were either. But, on their map was a tourist center. So, they invited us to follow them while they drove at high speeds around cliffs and hairpin turns with blind curves in their Peugeot. After a lot of going around in circles, we finally made it and got what we were looking for. The Czech guy asked us "Where in the US are you from" and we said Chicago. He got real excited and said "I love Married With Children." Excellent.

São Bento da Porta Aberta. This church had all sorts of people at it making pilgrimages and crawling on their knees and other stuff I've only seen on TV. We looked inside (we couldn't go it because I had shorts and Megan wasn't dressed like a lady), we've checked online and we still don't know what is in there that makes people go crazy about it. But, they do... Oh also, the national park trail that apparently starts here, doesn't and no one has ever heard of it.

A church in a holding pen

Wind power

These were massive windmills. Each blade seemed to be a wing off a Boeing 747 or larger.

You know those little Smart bubble cars? Here's their sports coupe.

As some of you may know, there's been some financial issues in Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal tied with the global financial meltdown. This is a protest outside our hotel, Mercure Porto Centro, the the Praça da Batalha (Battle Square), which is usually where old guys and little girls on bikes hang out. The protest is against cuts the government intends to make.

King Pedro IV again on the Avenida dos Aliados

Shopping area near the college

Jardins do Palacio de Cristal (Crystal Palace Gardens)

A sports and concert arena in the park

crazy angular pine tree

Peacock running toward me. With my history of birds in Portugal, I did get a bit nervous.

But, he only wanted food and left as soon as he realized I didn't have any...

View of Porto looking toward the Atlantic Ocean. Pretty much the only "weather" we saw the whole time and it was just low clouds and a much appreciated cool breeze

Porto toward the Douro River valley

A little church in the park

child choking a bird

A hollow tree. If this were in Chicago, someone would live in this tree...

My lady's Renault

Praça Infante Dom Henrique (Henry the Navigator Square) and his statue.

Ol' Henry himself

The Stock Exchange Palace. We didn't go into it, but apparently it's pretty amazing and they spared no expense in it's 18 year construction.

My favorite piece of Portuguese art at a restaurant in Porto. Want to see what 5 Euros ($6 US) can get you over here?

Here's my Caldo Verde soup and pint of Super Bock beer

Oh, and my beef platter with rice, salad, and, of course, french fries.

Megan's pork platter and all the fixings. Notice her carafe of wine. Good deal!

An interesting tile shop.