Waiting For the Sunset

Crossing the Bridge

Porto, Portugal is situated on the Douro River, just a bit inland from the Atlantic on the west coast of Portugal. Our apartment faces east, so we do not see the sunset, but we had heard that it was pretty special. We got to see the glow from the setting sun on the opposite riverbank, but never a glimpse of the actual sunset. Tonight we decided that one of our Portuguese adventures would be to all go across the river and watch the sunset. We packed a picnic lunch, two bottles of Portuguese Vino Verdi, and a couple of cans of Super Bock beer.

The bridge beside the apartment is a two level bridge with cars using the bottom tray and trams using the top tray. There is a pedestrian walkway on each level, but to get the best view of the sunset, our UBER driver from earlier in the day, suggested going to the park across the bridge on the upper level. He said the best sunset views were from there.

Everyone is here

So as the day started turning to evening, I set out to meet everyone else across the river. I was carrying the olives, napkins and the all important wine cork/bottle opener. 135 steps to the top of the hill and then across the bridge to the opposite side of the river. The Park across the river is situated perfectly to watch the sunset. The Douro River flows out to the Atlantic here and the river rounds a bend and flows due west as it exits the city. The park is high on a hill looking out towards the mouth of the river, so the views are perfect. You see the river, one of the five Porto bridges, and the old historic city climbing the hill across the river.

Sunset watching is obviously a popular activity in Porto. The park slowly filled up with people as the skies darkened. The park has rows of concrete walls perfect height for sitting to watch the sunset and

Waiting for the Sunset

I managed to snag a prime section of wall. We arrived about 45 minutes before sunset so the park was just filling up, but as it came closer to the sun going down a steady stream of people came across the bridge and up from surrounding neighbourhoods. The park rapidly filled up with people. A busker arrived and set up with a guitar and small amplifier to play popular songs for everyone. There were vendors selling popcorn and beer, so obviously drinking wine and beer in the public park is not a problem. A family sat down the wall from us, and a little boy took it on as his personal mission to chase the “rats with feathers” (pigeons) away. Overall the park developed a festive carnival like atmosphere.

Clouds did roll in for a while and there was some concern about the sunset, but fortunately a few clouds usually make a sunset more dramatic and Porto did not fail to impress, producing a beautiful sunset over the Douro River. A great end to another nice day in Portugal.

And now the sunset . . . .

Naples Beach Sunset

Naples Beach

Naples is a very pleasant place to visit. Our friends love it here, and have built a lovely house here to come down to the warmth and chill-out from the day to day hustle-bustle of their busy lives back home. They are here to relax, so they do not put pressure on us to “Do stuff”. If sitting by the pool all day is all we manage to accomplish, that is just fine with everyone.

They did insist on showing us the Naples Beach Sunset. This involved a drive downtown with beach chairs. Normally a lot more equipment is needed, including I was let to believe a few bottles of wine, and getting to the beach well before sunset is the normal procedure to get the best viewing location, but since our day was busy with relaxing by the pool, we did arrive a bit late, and left the wine back at the house for later.

Sailing into the Sunset

Really . . . a nice sunset

Now Naples Beach is a beautiful beach, but we quickly discovered that arriving early had nothing to do with getting a good spot, it was all about socializing, meeting friends and chatting (Discussing the sunset I am sure) over a good glass of Chardonnay. In fact the beach was in no way crowded, there was lots of room and not many people.

Fishing

As the sun was still quite high in the sky, we left our friends, with their friends, discussing sunsets and other important subjects, and we set off for a walk down the beach. We discovered that this “Naples Beach Sunset” was a serious event. There were people all down the beach, and some were obviously there to see the sun sink into the Gulf Of Mexico. There were many people with cameras, and some were setting up tripods and elaborate stop action set-ups, serious about getting that perfect sunset snap.

Sunset, what sunset?

There were also people there exercising; people more interested in each other than the sunset; people trying to catch fish; children playing in the sand; people sailing off into the sunset, but mostly people socializing with their friends as the sun announced the end to another lovely day in South Florida.

Oh . . . . the sunset really was pretty nice.

Sunrise over Olhao

Regis enjoying the shade on the balcony

When we planned this trip to Olhao we knew how we were getting here and where we were going to live for a month, but other than that we did not have much of an itinerary or plans. We thought we might go visit Lisbon some time, and we might take the train up and down the coast, but other than that our time was flexible. It is a nice relaxing way to travel after years of having to fit vacation into our week long March Breaks every year.

One of the relaxing things we have been enjoying is simply watching night fall over the town. Back home we love being able to sit out front of the house and watch the skies darken over the city, but there are not that many evenings warm enough to sit out until dark. Here you can sit out every night on the front balcony and watch the sun set, the town grow dark, and lights come on across the skyline.

The Back Balcony

The other morning, I woke up early, to a slate grey dawn, and with nothing planned for the day requiring a full eight hours sleep (Always time for a nap later . . . . ), I decided to get up and try to catch a sunrise. The front balcony gets the morning sun, and I thought I might get a nice photo of the sun coming up.

Lovely Sunset

As I rolled up the shutters, the town continued to sleep, but down towards the sea I could hear the drone of the fishing fleet heading out to a day of work on the sea. Although no birds were in the air, I could hear a symphony of bird calls. (Later Linda said it was those “early birds” getting the worms). Timex the rooster was crowing, but that didn't mean anything – I named him 'Timex', because he has no idea what time it is, and crows at 10:00, 1:45, 3:00 am; actually he seems to crow all the time.

Not much of a sunrise . . . .

I did see the sun come up, but it was a disappointing show with too many clouds to get a nice red sunrise, so I shall have to try again some other day when I have nothing planned.

Tramway Flight

The Tramway

Albuquerque is home to the worlds longest tramway. It is over two and a half miles long, and has one section that is over one and a quarter miles long between support towers. It climbs to the 10,378 foot Sandia Peak, where you can see over 11,000 square miles. We were in Albuquerque overnight, and had time to take in one attraction, so this sounded like a good choice.

We arrived at about 6:00, so I was a bit worried about the impending darkness spoiling our view, but this was not a problem. In fact, the sun was just setting as we came back down, and provided a spectacular sunset background to the decent.

For the "uninitiated", a tramway is a rectangular box with windows, holding about 30 people attached to a steal cable that is pulled up and down that cable by large steel wheels. The cable is supported by tall towers up the mountain. Because this tramway has to cross a large canyon, it has one extremely long unsupported cable run and this is why they call the tramway ride a "flight".

Beautiful Views from the Top

Our "pilot" for the flight was a very pleasant fellow, who also emptied the garbage cans (he also said he cleaned the washrooms when I commented on his varied jobs). As we ascended the mountain, he told us all about the  Various geological features of the mountain as well as the engineering feats necessary to build the tramway. It took over 3000 helicopter flights to build one of the towers that support the tramway.

Unfortunately, due to extreme fire hazard, the mountain was completely closed, and we were warned to stay on the observation decks. The National Forest has many hiking trails that would have made for interesting adventures. One trail about two miles in length, would have taken us to a hiker's shelter with beautiful 360 degree views of the area. There was a restaurant at the top, where we could have eaten, but we just enjoyed the nice cool mountain temperatures for a while and then went back down.

Tourists at the Top. 

We were told about about black bears, mountain goats, falcons, and even cougars, but even with everyone searching the rocks and trees passing below us, we saw nothing except a couple of scraggly squirrels stealing scraps from the garbage. I think this is just a corporate strategy to keep people occupied on the flight so they don't worry about the 1000 foot drop, and the tramway built in 1965.

Sunset on Sandia Peak

The flight back down the mountain, was against a beautiful setting sun, and proved even more entertaining than the ascent. One passenger started asking very detailed questions, and the pilot was completely up to the task, rattling off information about not only the Sandia Peak, but everything we could see. There were three extinct volcanoes, and we learned how the mountains formed, and how the valley below was silted in when the area was an inland sea. The sea still exists in the form of a huge underground aquifer that supplies the water necessary to support a city the size of Albuquerque.