Tourism to Portugal 1

Portugal has history and rugged countryside that most visitors have not yet explored. Portugal Shares a border with Spain. Peneda Geres is Portugal's only national park. They are trying to preserve a way of life that is becoming extinct. You can go on a hike almost to the top of the mountains, and the villages on the way are mostly ghost towns. It is the end of a culture and the only culture left is tourism. They drink wine out of the goat skin. The food of the peasants is salted pork and potatoes. The salted pork is cooked on the barbecue. You can stay in the rustic villages in a seven hundred year old house. They are made of stone. There are monuments in the mountains that are no nowhere else in the world. They protect the corn from the mice and rats in stone monuments.

The Douro Valley and Oporto are wine country. The grapes are grown in the Douro Valley in vineyards that stretch for miles and miles. There are big and small producers from families to large companies. If a port is not grown in the douro Valley, then it is not technically port. Porto is Portugal's second largest city. It has many historical bridges. There are many wine exporters in Porto and a lot are british companies. Port is a fortified wine, port has more alcoholic content. A lot of wine making is still done in the traditional way. The coopers still make wine barrels by hand. You can taste port at any of the wine cellars. Look for the colour and then smell and taste. But do not spit it out, what a waste!

Catch a bus to Santarem and see the incredible scenery on the way. Enjoy the nice views on the way. Santarem is noted for its bull fighting. They have horse training and bull fightin in Santarem. In Portugal they do not kill the bull and the matador is on horseback. The bulls are very big and aggressive and mean. The campinos look after the horses. They use baby bulls for practice and their horns are cut off. So it is safe for the apprentice bull fighter but not much fun for the little bulls. At the day of the bullfight, the crowds roll up and there is a great buzz, everybody comes to the bull fight. The matadors stab the bull in the back with a sword. Then these clowns get in and let the bull pick them up.

Fatima displays the reverence to the holiest places in the world. four million people a year go to Fatima. It is supposedly where the virgin Mary appeared to some peasant children. There is a thriving tourist industry selling junk to all the pilgrims. They sell any religious paraphernalia like statues. These stores are big business and make millions of dollars a year. There are fifty thousand icons that you can buy. There are even glow in the dark virgin mary icons. And Snow cone ones as well. You can buy body part candles to cure that part of the body. The chapel where the virgin mary allegedly appeared has a place where you burn the candles of the body part that you bought in the relic shop.

Places to see in Portugal:
Lisbon
Evora
Santarem
Fatima
Oporto
Peneda Geres National Park
Douro Valley
Algarve
Azores

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