Spain/Portugal

Here are some photos from our 12-night Spain/Portugal trip:

https://picasaweb.google.com/100957696235748014455/Spain#  Most were taken with my Canon pocket camera, but some with the iPhone.    

My father’s brother lived in Madrid for most of his life and I was able to visit him during a post-high school European trip I took in 1975.  Franco was still alive at that time and Spain was not much more than a Third-World backwater, mostly known for being inexpensive.  Things have changed in 35 years.  As hopefully the photos will show, Spain is now a vibrant, modern country.  What the photos do not show is that Spain is leading the world in creating a renewable energy economy, and everywhere we went there were arrays of solar panels and giant wind turbines on mountain tops. 

Our tour took us to mostly historical sites (which makes sense) so you’ll see evidence of Roman, Moorish and early Christian civilizations.  At one point, Muslims, Jews and Christians all got along fairly well until someone thought an Inquisition would be a great idea.  One of the ways they learned to tell the heretics from the “good” people was to put ham in the food and then see who would eat it.  To this day, ham is still in everything.  I ate it, just in case.

In reviewing these photos I found that I have a fascination with store window displays.  Seems to me that you tell a lot about a country, and what it finds important, by what it displays.  I think you’ll find some of them amusing. 

I also have a strong interest in Catholic idol worship, and for this, Spain rivals Italy.  Seeing the faithful at Fatima, Portugal was quite eye-opening—it’s sort of a Catholic Disneyland.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_F%C3%A1tima  In 1917 three kids reported seeing the Virgin Mary, and now people come from all over the world to be cured of various ailments because the site has a reputation for miracles.  Sliding great distances on your knees evidently helps the process, and you can purchase wax replicas of hearts, lungs, arms, legs, children, or whatever ails you, and then if you throw it on the fire you have a greater chance of being cured.  Some people who have done this have been healed, but I have a feeling modern medicine would greatly increase your odds.

Steve