First, to emphasize what a slog this was, I have to tell you that right now it is 9:20 PM and I am too tired to write this post. I’ll load up some pictures, all already on Facebook, then go to sleep. Whatever else I write will come tomorrow.
This is the fishing harbor at Porto Covo, which we didn’t see until just as we were leaving town. In retrospect it’s clear the origins of all these villages are as fishing ports. They all have signs referring to pescador & that reminds me of my dad, though I think he used to call me the Italian pescatore.
Two miles down the beach we found the cafe-resto at Forte da Ilha. The Apple map indicates it doesn’t open until 10:00, but we got cafe ant the counter around 9.
I didn’t buy Pringles or a lobster. The Pringles dispenser reminded me of Sadie. The lobster has no claws, a very different critter from what we have in Maine.
The fort dates back to 1588, built to guard against attacks by English pirates. Fortifications on the offshore island date to the 3rd century BC & the Carthaginians. It’s possible entries on Wikipedia & elsewhere conflate the two. Based on the number of photos, one might assume I’m more interested in artifacts of the human past than plants, birds, and other natural phenomena. One would be correct.
This natural formation caught my eye & awed me. There were at least half a dozen as stunning along the way.
This tufa-like column has a stork nest on it. No stork, but there’s more to come, we hope.
Right here is where your imagination inserts 5 hours of walking through sand. Also when we said about 5 times how glad we were to have our gaiters (credit to Meg & if anyone ever reads this planning a trip here, get some). See mine below.
Much of it was along the backside of duneland.
In keeping with my poetry theme, inspired by the scenery, with apologies to Robert Frost, I conceived of a plan for this sonnet:
Five trails diverged in a trackless waste
And since they all went to the same spot,
I picked one at random and without haste,
walked along. The day was so hot,
With the scenery beautiful but much the same.
The way so long and the road an endless slog,
Whatever I thought of then for rhymes has slipped away.
I daydreamed about how to convey that in my blog.
Random memories and fragments of thought drifted in my mind,
Distracting me from my aching hamstrings, thighs & hips
And helping to beguile the time
With reminders not to focus on the destination but enjoy the trip.
So I walked on knowing I would satisfy my wants
When I sat down with a beer in Villanova de Milfontes.
There’s nothing like good poetry…
And that was nothing like good poetry!
A couple miles before Villanova de Millefontes the trail comes to a road where there’s a restaurant and a side street down to a fishing harbor. The restaurant was closed, leading me to name the spot Disappointment Curve. Disappointment drives determination. We marched on.
Finally Villanova de Millefontes and the Blue Bamboo Hotel, where I got out of my dusty gaiters & shoes.
Shout out to the Stress Free restaurant for great traditional seafood and house red wine
As has been my habit, here’s a sonnet from Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
XIV
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
“I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—
For these things in themselves, Belovëd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.
—————————
And here’s an ancient Portuguese poem with a related theme and tone:
Sibella
by Luis Vaz de Camoes
Within a wood nymphs were inhabiting,
Sibella, lovely nymph, was wandering free;
And climbing up into a shady tree,
The yellow blossoms there was gathering.
Cupid, who thither ever turned his wing,
Cool in his shady mid-day sleep to be,
Would on a branch, e'er sleeping, pendent see
The bows and arrows he was wont to bring.
The nymph, who now the moment fitting saw
For so great enterprise, in nought delays,
But flies the scorner with the arms she ta'en.
She bears the arrows in her eyes, to draw.
Oh! shepherds fly, for every one she slays,
Save me alone, who live by being slain.
—————————-
And another by modern Portuguese poet Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen
Sibyls inside adamantine caves,
Totally loveless and blind.
Feeding emptiness like a sacred fire
While shadow dissolves night and day
Into the same light of bodiless horror.
Bring out here that monstrous dew
Of interior nights, the sweat
Of powers tied to themselves
When words strike the walls
In blind swoops of trapped birds
And the horror of having wings
Screeches like a clock in the void.
Translation: 2004, Richard Zenith
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