Tavira, A Beautiful City - Tavira, Portugal
Tavira, Portugal
(Originally published in an e-mail on October 14. Sorry about the repeated information for some who received this entry earlier)
20 Rua Borda d`Água da Asseca, Tavira, Faro District, PortugalThis is the physical address of our new home in Tavira. We just moved in this morning after arriving in Lisbon on the 14th of October. We explored that great city for a few days and then traveled 4 hours by train to Tavira (in the Algarve region on the southern coast of Portugal) We stayed in a lovely Tavira hotel for the past 5 days while we looked for apartments, mostly by asking local people whom we met. (Dianne is better at that than am I!!) We've already made a few friends in town, including the president of the local Rotary Club, chefs in two restaurants, and a couple of very nice shop owners--one of whom is our landlady. The Rotary president, by the way, recently hosted a Sister City visit by a group of Americans from a small town near Baltimore.The apartment is beautiful, fully equipped--including WiFi from the restaurant below us, used by permission--and reasonably priced. It is second floor walk-up over the Os Orcos restaurant and overlooking the river, the "Roman Bridge," and the town center across the river. Street musicians are everywhere. It is hard to walk anywhere without passing by them. Most of them are very good. We've especially enjoyed a virtuoso clarinetist who plays most days, for most of the day, in the town center plaza. Many people speak English, but by no means everyone. We will start taking lessons in Portugese tomorrow from a young woman who works in a gift shop nearby. Although there have been a few rainy days (more than we like), it is quite warm--ranging from low-60s at night to mid- to high-70s in the day. Whether or not anyone is interested in seeing our travel pictures, we are both having a lot of fun taking and posting them as a part of the blog entries. This town, especially, and Portugal in general, are very interesting and beautiful, exceeding our expectations. Tavira is a wonderful, quiet, picturesque, ancient European town in the best tradition that you can imagine. Sidewalk cafes and restaurants surprise you around every corner. Hundreds of interesting shops along narrow, winding streets, 22 churches, a castle on the hill, and much more keep us intrigued. Last week we attended a guitar concert and dance performance in the chapel of an ancient convent on a hill, preserved as a beautiful hotel. The concert was a part of a "concert in the churches" series.Dianne is continuing to coach teachers in the Kearney Public Schools via the Internet. Teachers record their reading lessons on iMovie and then upload the movie file to a server. Dianne downloads from the server, watches the lesson, and then writes an extensive response, intended to be helpful to these (mostly) new teachers.If anyone is inspired to travel, we have an extra bedroom with two beds plus a couch in the living room, so we'd love to have visitors at anytime. Faro is a nearby city in the Algarve with an international airport. Several American cities offer direct flights to Faro as an alternative to flying into Lisbon and taking a train to Tavira. Faro is only a half hour train- or bus-ride to Tavira.Love to all,Curt and Dianne