Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts

Aug 23, 2020

Portugal (23) -- Praia do Norte


Photo by Chang, taken yesterday (22-8-20)

We've been so slovenly and sloppy and not posting for reasons we don't even dare to explain. Anyhow, we left the beautiful Swiss Valais and hurried to Nazaré, Portugal, where we are house-hunting again.

Last time, in January, the quarry was a bit disappointing, but this time we've already viewed five houses that make the short list. Several of them are situated in the neighborhood  of Sitio, a district of Nazaré, very close to the Praia do Norte, as pictured.

What's so special about the Praia do Norte? Well, the waves. Occasionally, they reach record heights of 30 meters, and the place holds the Guiness Book of Records for the highest surfable waves on the planet:



Haha!

Jul 8, 2020

Back in Switzerland



House is rented, we're back in Switzerland. Picture taken by Chang yesterday afternoon:




Jan 12, 2020

Nazaré again -- Portugal (19)




We've just arrived in Nazaré, Portugal, for a glass of Sangria and a house-hunt. Wish us good luck. Picture taken on the patio of our favourite beach haunt, the Inn Bar

  

Aug 21, 2019

Yesterday



Alex Hogan, the influential editor of Gay Flash Fiction, wonders where we are. Here we are, Alex, in the Valais, the Swiss region; this was the view from our chalet yesterday morning:





Aug 5, 2019

The Valais, yesterday (rhymes)




...with the Bietschhorn, the mountain that dominates our region, in the background.


Nov 23, 2018

What happens when your travel documents expire...

...and you live in France, and you have a Dutch passport, and it's late November...

Photo (as always) by Jason Yoon

...you have to go to Paris, to the embassy. It's the only place where you can renew your passport, and you have to show up in the flesh, you can't do it per mail. Fortunately, the Eiffel tower was in walking distance.


Oct 31, 2018

Portugal (15) -- Going home

Eventually, after a month and a half, we went back home. It took three days. Michael is fairly exhausted. We spent the second night in Carcassonne, east of Lourdes, north of the Pyrenees, a medieval fortified town and now a very French city. Here's yesterday's view of the city from the fortified town:



Pictures, as always, by Chang ("Jason") Yoon

Oct 28, 2018

Portugal (14) --- Coimbra


So, we went to Coimbra. This is the central square of the university, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the world.

Oct 25, 2018

Portugal (13)



All this happened yesterday, halfway between Nazaré and San Martinho do Porto, the next town south. Everybody here looks like our friend Glenn from Baltimore.








And, yes, we suspected it already---Nazaré and Baltimore share the same latitude, with Baltimore at 39.2904° N and us at 39.6012° N. Haha---Baltimore is still a bit to the south. We are going to move here, folks, yes we are. Don't blame us, internet is good. 

There are differences, of course, an important one being the climate. This is the west coast of a continent which is, at this latitude, still untouched by the Gulf Stream, meaning the ocean is cold, meaning the air on the coast is cool. Average highs during July and August in Nazaré are around 22.5°C and 22.9°C respectively (72.5°F and 73.2°F). Compare this to Berlin, Germany, where the numbers are 25.0° C and 24.5°C, or Baltimore, with 31.7°C (89.0°F) and 30.6°C (87.0°F). We have basically a Californian coast climate, and there's fog, although we haven't seen much of it yet.

Bona tarde.

Oct 12, 2018

More beach --- Portugal (11)



This is a few kilometers north of Nazaré, the town with the largest surfable waves in the world:





Oct 9, 2018

Yesterday -- Connubial bliss -- Portugal (10)

You must admit: we are normally not nerving our few fans with selfies, but there you have it: Chang (Jason), and his partner Michael on the Praia do Norte of Nazaré, Portugal, the beach with the larges surfable waves on the planet.




Oct 4, 2018

Portugal (9)

Yesterday evening, shortly before sunset, on the Praia do Norte---a surfing competition is in preparation:








Conditions are quite unfavorable. There's no wind, and the waves are smallish.

Oct 2, 2018

Portugal (8)

We're still in Nazaré, or, more precisely, we moved to Nazaré, which is in some respects the ultimate location. It's the end of the world (photos will follow), but it's also a prime tourist destination with travel buses that can't make it around narrow corners and all the tourist traps you can dream of. John and Alex from the Green Eyes must come visit. You must come visit, too.




We're in Sitio now, the oldest part of the town, on a cliff above the main beach, and this is the view. We had lunch at Restaurante Bohemia, a place around the corner from our apartment, and it lived up to its name, with the owner and his mistress/cook (our guess) getting into a fight. Wonderful. In more than one respect the bizarrest restaurant your rasender reporter has ever been to.  

Sep 23, 2018

Portugal (7) -- Can you see the surfer?






You can't, actually, not on the notebook display, where he's screened out by an ad for Ampersant's scabrous story about the Fountain of Geneva. So, here he is again...





...the Portuguese surfer Hugo Vau negotiating a 35 m high wave, already known as "big mama", on 19 January 2018---the Guiness Book of Records is pending as to the highest wave surfed on record. And all this happened barely nine moths ago in Nazaré, 100 clicks north of Lisbon, Portugal, a place we visited today. 

(And the reason for these super-waves? We quote Wikipedia: "Nazaré is a popular surfing destination because of its very high breaking waves that form due to the presence of the underwater Nazaré Canyon.[8] As the canyon creates constructive interference between the incoming swell waves, it makes their heights much larger on this stretch of coast.")

Constructive Interference, folks--we were always wondering. Next time you have an argument with your spouse...think of us.


Sep 22, 2018

Portugal (6)



Yesterday we had almost--almost--posted this picture in our quote-unquote series (note the caption)...

More of this in Michael Ampersant's Green Eyes

...and then, today, we get this...


...with little Michael in the thick of it, on the lookout point of the cliffs between Figueira da Foz and Quiaios. Being a painting, the first picture, by the Turkish artist Taner Cylan, is fiction, but the second one is pure photography by Jason ("connubial bliss") Yoon, and it is real. Here: 


Sep 17, 2018

Portugal (5) -- Don Quixote

We're on our way to Portugal again, and Chang had the brilliant idea to put in a stop at Campo de Criptana in the La Mancha region south of Madrid, where Don Quixote fought the windmills. Here they are (the windmills):


Yes, folks, really, at least in the sense that one local tourist guide blandly assert that the Don fought the mills, while a second tourist guide suggests that these windmills must have "inspired" Cervantes in writing the pertaining episode. You say. We may have another post about this soon; there is something funny about these mills.

Sep 8, 2018

Back home

We returned to France today. This was Bürchen, kissed by the autumn, yesterday. Photography by Jason Yoon, as always.


In the meantime, Michael signed a contract for a German publication of the GREEN EYES.
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