Travellin' Penguin

As  expected this trip has been full on and not much time to post anything. Also very tired at end of today. We are at Coimbra, Portugal on the way to Lisbon. You will need to google it if inerested. Today we had free time from 12 :30 through the evening. I actually got to sleep 2 hours this afternoon so feel good enough to pop up a post.

We did a city tour this morning. There is an old (1700s) university here and we got to visitt the library. So fascinating. A couple of floors of very old books but no photos allowed on upper floor but could take some on the lower floor.

They have a first edition Shakespeare copy of Hamlet. The walls are 2 meters thick and to get rid of silverfish eating these old tomes they have a couple of openings in the wall to let in tiny bats that live here. I saw them flying around my hotel window last night. The bats fly into the library and eat the silverfish. All the old wooden tables are covered up nightly and a cleaner comes in each morning to clean up bat droppings. The library is still used by researchers and PhD students.

After that we walked around the touristy area of the city, heading down hill towards the river and back to our hotel. Here are a set of miscellaneous photos.

 

 

 

Sunday 19th May

This morning I met Glynnis, ftom Perth, who was at breakfast and participating in our small tour. Our meeting drinks are tonight when we meet the others and the guide.

I woke at 4:00 am as young people poured out of clubs, drunk,  singing sporting songs as loud as they could, fully lubed. Sporting songs sound the same in any language.

I fell asleep very early last night and felt rested. Once it got light, around 5:45 I walked around the block and took photos. Several people with their well oiled mates stopped and posed for me. It was very funny.

After breakfast my Florida friend and my new friend, Glynnis and I set out to explore Las Ramblas street. A popular tourist destination. We walked a long ways down the street until we hit water. Overall I walked 10 kms today. I will leave you with some of the photos.

 

Those who live in Australia will understand the no man’s land that is “travelling to Europe”. One hour from Hobart to Melbourne, 14 hours to Abu Dhabi, a couple more airport hours then seven hours to Barcelona. It does seem never ending but I did watch three movies, read some of The Joy Luck Club and dozed a bit.

My bags stayed right with me and Penguin jumped out completely unscathed.

I met up with my Florida friend who arrived a couple of hours after I did and waited in my room while the hotel got her room ready.

We were a bit hungry so walked across the street and found a nice bakery with beautiful pastries, sandwiches and pizza. They also had nice coffee. It feels like it should be midnight but is only around noon.

Next door to the bakery is a beautiful book store. We noticed it immediately. No flies onnus. We headed straight into it. Too tired and flaky to notice the name of it but we are in this hotel until Wednesday so might remember to look at it. Our tour group of no more than 20 people begins Sunday night with a welcome drink. I’m having fun teasing my American friend who joined us from Florida who will be amongst all the Australians.

I will put photos at the end of my posts as I’m using my tablet and it doesn’t seem possible to configure images. You might have giant images with little writing. Here are a couple of photos.

Don’t believe all those glossy, glorious photos you see of people travelling on Instagram. The reality is not that fresh. Until later…