Portugal

Just up until a few days ago Morgan thought people in Portugal spoke Piglatin.  Not sure where he got confused.

Everytime we needed to communicate with the locals here we would ask if they spoke Spanish or English and only once the person spoke Spanish, the other times they spoke English and no Spanish.  We found that very interesting as they are only half an hour over the Spanish border and Spanish should be quite a bit easier than English for them.

Guarda

This fascinating city is 30 min. over the Spanish border. Guarda was founded in 1199 by Portugal's second king and is the highest city in Portugal. 

 "Se da Guarda"  Guarda Cathedral

The construction of this Cathedral began in 1390 and was finished in 1540.

Looking at the Cathedral from above you can see the smaller white church in the background which is also beautiful. 

 

Streets of Guarda

 

Most "Olde European" streets are extremely narrow and Guarda is no exception.  It is a labyrinth of curvy roads to the top of the mountain and back.  They were very hard to navigate as we drove to see the Cathedral and Castle.   Most streets are one way, and some are so narrow we didn't even dare try to get through and only because we were desperate we tried others we thought we would have to scrape through. We felt lucky as we never did scrape anything and only once we had to pull in the mirror.

Just another shot of a narrow road, this one leading from the Plaza with the Cathedral.

We saw no paint lines on the roads on this hilltop but instead saw lines made with different colored bricks or rocks.  Can you imagine how long and how boring this job would have been.  And this shows only a few square feet.

Serra da Estela Castle

Located at the very top of the Guarda city.  They call this a Castle? 

This Graveyard was just spooky, but also cool.  The houses contained entire families as houses should.