Here in jolly ol' England, they call the period spanning December-ish through the New Year the 'festive season'. This isn't meant to be PC, as far as I can tell, but instead it's descriptive & inclusive. Personally, I can tell it's the 'Festive Season' because at no other time of year am I certain to encounter someone's vomit from the previous night on my walk to the train station every morning. I wish I were kidding. (Did I mention this country has a bit of a drinking problem?) I digress...
As they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, we've had to create our own start to the 'festive season', given in the States it's pretty clear when you're supposed to start overindulging at every turn. It wasn't intentional, but our mid-November 5-day weekend to Portugal marked the start of our festive season, since we ate tons of cheap, delicious fish, cheeses, pork, lamb etc., and drank bottles upon bottles of cheap, yummy red wine nearly constantly over our trip... and didn't look back until these past 2 weeks of our return to reality.
We stayed in the Alentejo region, inland from Lisbon and north of the more well-known Algarve that marks the country's southern coast. We rented a car in Lisbon and drove 2 hours to our lodging on a cork tree farm, a family business whose primary industry is cork (naturally), but which has diversified into wine and livestock.
Here are a few pictures:
Jason inspecting the cork tree (marked '9' as it's harvested in years ending with 9)
Free range acorn fed happy pig (although here, rather damp pig).
During our stay in Alentejo, we drove through the area to visit a number of small villages, many of which have a ruined castle or fortress on a hilltop. The region is broadly known for cork, marble, tiles, olives, and these bizarre rock formations. We went in search of the latter and only found one. Among the highlights of our trip were:
A visit to the Bone Chapel in Evora - constructed entirely of monks' bones (fascinatingly grim):
Visiting the JM Fonesca winery on a set-up from my wino-friend Hal:
And traipsing around church rooftops and fortress walls which, if anything this old and decrepit existed in the States, would be guarded with railings and fences or more likely you would be allowed to look at from a distance of 20 feet:
Naturally you can see more pictures at the link on the right! And stay tuned for more Festive Season adventures, less than a week a way (but you've heard that before...)
