Sorry this post is late but my weekend is a bit longer this week because of Carnaval. I don't have school today(tuesday) or tomorrow and I didn't have it yesterday either, but I'll get to Carnaval later.
Friday night was a little boring I didn't do anything. Saturday morning me and my host family packed our suitcases and got in the car and went to a café to meet my host mom's friend Emilia from work, her two kids(Guilherme and Simão), and her godson(Michel). They have a vacation house near Serra da Estrela, the tallest mountain in Portugal, and they invited us to go for the weekend. So after we met at the café we drove for about 3 and a half hours and got to a small town called Trancoso and got out and walked around a little bit. It was really cold, about 38 degrees fahrenheit(3ºC) in the middle of the day. After that we drove about 45 minutes on tiny gravel roads to this little village called Santa Eufemia where the house is. We unpacked, ate lunch and then walked around the village. But that didn't take more than 10 minutes to see everything there was. Santa Eufemia looks like it came straight out of the middle ages, the houses are made of rocks and stone, the few people we saw were using donkeys and buggies to get around, and there are no cars or anything that would make it look modern. Everyone is old too, there are only 6 kids that live in the whole village so they had to close the school because there were only 6 students(all different ages too). And there are tons of dogs running all around, most of them are in pretty bad shape. Chickens, donkeys, sheep, and goats were common too.
Santa Eufemia
Santa Eufemia
Santa Eufemia
Donkey in Santa Eufemia
Sheep and Goat in Santa Eufemia
One of the healthier dogs
Santa Eufemia
Then we got in the car and drove to Almeida, a small town with a fort around the whole city like a star, we just went to the fort for a little bit and it had nice views of everything around. It's a lot more arid there and while it's a lot colder in the winter and often gets snow, it's also a lot hotter in summer too.
Taken from the top of the fort in Almeida looking down into part of the fort
Then after that we drove to Figueira do Castelo Rodrigues, some ruins of a castle on top of a mountain, pretty close to the border of Spain(about 6 miles).
Castelo Rodrigues
My host family and I at Castelo rodrigues(Inês, Lúcio, Ângela, Me, and Pedro); it looks like my host dad is really tall and Me/Inês are really short but we're just all on different steps haha
Castelo Rodrigues
Looking out from Castelo Rodrigues
Looking out from Castelo Rodrigues
After that we went to this "feira das tradições" which reminded me of fishing shows back in florida except instead of lures and boats there was stinky cheese and sausage. Everyone in a 3 hour radius was there, and because of this when we went back to Santa Eufemia, one of the three cafes/bars in town was closed. They weren't even really cafes/bars though, more just like the person who owned the house put some tables in their first floor so that everyone could go and drink there.
Sunday morning we drove to Serra da Estrela(Star Ridge). Serra da Estrela is the tallest mountain in Portugal at 6,593 feet above sea level (1993 meters). It has a small ski area with 6 slopes and it gets snow all winter long at the top. When we first were driving up it was so foggy you couldn't see more than 70 feet in front of you, and that was only because of our headlights, you could barely see anything to the sides of the road, we didn't know until we left at the end of the day that those were massive drop offs. Anyway we stopped in a small field on the way up and played in the snow for about 15 minutes and then we went all the way to the top where they have a big parking lot and observatory thing but it was so windy and foggy you couldn't even see 15 feet in front of you. There were these dogs that live on top of the mountain all year round without a house or owner. They just live off people feeding them I don't know how they survive the cold!
Fog on Serra da Estrela
Host Brother Pedro throwing snowballs
Simão, Michel, and Emilia; Snowball Fight
Snowball Fight
Fog on Serra da Estrela
Cães da serra da estrela-Serra da Estrela dogs
Cães da serra da estrela-Serra da Estrela dogs
Cães da serra da estrela-Serra da Estrela dogs
Then we went to the bottom of the ski slopes where the ski shop is. There was a snowboard like on our parking space so we put it up to the side thinking somebody would take it. Anyway it was only 25 euros for skis boots poles and lift passes for the day, but nobody in my host family knows how to ski I didn't get to go, I was kind of bummed but whatever. By now the fog would roll in and out and we'd have 25-30 second periods of visibility. We built a snowman and went sledding for a few hours and then we finally got packed up and were getting ready to leave. The snowboard from when we first got there was still there and no other cars were around us as the slopes closed and a lot of people had left, so we took the snowboard. On the way down we could see what we couldn't see that morning, tons of rocky/snowy cliffs. We found a small sloped hill and we all tried to snowboard, it's really hard haha.
Slopes at Serra da Estrela
Slopes at Serra da Estrela
Our snowman
Serra da Estrela
Me attempting to snowboard
Serra da Estrela
Serra da Estrela looking at the valley a glacier carved and the village of Manteigas
Monday morning we walked down this road outside of Santa Eufemia and there was this outdoor bath thing where the people of the village wash their clothes in. It was sunny for about an hour an the sun made it really warm it was probably about 70 degrees, it was nice. Then we went back and took a long time to get packed and going after lunch, but around 3 we finally left and went to Viseu. The biggest city in that region, it's about the same size as Viana I guess, and then came home.
Santa Eufemia
Santa Eufemia
Santa Eufemia
The bath where people wash their clothes in Santa Eufemia
Viseu
Viseu;
Every city in Portugal has one of these and the more steps it has/the bigger it is the more important that city is.
Last night I went out for Carnaval but I'll talk about that in my next post tomorrow about Carnaval because today is the official Carnaval day.
