Aug. 26- Day 57

We are doing our best to keep ourselves busy these last few days of our trip. We have been to 11 countries and visited many many churches, museums, castles and markets and shops. Yesterday, we spent the day on a self guided walking tour around Lisboa. We stopped at a flee market, church, museum and castle. The best part of the day was the walking. It felt good to hike up and down the narrow streets. Peeking into the shops and lives of the people of Portugal. You can learn a lot by taking the time to walk down back streets and this city like many others that we have visited is full of tiny streets, sidewalks and winding staircases that lead to no where. The streets either go up or down. Most are not straight or level. We found many of the streets have the same names and so when we were looking for a street by one name we found 3 or 4 by the same name. It made for a very interesting tour as we had to ask directions many times and get the answer in Portugees many times. But we did manage to find all the spots that we had planned on seeing.

I love the old massive doors everywhere. This one leads into yet another church. I love how even though the churches are all similar in the basics. They all have there own style. It has made me very interested in the Catholic religion as to why they have there churches set up as they do and what it all signifies. As we sat in the pews waiting for Erin to take a short tour. We watched as people walked around the church, kneeling and bowing at certain times. We had no idea why or what it was all about. But never the less it was interesting to observe.

As we were on the walking tour we got a bit lost and needed to ask for directions. We noticed this sign on a little shop and stopped to ask which way, up or down the hill we should go. After he told us we chatted a bit and decided we needed a break and he gave us some Portugees wine, port and local cheese to sample. It was very good. (see Erin's blog for pictures of the wine and cheese she took). http://offbeatandbarefoot.blogspot.com/

Another huge door. We think we should definatly have doors like this at home.

We LOVE skype. We have been able to keep up with friends and family (almost in person) as long as we have internet connection. Colton and Miranda talked and played skype games with their friends.

We stopped at a small cafe that was in a museum for lunch. The museum was closed but we got to pass by this great carriage and had to stop for a picture.

We also found this side saddle and couldn't resist to boost Miranda up for a picture before we got caught. Hee hee

We took a little ride around the area on this original trolly. They are located all over the area we are staying in. The old roads are far to narrow for regular busses and trains.

We found the most interesting shop on our walk. It was a shop that sold only canned fish. We couldn't resist buying all sorts of differnt pkg's. It was so much fun to watch them very carefully package each tin in a piece of brown paper and a bit of twine. They seemed to really take the time to cater to their clientle. It was no wonder they were the busiest little shop around. Filled with tourists and locals alike.