Highlights and lowlights from this years month of travels

 It was a month packed with activities - I had wanted to go to New York and on the Queen Mary 2 again but also to attend the last concert of the 2024 Canterbury Festival with my four nephews and nieces.

Highlights

• Staying at the Yale Club in New York City
• Attending the tales of Hoffman at the Metropolitan Opera
• Two plays - the Roommate and McNeal
• Visiting Newport and the Sailing museum
• Visiting Cambridge Colleague Heather in Boston
• Crossing the Atlantic on the QMII
• A bridge lesson and duplicate game each day
• Two days in Hampshire with nephew Phillip
• Three days in London at the Reform Club
• Meeting up with colleague Tom also from Cambridge days
• Attending the Phantom of the Opera
• Eight days in Lisbon.
• The Maritime museum in Lisbon
• The Guggenheim museum in Lisbon
• Staying on the farm for a week in Littlebourne
• Attending Monteverdi's 2010 Vespers with my four nephews and neices in the Nave of Canterbury Cathedral in memory of my sister.

Lowlights

• Loosing my laptop in Calgary airport (later recovered)
• Catching a respiratory virus on the QMII that lasted about three weeks.
• Having my wallet pickpocketed in Lisbon.
• Having to manage only with cash for more than a week.

On the farm and Canterbury festival

 I’ve participated in events of the Canterbury festival for at least 20 years. In earlier years it was with my mother who died in 2009.(She would be 112 this year). Then I would regularly attend with my sister who passed away last year. The farm has almost been like a second home to me because I have stayed in the farmhouse Garrington at least 55 times over the years . This year is an opportunity for a reunion with my nephews and nieces Robert, Philip, Helen and Carin. In past years I used to go to talks and on walks as well as concerts but this year I just arranged for four concerts. The first was the Festival chamber Orchestra who provided program titled “passion and celebration”the program was organized by Ian Crowther an oboist and I particularly enjoyed a piece by Albertini for two oboes and orchestra. The second was the BBC Big band. They played “a swinging celebration of Gershwin” .  It was great big band music but a bit too noisy for me so I only stayed for the first hour. The third  concert was an evening with “Tenors unlimited”.  Lil and Robert joined me. It was a wonderful selection of opera, popular music songs excerpts from My fair Lady, Les Misérables, Rigoletto, Phantom of the Opera etc.

The fourth concert will be on Saturday night in the nave of Canterbury Cathedral, where the Canterbury choral Society will sing Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers. I will be attending with my four nephews and nieces in memory of my sister who sang in the Canterbury Choral  Society, and also with whom I used to regularly go to this last concert of the festival each year.

On the farm, there is continuous activity and the equipment seems to get more and more complicated and larger.There is about 3700 acres under management, managed by four men. They have just purchased a new driller. 

 Helen is here and is towing two tires around the farm practising for pulling the pulk when she skis to the south pole in January. There is a wonderful bench that was donated to the farm by Roberts contemporaries at Wye College commemorating the lives of and Anne David Spencer

Canterbury

 I had a comfortable journey from Lisbon via Madrid to Heathrow, and then the tube to Saint Pancras and train to Canterbury. It was a great relief to be met by my nephew Robert. I had found that on the tube you cannot pay with cash. I did not have any credit cards because they had  all been frozen. I just had cash. I changed my euros into pounds at Heathrow Airport. When  I got to the tube station I called a help phone site and a young helper showed up. I told her my predicament and she said oh well I’ll just let you on the train but don’t tell anybody.  At the other end I went up to a an official and explained that I had a Trainline ticket to Canterbury, but that I had no cash. He just let me off so I had a free tube ride from Heathrow to Saint Pancras. I made the train with 10 minutes to spare.

It was a great relief to be on the farm and feel secure, surrounded by one’s relatives.

On the first day, we went to visit a pumpkin patch. Robert and Lil were very interested in the business behind developing this pumpkin patch. The farmer George is a great friend of  theirs. He has a large farm where he has arable, beef and sheep land but each year he creates a pumpkin patch on a couple of acres and invites the public to come and pick their own. It has developed over about five years and now has turned into a wonderful cash cow for the farm. Here are some pictures of the pumpkin patch and George the farmer dressed up in an inflatable dragon costume.

Castillo de sao Jorge

 I found Rick Steves's  snapshot of Lisbon booklet very helpful and at times I’m quoting from what he says. His descriptions of museums and castles, etc. are much better than perhaps the lengthy descriptions that you get if you take a tour guide or an audio guide. 

The Castelo de Sao George dates to the 11th century, when the Moors built it to house their army and provide a safe haven for the elites in times of siege. After Alfonso Henriques took the castle in 1147, Portugal’s royalty lived here for several centuries. The sloping walls typical of castles from this period were designed to withstand 14th century cannonballs. In the 16th century, the kings moved to their palace on Praca do Comercio, and the castle became a military Garrison. Despite suffering major damage in the 1755 earthquake, the castle later served another stint as a military Garrison. In the 20th century it became a national monument. 

I walked up to the castle which is high above the city but took the bus back down to the centre of the city near my hostel.

Cascais

 It was probably 60 years ago that Penny went with her mother to Cascais when she was able to get a discount fare while she was working for British European Airways.  Cascais is a 45 minute train ride from Lisbon. It was a beautiful sunny day between 21 and 25°.  Today Cascais is a an attractive tourist town with narrow streets multiple tourist  stores, a fishing fleet, there was a marina  in the distance that I saw, but I didn’t make the time to walk to it. Before the rise of the Algarve, Cascais was the haunt of Portugal’s rich and famous. Today it is an elegant and inviting escape from the city with pleasant beaches and relaxing ambience.

Before the 20th century aristocrats wanted to avoid the sun and exaggerate some of their white skin and a day on the beach just made no sense. But about 1900, a Portuguese queen made Cascais a summer vacation getaway – and Portugal’s high Society followed. A train line made Cascais accessible from the city and the area was developed as a kind of Portuguese answer to the French Riviera.

Maritime museum

 On my last day in Lisbon, I visited the National Maritime Museum. I have visited many Maritime museums - in Greenwich, England,  in Oregon, in New Zealand and in Australia but this one has to get the medal for the most amazing number of models, etc. It documents Portuguese maritime history  in the 15th and 16th Centuries. Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco de Gama and Magellan.  The museum is loaded with artefacts and reproductions, nautical paintings, model ships, cannons, uniforms etc. A map illustrating Portuguese explorations exhibit takes you right up to the present day, covering not just explorers and military vessels, but also the fishing industry. The Kings and Queen's State rooms on the Amelia King Carlos's royal ship have been reproduced. There is a huge warehouse of boats, including a massive Royal barge. It was last in the water in 1957 when Queen Elizabeth II visited. For those who like Maritime museums I would highly recommend this on a visit to Lisbon. 

Gulbenkian museum

 For anybody who likes art even there if they are not an expert (like me) there is something very enlightening to visit grand collections that have been made over the years. Calouste Gulbenkian (1869 -1955), an Armenian oil tycoon gave Portugal his art collection in gratitude for the hospitable asylum granted him in Lisbon during WWII. Of Armenian origin he was born in Constantinople (now Istanbul) then part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1889 he left Turkey and settled in London with his family.  With the outbreak of the second world war, he settled in Lisbon where he would remain until his death. Here is a Wikipedia link to the museum.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calouste_Gulbenkian_Museum

Sintra

 I traveled by train to Sintra on the Monday. There were huge crowds partly because museums in Lisbon are closed on mondays. When you get to Sintra you have to take an official public bus transport. There are many separate places to visit in Sintra. I chose just to go to the Pena Palace and gardens.

Piña Palace. This magical hilltop palace sits high above Sintra above the Moorish Castle ruins. In the 19th century, Portugal had a very romantic prince, German born prince Ferdinand. A contemporary of cousin of Bavaria’s “mad” King Ludwick , he was also a cousin of England’s Prince Albert (Queen Victoria‘s husband). Flamboyant Ferdinand hired a German architect to build a fantasy castle, mixing elements of German and Portuguese style. He ended up with a crazy Neo fortified castle of Gothic Towers, Renaissance domes, Moorish minarets, Manueline carvings, Disneyland playfulness, and an azulejo (tile) toilet for his wife. 

My wallet pickpocketed

 The third day I was here I planned to go to Cascais. I was carrying my small wallet with the three credit cards, my drivers license and care card and a small amount of cash in a secure bag. I pulled the wallet out in order to take out a prepaid card which is used to go on the Metro and proceeded until I got down to the Metro, then I suddenly realize that my wallet had gone. The centre of Lisbon is very well known for pickpockets.  Of course it completely disrupted the day. I got help from a policeman to take a Uber to the tourist police station. I spent an hour giving a report to extremely dimwitted police officer. Within half an hour, funds had been withdrawn from two credit cards and my Wise account. At the police station there was no Wi-Fi so I couldn’t do anything about it but as soon as I got Wi-Fi, I froze all the accounts and then I proceeded to contact the Royal Bank and cancel my credit cards and report some unauthorized spending on them and new credit cards will be delivered home and will be there before I arrive home. I also froze the Wise account. But then I had a problem because I had a very small amount of cash to last for the next three days and also I needed cash to pay for the tube from Heathrow to St Pancras. Anyhow, the following day, I unfroze the Wise card for a short time was able to withdraw extra cash and so my anxiety was solved. I’m so lucky that this happened on a spare day when I had time to deal with it. If it had happened, for example of that was on the way to the airport it would’ve been extra difficult to deal with it. The biggest hastle now will be getting a new drivers license and care card when I get home. I’m sure this has happened to other people so I thought I’d report it here. The police report may help with any insurance claim. I think that the banks may cover the claims on the credit cards as I was able to give them details of the police report. You can’t be too careful in storing your valuables. Luckily my passport was still in my pack in my room so that was not an issue.

An evening walk

 One of the joys of staying close to downtown in a city is that you can easily walk around the middle of the city at all times a day. An evening stroll just before dinner is a great time to observe the population, the tourists etc. In downtown Lisbon there are a vast number of restaurants, most of them with their premises permanently outside on the wide pavements. Many different menus claim to be Portuguese but others, Indian or mixture of Indian and Portuguese. There is also fine dining. It is interesting to see the throngs of different people that are wandering around in the centre of Lisbon at about 7 o’clock at night.

 I’ve been eating fairly simply. For dessert one evening I had a Portuguese special cream tart. The people who live in Lisbon and work downtown seem to be a mixture of black Africans and people with Indian appearance but as well there are brown people from Brazil, who are have different facial forms.