Friday, March 15, 2002, 09:20 am<\/p>\n
Weather: high clouds, sprinkling rain<\/p>\n
Location: Evora town square coffee shop<\/p>\n
I have a bit of a sore throat this morning, as if I\u00b4m coming down with something, and I know exactly why. After doing some shopping and walking around downtown Lisbon yesterday I was ready to leave, so I picked up my pack and headed over to Barreiro. I got there a good two hours before my train was scheduled to depart, and sat for most of that time on a bench by the side of track 3 with a cold wind blowing off the water all around me. I guess I should have put up with the secondhand smoke in the waiting room after all.<\/p>\n
The trip to Evora was fast and comfortable, with a quick change of trains at Casa Branca onto a local, just one car behind an engine, for the last half hour of the trip. Then I had the pleasure of tussling with the railway agent for the privilege of a reservation on the train back, which I\u00b4ll take at the end of the day on my way to Madrid.<\/p>\n
I walked up a slight grade into Evora, past a national guard base, and arrived in cool wet weather at about 5:30. After checking into the guest house, a nap, and a quick but excellent dinner at a local restaurant, I called it a day.<\/p>\n
This morning I again woke early, but in the interests of nursing my cold took my time to get up and move out. As a result I have the pleasure to be sharing the coffee shop with a group of about 15 with their faces painted blue, red and orange. I can only guess that these are probably party hacks drumming up support for the Portugese election on Sunday. (Interestingly, I read yesterday that the election is being watched carefully across Europe as Portugal may be a bellweather for elections in other countries. The incumbent left-of-centre parties are under pressure from the right, which may shift the E.U.\u00b4s policy direction over time.)<\/p>\n
Well, it\u00b4s pouring rain outside again now, so I\u00b4ll linger over my coffee a few more minutes before heading to the town\u00b4s museum and the Temple of Diana, a roman ruin still preserved in the middle of the town. Don\u00b4t want to catch a cold out in that rain…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Friday, March 15, 2002, 09:20 am Weather: high clouds, sprinkling rain Location: Evora town square coffee shop I have a bit of a sore throat this morning, as if I\u00b4m coming down with something, and I know exactly why. After doing some shopping and walking around downtown Lisbon yesterday I was ready to leave, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2002-mediterranean-tour","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tomleslie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tomleslie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tomleslie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tomleslie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tomleslie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tomleslie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tomleslie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tomleslie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tomleslie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tomleslie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}