On to Mealhada

Hello, everyone!

As mentioned in the last post, we got lost leaving Coimbra. I don't know if the signage was confusing or the Brierly book was incomplete or out of date. (Or maybe both!) At any rate, we wandered in circles near the edge of town and found ourselves knocking on the door of a scheduling office. The nice man inside opened up and pointed us toward the next landmark on our list, a gas station. The route took us through a tiny village--someone ahead of us was walking along the road and we followed them onto a new stretch of dirt road over a field. Oops. It was sticky mud for the last half!

Near the gas station landmark. They were revving up for a rock concert in the area, we could see signs and people parking their cars.

I guess this will become the New! Improved! back way into that village that you can almost see at the end of the track.

It had rained the night before. We tippy-toed along the edges of the puddles through the woodlot.

Many buildings in Portugal are covered in tiles. Many also have image tile murals like this one, to Mary or a saint.

A suckling pig, ready for service. The chef had done it up in the restaurant oven where we stayed, and he was taking it elsewhere to serve, but he let us photograph the pig. It is a specialty of the Mealhada area.

A programming note: I have been very busy with R's dress. Now making a bead-embroidery slip to put onto the belt. Pictures will come later! Also there have been a few stitches put onto the Catedral de Santiago cross-stitch picture. I'm still up in the corner of the sky, so there's not much to see yet. Pictures later. After there is at least a little bit to see.