I took the train to León where I’d be starting a week long cycling trip to Santiago de Compostela on the French Camino. A pilgrimage people have been doing for over 1000 years.
It’s very walkable, a small city with most of the attractions close together.
León’s Cathedral is one of the finest in Europe.
Panorama of Plaza de Regla and Leon Cathedral, Castile and Leon, SpainMe and the cops.
My official start is this Cathedral. I’ll finish at the Cathedral in Santiago.
After hiking the West Coast Trail for the first time in 1999, I decide to switch to what I called destination travel. I’d travel to do something specific — a specific hike, for example. I’d travel less, but with a GOAL.
The first blogging I did was on WordPress.org, launched 2003. For a couple of years before that I hand coded HTML which was difficult.
Matthew Kepnes — Nomadic Matt — started traveling abroad in 2005 and quickly became one of the most popular on the web. The site is still going strong as Matt hired a team of 5 people to keep it going.
Matt traveled nearly non-stop for 10 years. And then wrote a memoir.
Coimbra is a popular stop for tourists coming to visit the archaeological structures dating back to the Roman era, especially the well-preserved aqueduct and cryptoporticus.
I bought a ticket to see the Joanine Library (Biblioteca Joanina), continuing my quest to visit all the most beautiful bookstores and libraries in the world.
It’s small, but well gilded. 😀
The most interesting part of the story is that this is one of the Portuguese libraries that encourages bats to make residence. The thinking is that they eat insects that might damage the ancient treasures.
Library on the left. By Dicklyon – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Biggest man on campus. King Joao III (John III) 1521 – 1557.
Though King John accomplished a lot, the Inquisition was introduced into Portugal in 1536. Just like in Spain, the Inquisition was placed under the authority of the king.
In Portugal the first Grand Inquisitor was Cardinal Henry, the king’s brother
If Belgium was the most horrific European nation for brutalizing people in their colonies, Portugal and Spain were next worst. I blame the Catholic Church out of Italy equally.
But I tried the most recent book in the Orphan Xseries.
… at the age of 12, Evan Smoak was enrolled in a top-secret operation known as the “Orphan Program.”
He is the 24th recruit in the program and is known only as Orphan X.
The goal of the program is to train orphans so they can be assassins for government agencies. The program is shut down but Orphan X maintains access to the program’s funding and weapons.
In his 30s, Smoak begins freelancing as an assassin, using his skills to fight corruption in the form of vigilante justice …
There were a few things I enjoyed in this story.
Joey, his hilarious and sassy teenage techie assistant.
BACK in Lisbon to have a tooth implant installed, I posted some Instagrammy pics on Instagram.
Having visited most of the major tourist sites last year, I looked for less visited photo ops this time.
For example, I caught the ferry over to the former industrial suburb city Barreiro. I saw no other tourists wandering the streets that day. Augusto Cabrita, local photographer, cinematographer and film director is celebrated with this massive wall portrait.
Not Portugal. BUT I wanted to travel to Portugal for hiking and cycling in November. Also, it’s one of the most vaccinated large nations in the world during a pandemic.
I booked a FREE assessment appointment on my birthday:
November 2 ~ free assessment
November 4 ~ cleaning and measurement for ‘flipper‘ (temporary replacement tooth)
November 11 ~ implant surgery and placement of the flipper
November 15 ~ final checkout
The last 4 days in Lisbon were in case of complications. And that allows time to adjust the flipper, if needed.
Happily I had no infection nor swelling. And the flipper looks pretty good. Can you tell which top front tooth is now removable?
In fact, I’m as good looking as ever. … Ladies? 😀
I’ll return to Lisbon in 4-6 months to have the permanent fake screwed in.
The Institute of Implantology is not cheap. Price everything included for me will be about CAD $5000 (US$4000, EUR3490). Here are some of the major costs:
€160 CT Scan
€ 160 Extraction
€ 890 Implant placement
€ 650 Bone Graft
€ 280 Flipper
€ 695 Instillation of implant
The bonegraft encourages regeneration of bone and increases the odds that the tooth will stay in my skull for life.
My surgeon was Dr. GonçaloCaramês. Trained in Los Angeles, he married another dentist. They planned to set up practice in Seattle but he opted instead to return to Portugal because of the pandemic.
The facility itself is impressive. Chic. Very modern technology.
Rick McCharles 