Pictorial warning: this is not an exciting picture, but...
...it answers a question that expats living in the Alcobaça area are facing when they move into town and learn that our name derives from the confluence of two rivers (or "rivers"), one called Alcoa and the other called Baça.
They may have searched Google Map and Google Earth for answers, yet in vain. Google is misleading, in that it elevates
the weaselling Alcoa
to a full-fledged Alcobaça:
There, there, the yellow arrows pointing at it: the misnaming of the Rio
Alcoa by Google running past the east of our world-famous monastery.
Google, the world's fifth-largest company by market capitalization (@ 1.3
trillion in American $$$), mistaking a pars pro toto as it
cuts through our little town (@ 6 k inhabitants). But what can we do
about it?
The Baça has disappeared. It's channelled underground through old Alcobaça downtown until it resurfaces 400 meters further south, here:
...if you can.
Research.
And so, at the top of this post you see photographed the real confluence
of the two "rivers" where it occurs, at the phallic top of the
Jardim do Amor...:
...whence the entire river system of Alcobaça is about to say goodbye
to our charming community and ejaculate carelessly into the Atlantic
Ocean a few kilometres away.
But the Baça, you ask, where does it show? Not on Google. But it
shows on these pictures we took yesterday:
The Baça, just south of the confluence, as it arrives at the Rua 16 de Outobro |
This rua just bridges over the Baça. But now, if we turn the camera in
the opposite direction, we should see the southern part of the bridge
with the Baça still flowing. Instead, we see this:
The Baça has disappeared. It's channelled underground through old Alcobaça downtown until it resurfaces 400 meters further south, here:
A mystery of expatriate importance finally solved! Read our
lips: "Baça, Baça, Baça..."
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