| A little about Portugal... |
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| This is a view of Sao Joao da Madeira (where I lived), with the rolling mountains of Beira Littoral in the background. Not sure which direction we're looking here (I didn't take the photo!) |
| Here you can see Porto from across the Douro River in Vila Nova de Gaia. The boats are traditional for the transportation of (amongst other things) Port Wine on the River, with their destination being Vila Nova de Gaia, where the Port Wine cellars are located (not actually in Porto, but close enough!) The Douro starts in northern Spain near the Basque Country (El Duero in Spanish) and empties into the Atlantic at Porto. |
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| Here's Portugal, sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and Spain. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's in South America, because it isn't! Portugal is a small country and has about 10 million inhabitants. The Capital is Lisbon, the largest city. The Serra da Estrela is the highest mountain range, reaching 2000m (they even have some skiing in the winter), while much of the rest of the country is mountainous as well (typically reaching 1000m) It's only border is with Spain. This makes Portugal much like Canada - it's only neighbour is bigger, more powerful and stonger economically. The Portuguese feel similarly towards Spain as Canadians feel towards the USA. So there's Portugal in three paragraphs (according to me!) |
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| I lived in this beautiful country from September, 2001 until July, 2002. I lived in an industrial town (they make a lot of shoes here) called Sao Joao da Madeira. It's nice, though not what you'd call breathtaking. Sao Joao is the home of 'Escola Inglesa', where I had a one year English teaching contract. It was an alright place to work, but I didn't find it to be my 'calling', so I only stayed the one year.. But..... the countryside was only a 5 minute bike ride away, and the coast, with it's wide beaches, was 40 minutes by bike or and hour on the train, so it was actually a pretty good situation. Porto was an hour away on the bus. The mountains are rugged but beautiful and I got into them at least once a week, either on bike or on foot. I joined a bike team/group and rode with them 3 times a week, which was how I saw so much of the countryside. We did both road and mountain rides. To read more about my biking, click here. |
| So just what was I doing there??? |