Author: Chris

We departed Portugal today and headed towards Seville.  We dropped our car off at the Faro Airport first before crossing the border into Spain.  If you decide to rent a car in Portugal and want to go to Spain, or vice versa, they charge a fortune to cross the border with a rental car.  Our rental in Portugal would have gone from $250 to about $800 just to drive those last 60 miles.  So we used a service called Daytrip, that picked us up at Faro Airport and drove us to Seville.  Excellent service.  Here is the bridge crossing over the Guidiana River into Spain.

The driver took us to Huelva, Spain first.  We had paid an extra fee to stop here for 90 minutes.  Huelva is historic as this is the location of a monastery where Christopher Columbus stayed in 1490, after learning that his initial request was rejected by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.  Columbus’ discussions with Cardinal Cisneros about his plans helped to pave the way for his second request to be granted, as the Queen valued the Cardinal’s input.

To celebrate the historical aspect of this, Huelva has a museum that has replicas of the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta, as well as a museum all about Columbus’ voyages.  The vessels are incredibly small, and having been to sea a few times in my life, I cannot imagine sailing the Atlantic on one of these vessels.  Unfortunately we could not go onboard since it was raining….the first sign of a safety concern we have seen since arriving in Europe.  The first shot is in front of the Santa Maria.

The Nina, Santa Maria and Pinta.

The Nina from astern.  So tiny!

We arrived in Sevilla around 3:00 and headed straight for the laundry!  This little spot is in the middle of a shopping mall, but it was mostly closed since it was Sunday.  It was great to find a dryer…those are mostly non existent in Porgugal and Spain!

We went a little further west along the coast today, actually about as far west as we could go, to what is considered the most southwest corner of continential Europe, also known as Sagres.  We were joined by our new friends Mark and Denise Brown from Pittsburgh, PA, who we met in Evora.

We first went to Sagres Fortress, a 15th century fort with one fortified wall along a peninsula with sheer cliffs as borders (that would work for the US….let’s start digging!).

 

There was a maze like building surrounding an opening to a sea cave, and this opening had the loudest sounds….as if a dragon was living inside the cave.

That’s Denise on the left, and Mark on the right of Kim.  Graffitti is a MAJOR issue in Portugal….might as well be Harlem!  The opening to the cave is right under their feet.

Here is Kim standing over one of the vents to the sea cave.  This thing was made for Marilyn Monroe! The video doesn’t do it justice.  I kept looking for the volume button to turn it down!

This is a compass rose that was discovered in 1919. and supposedly related to a seafaring school at this site run by Henry the Navigator.

Nearby is Cabo de Sao Vicente, which is another peninsula about 2 miles away, with some excellent viewpoints up the coast to the North.

The swells below this point were very large.  Watch that one pont in the rocks that looks like it’s somewhat protected from the waves in the photo above (suggest going to full screen).