After breakfast on Friday we decamped to the Sonora Desert Museum to photograph raptors in free flight. My pals are very experienced in identifying and photographing birds, but I know nothing, so my expectations were modest. Despite never having done this before, I was thrilled to be able to capture a few species, some in flight, and ended up with a few decent images. This Cara Cara looks like he’s wearing a toupée! We dubbed him the used car salesman.
A great horned owl was very accommodating, holding a dignified pose.
Camouflaged in the brush, he’s barely visible, with Mexico in the background.
The Harris’ Hawk is quite the hunter, and he buzzed the crowd en route to snagging a small animal for lunch. He was also a vain poser!
The Desert Museum has much else to recommend it as well: a myriad of cactus species, an aquarium, a butterfly garden, a mountain lion named Cruz (who refused to emerge from his nap), two sleepy wolves and a lethargic lizard. Yes, those butterflies below are mating!
After our morning in the hot sun, we visited my friend Cheri, who made us a delicious lunch on her breezy patio. As I expected, the three of them hit it off famously, and I hope they’ll cultivate their new friendship over shared interests.
I didn’t expect to find wetlands in Tucson, but Sweetwater was a lovely, serene spot to watch ducks, coots and a little piping fellow whose name I forget.
For a change of pace, on Saturday afternoon we followed Cheri’s recommendation and sought out the Mini Time Machine Museum, a fascinating collection of over 500 dollhouses and roomboxes. The detail was just exquisite: if you didn’t know these were miniatures, you’d think from the photos they were full-sized. I was amazed at the fabrics, laces, chandeliers and wall art in these rooms, the minuscule titles etched on the book spines and the labels on the foodstuffs in the general store.
Sunday morning was cooler than usual, perfect for a last walk in the neighborhood. It seemed that the cacti burst into bloom overnight.
Such a lovely trip! I was so grateful to see my friends Jen, Marsha and Cheri again, and play with our cameras together. And so home I went, anxious for another adventure.
Brown and grey dominate the color palette of Connecticut in March, and the weather is fickle: it can be near 70 one day and the next barely reach 40. So when two friends suggested a few days in Tucson, I jumped at the chance. These dear friends are fellow photographers, and we hadn’t seen each other since before COVID; our last trip was to Death Valley in February, 2020. Another fellow photographer also lives in Tucson, and our last trip together was to Provence in 2022 . Though all of us have taken trips with the same photographer leader, my three other pals didn’t know each other, so I thought this would be a great opportunity for them to meet.
The warm, dry air embraced me as I deplaned, and the vibrant blue sky promised several days of fair weather ahead. If you love sun, Tucson is a good bet, since they enjoy 340 days of it a year — though I’m not sure “enjoy” is the right word for their blistering summers.
Our adventure began with a stroll around Old Tucson, the picturesque heart of the city, where art is on display in myriad forms, from cactus gardens to weathered doors to murals on adobe walls. After an uninspiring winter, it was good to dust off my camera!
In the Botanical Garden, our next stop, there were abundant signs of impending cactus bloom. To live out here demands learning a whole new category of flora: barrel cactus, rabbit ears, agave, prickly pear (I never knew the pads were purple), cholla, organ pipes, aloe — and a variety of others too numerous to mention.
A couple of years ago, some of my sorority sisters from college got together for a little reunion in Indianapolis. We had so much fun that we went to New York City last fall (see may post about that), and this year rented the same huge house to get together again. We had a wonderful time pretending we were young again, playing Euchre, drinking wine, visiting an immersive Salvador Dali exhibit at the Newfield Museum and having a feast with other sisters who live in the area but didn’t stay with us.
On the way home I took a detour to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, a place I’ve wanted to visit for many years. It’s tucked into the Laurel Highlands, a lovely spot in the Allegheny Mountains.
Designed as a weekend retreat for the wealthy Kaufman family, who owned the department store bearing their name, it was built in 1935 and is now a World Heritage Site. When the Kaufmans first purchased the land, they made it into a summer camp that could be enjoyed by department store employees. But with the Depression putting a cramp on leisure time, the family decided to build their dream retreat in the woods where they loved to hike. The house is built over Bear Run, and a waterfall adds a unique design element to the home.
Wright’s entryways are often referred to as compress and release, and Fallingwater’s is classic.
Inside, most of the furniture is built-in, consistent with Wright’s custom.
Fallingwater’s kitchen (above) was as forgettable as all the Wright kitchens I’ve ever seen. Below, Edgar Kaufman and his hiking stick.
As it turns out, Fallingwater is an apt name, as water leaks into the house through the reinforced concrete beams.
A short distance down the road is Kentuck Knob, another home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1956 for the Hagen family, also of Pittsburgh, who made their money in ice cream. This single-story structure sprawls across the top (knob) of a hill overlooking a panoramic view of the Highlands.
Built of limestone slabs like Fallingwater, it is trimmed in Tidewater red cypress from North Carolina.
Open skylights above the wraparound porch create hexagonal patterns on a sunny day, and allow for cute piles of snow in winter. No photos were allowed inside, but I was impressed with the 28-foot long built-in sofa. The current owners spend 4-6 weeks there in the summer, which probably accounts for the no-photos rule.
By the 1950s, Wright was signing his work…
A winding woodland trail marked by large sculptures leads from the house back to the visitor center.
At the edge of the knob, the trees give way to a panoramic vista of the rolling hills of the Highlands.
The current owner is British, which informs some of the interesting artifacts around the site.
All in all, well worth an extra two days added to my journey.
While reviewing this blog in preparation for a presentation, I realized I never finished! Better late than never!
Upon returning to the city, we took in Coptic Cairo, a part of Old Cairo that contains many historical sites, including the Hanging Church, the Babylonian Fortress, the Greek Church of St. George and many other historic buildings. Christian tradition holds that the Holy Family took refuge in the Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church during their flight into Egypt. All of these structures date to the 7th and 8th centuries A.D.
The old bazaar in Cairo is everything you could imagine from an Indiana Jones movie: a tangle of shops offering all manner of merchandise, from prayer rugs to hanging lamps to unique quilts to pottery.
The Egyptian Museum is like Cairo’s attic, stuffed with more artifacts than you can imagine. Unlike the National Museum, there seems to be no logical order to the exhibits; nevertheless, there are important items here such as King Tut’s burial mask and treasures from his tomb. They’re constructing a new and better home for the hundreds of thousands of artifacts, the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
And speaking of Giza, we wrapped up our tour with a visit to the Pyramids. I had been under the mistaken impression that they were out in the desert somewhere, but no: they rise up from a field within the Cairo city limits.
The Great Pyramid is believed to be about 4500 years old, and took over 20 years to construct. Contrary to popular belief, the Pyramids were not built solely by slave labor. The sophisticated construction techniques called for highly skilled labor, and it was considered a badge of honor to help build the structures. The Great Pyramid (aka Khufu’s Pyramid) alone is made of 2,300,000 stones, which had to be quarried and transported to the site. Each stone weighs about 2.5 tons!
The two images above are of Khafre’s Pyramid, smaller than Khufu’s, but still retaining some of the fine limestone casing at its tip. Originally all three structures were encased in the expensive limestone, but time and looters have taken their toll. Menkaure’s Pyramid rounds out the famous trio.
The Great Sphinx is a mythological creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion and the wings of a falcon, and is connected to the Sun God Ra. People have speculated that his missing nose is the result of Napoleon’s soldiers using it for target practice when the famous French emperor invaded Egypt, but that cannot be verified. The statue is part of the pyramid complex.
A sumptuous Lebanese lunch marked the end of our stay in this fascinating country. There’s so much more to learn and write about, but I’ll conclude with this story about the relocation of Abu Simbal, facts I learned after I returned home and read a biography of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt called Empress of the Nile.
Desroches-Noblecourt, an intrepid fighter in the French Resistance (she was responsible for relocating and secreting many masterpieces from the Louvre to Loire Valley chateaux to avert Nazi theft) became an Egyptologist after the war, a rare career for a woman in those days. Energetically advocating for the ambitious temple relocation scheme, she was able to secure the support of Jacqueline Kennedy, who persuaded JFK to appeal to Congress for funds to help the effort. Even after his death she continued to make sure the US provided financial assistance. This was a fascinating book and enriched my understanding of Egypt and its monuments. I highly recommend it.
Our last full day in Portugal! I haven’t commented on the weather, but it has been just about perfect. Our final destination today is Lisbon, but we’re making two stops along the way.
Obidos is a fortified hilltop town with an enormous entry gate that transports you back to the Middle Ages — sort of. It was held by the Moors until the mid-12th century, but today the streets are chock-a-block with boutiques and cafés. Our first stop was to sample the local specialty, Ginja, a sour cherry liqueur served with a cherry in an edible chocolate cup.
The church is adorned with lovely tiles.
There are sweet little streets just begging to be photographed.
We ducked into a bakery to try some of their chorizo and ham and cheese bread, which was ever so much better than what we made a few days ago. The almond cake and orange cake were too tempting to pass up, so we took some along for later.
Another 30 minutes and we were in Sintra, described by Luis as the “crown jewel” of the tour and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After fortifying ourselves with lunch, we tackled the steep cobblestone street leading to the Pena Palace. The walk winds through a forest that includes a half-dozen Sequoias, and at the top you are rewarded with a fairy-tale castle of yellow, red and blue.
The entry arches testify to the castle’s Moorish origins, but the Kings and aristocrats who later resided here added their own special touches to the sprawling complex. It’s truly a monument to excess.
We climbed all the way to the top where we had panoramic vistas of the town, the beach and the Atlantic.
If the walls could talk, they’d have a treasure trove of stories from centuries past.
And then back to Lisbon to end our food and wine tour of Portugal. We had an excellent guide, Luis, and were in the hands of a very skilled driver, Adelha. One last dinner near our hotel, the Avenida Palace, and we scattered to the winds.
Thursday found us heading to Coimbra, once the medieval capital of Portugal and now known for its university, one of the oldest in Europe. It was founded in 1290.
The library, dating from the fifteenth century, is off-limits to students — and photographers, unfortunately. It houses some 60,000 books, and the walls and ceilings are covered with gilded sculpture and paintings from the period, as well as cloisonné and trompe l’oeil ceiling decorations. (The images below are not from the ancient library.)
Students garbed in black robes evoke Hogwart’s, and groups serenade tourists in the streets.
According to Luis, the vast majority of the 20,000+ students are Portuguese, and classes are taught in that language, as well as Latin.
About 30 minutes southwest of Coimbra lies Tomar, which was the Portuguese headquarters of the Knights Templar, founded there in 1160. Templar imagery, most notably the white tunic with a red cross, is everywhere in the town. The Convento de Christo , a UNESCO Heritage Site, is a complex dating from different eras, the oldest originating in the 12th century. The layout is modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
The Knights Templar, a French military order of the Catholic Church, were established to protect Crusaders in Jerusalem. The Portuguese branch helped finance the Age of Discovery through their innovative banking ideas, and Henry the Navigator was a prominent member. Tomar was strategically located between the Moors in the south and the Catholics in the north. Over time, opposing forces accused the order of bad behavior (spitting on the cross, homosexuality and other ”crimes”), and the Pope mounted his forces against them, prompting them to disband two centuries after their founding.
Exploring the Convento de Christo reinforces the wealth they amassed during their fairly short life. The church is massive, and covered in paintings, gilt and decorations,
The gardens are impressive.
Tonight we’re staying in Tomar, resting up for the last leg of our journey tomorrow.
(This post is out of order, as WordPress was misbehaving.)
Today was all about getting a feel for this vibrant city on Portugal’s north coast. Luis took us on a walking tour — the highlight for me was the vibrant mercado.
We walked across one of the seven bridges…
Some of us found lunch in a wonderful spot called Honest Greens. Lots of salads and bowls on the menu, with a variety of ingredients. I had a Tataki Tuna, with a salad of many greens, spicy peppers and a zingy vinaigrette.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering and shopping along Rua Santa Catarina, a busy pedestrian street with abundant shops.
After meeting the tribe for cocktail hour, with cheese, crackers, wine, cookies and chocolate that folks had picked up on our various expeditions, we had dinner at A Regaleira, just around the corner from the hotel. I finally had octopus, and it was fantastic, baked in the oven, with roasted potatoes and kale. We tried a rosé from here in the Douro, and it wasn’t half bad.
All caught up. We’re leaving Porto in the morning to wind our way south.
Daniel the shepherd and his dog Apollo graciously welcomed us to his farm outside the village of Ferro and introduced us to some of his sheep.
People have been raising sheep here since Roman times, though the ovine population has drastically decreased in the past 20-30 years. Daniel has about 230 of the breeds unique to the region, characterized by their long tails.
After hog-tying a ewe, Daniel showed us how to shear by hand, then demonstrated the modern method with electric shears. His sheep are sheared twice a year.
Two times daily he milks the sheep; milk sales support the family. Daniel also demonstrated the art of making cheese. The tangle of regulations makes it impractical for him to make cheese as a commercial venture, so he just makes it for the family.
The curds are put into a ring, and he squeezes out the water, tightening the ring as he goes.
Afterward, we tasted some wine and various cookies made by his wife, including my favorite, drunken cookies.
There are twelve historic villages up against the border with Spain. Our destination was 12th century Monsanto, which Luis called “the most Portuguese village of Portugal, a distinction the town earned in 1938. He claimed that just 70-80 people now live in the village, which was once ruled by the Templars.
It’s a challenging climb to the top of the town, but the views are worth it. Some houses are built right into the gigantic granite boulders.
House of the Dragon, the prequel to Game of Thrones, was filmed here in 2021, in and around Monsanto Castle.
A family-style lunch in a local restaurant was our reward for the taxing climb; we enjoyed chicken sausage, blood sausage, cod with scrambled eggs, roasted deer and roast boar. And chocolate mousse!
Our activity-filled day continued with bread baking in Medelim with two ladies who’ve been at it for many years. This bread was stuffed with salami (we all agreed adding cheese would have improved the final product).
After our exhausting day, dinner tonight was a variety of salads at the hotel.
Another long stretch of driving tomorrow as we venture into the Douro Valley and Porto.
Portugal is the world’s largest cork producer, which is remarkable, since it is such a small country. The cork oak is indigenous to the Alentéjo region, where we have started our exploration. the trees live for 200-300 years, and the first harvest takes place when the trees are 20-25 years old, with subsequent harvests every nine years. It takes a further seven years to grow another layer of cork. As I recall, the tree below is about 80 years old and has been harvested three times.
After the cork is stripped from the tree, it is left outside in slabs for 3-4 months.
After that, the pieces are boiled for one hour in water., then then separated according to their quality.
The majority of cork is made into wine and champagne bottle stoppers, but the factory we visited had a vast array of products, from upholstery to luggage to handbags to jewelry to household items like trivets and coasters. In fact, I may have found the new upholstery for my dining room chair project!
Traveling eastward to within five km from Spain, but still in the Alentéjo, we arrived at the Joao Portugal Ramos Winery. This operation produces whites, rosés and reds and uses some traditional techniques like stomping the grapes in these marble tanks.
There are four kinds of soil in the region, each imparting its unique characteristics. They also do the initial fermentation in marble tanks, because the stone helps keep the wine cold; marble adds nothing to the flavor. They also use French and Hungarian oak.
Our tasting of seven wines was accompanied by a tapas lunch.
We all bought some wine to enjoy during the coming days, and set out northward for Fundão.
Our digs for the next two nights is a former convent, with thick stone walls, lovely grounds and chic modern décor, Convento Seixo. Fundão is in a more mountainous region, and the landscape along the way was very scenic. We’re now in the veritable heart of Portugal, slightly northeast of dead-center.
This area was settled by Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492, and there’s still a large Jewish population here. The city dates from 1580.
Dinner tonight was at the hotel, beginning with an interesting appetizer of beans, chicken and what looked like créma on toasted bread…
I tried beef cheeks with celery purée…
And for dessert a soft cheesy thingy with tangerine sorbet.
In case our sweet tooth wasn’t satisfied, we capped everything off with tiny coffee meringues and little coffee shortbreads.
And so to bed.
After a rest Luis led us on a walk to the home of a fantastic chef named Sofia. Over two hours we prepared a veritable feast and drank lots of regional wine. Apologies in advance for not having as many photos as usual — I was too busy cooking and eating.
We began with smoked chorizo grilled on a special dish. Rubbing alcohol in the bottom of the dish was ignited, and the sausage charred till sizzly. Eaten on a slice of bread, it was smoky and delicious. We quickly followed with baked cheese (goat and sheep), first drizzled with a little olive oil, then honey, and baked about 10 minutes at 350. (I ate it before I took a photo of the finished dish!) Simple and so good.
Sofia taught us a technique for peeling mushrooms with our fingernails. You simply grab the outer skin with your nail from inside the cap and pull it right off.
Then we put a bit of salt in the caps and filled them with olive oil before baking till the ‘shrooms were tender. I couldn’t believe how this simple method enhanced the umami!
After slicing boneless chicken breasts into paillards, then into what Sofia called fingers, they were left to marinate in olive oil, thyme, rosemary and garlic. We quartered par-boiled fingerling potatoes and combined them with more rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper and oil before mixing them with the chicken. All of this went into a pot with olive oil and cooked on top of the stove.
Peeled and par-boiled carrots were cut on the diagonal, then mixed with minced garlic, salt, pepper and cilantro. A tablespoon of white vinegar and 2 tablespoons of olive oil made a nice vinaigrette to finish.
Our salads were rounded out by a mixture of black-eyed peas (soaked and cooked), flaked tuna (in olive oil), minced garlic, salt, pepper and cilantro.
These last two dishes would make a nice light lunch. And I think the mushrooms would be fabulous on pizza.
We rounded out the meal with apples baked in red wine and flavored with cinnamon. Everything we made was simple, with fresh items from Sofia’s garden (except for the chicken). Really clean food!
It was a fun evening, and one of the best cooking classes I’ve ever had — mostly because you don’t even need recipes for most of the dishes.
Contrary to popular habit, we didn’t even have a glass of wine after dinner at the hotel. Long day on the bus tomorrow.