This Past Weekend in Serra da Estrela and Covilha

Sorry we haven’t posted anything for a little while...I've been trying to get Katy to post something, so y'all can hear what she has to say, but it just hasn’t happened yet. So I'll tell y'all a little about our past weekend.

We rented a car and headed north of Lisbon to a mountain range called Serra da Estrela, and a little town called Covilha. Covilha is a vibrant college town, right at the base of the mountains. The main road through the town heads steeply up into mountains and leaves the development behind quickly. Of course, I wanted to head here to do some climbing, but there was plenty to see and do besides that. We usually plan a lot of activities in our trips, but this time we just wanted to take it easy and relax a little. Friday, we picked the car up at the airport and hit the main highway leaving Lisbon, the A1. The speed limit is 120 km/hr, or about 75 mph, but it felt like the Autobahn with everyone passing us like we were sitting still. There were plenty of cars doing well over 200 km/hr, or around 125+ mph, that expected us to follow suit...but we didn’t go faster than 150km/hr. This still made it feel like our little car was going to burn up on re-entry:) Despite the local maniacs, the drive was nice and scenic. It took us about 3 hrs to get there from Lisbon, about 275 km away, and we immediately checked into the Hotel Solneve. The hotel was fairly inexpensive (only 38 Euro a night, about the same price as a Days Inn back home) but was one of the nicest places I've stayed...it had a marble bathroom and a balcony overlooking the main town center. We took a quick ride up into the mountains to get our bearings and find the best places to park for the climbing we had planned for the next day. We hiked out into a high mountain desert covered with boulders and a variety wildflowers, a real visual treat. After climbing around a little, we headed back to the hotel, took a dip in the pool to cool off, and had a wonderful dinner at Fernando's, the hotel restaurant. I love the Portuguese food and Fernando's didn’t disappoint! We finished the bottle of wine from dinner on our balcony and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the nightlife below us...I couldn’t imagine a better end to the day!

Saturday, we got up, had breakfast and headed back up to Pedra do Urso, the main climbing spot for the trip. Katy has been so busy with work and the wedding, so she hasn’t climbed much with me lately. I love to go climbing, but it is so much more fun when she goes and we're both rooting each other on to top out. We climbed for about 2-3 hours, until the heat became unbearable, and saw over half of the area we wanted to see...a pretty successful trip. Afterwards, we drove back down into the town and had lunch. After a quick nap, we headed back into the Serra for a sightseeing drive and the evening climbing session. We drove to the highest point in Portugal, Torres, at about 2000m, which had very scenic panoramic views. The road up to Torres was steep and made it feel like we were dangling off of the side of the mountains. The drop off of the road was usually in the 500ft range, but made for great views the whole time. Torres is known as a ski village in the winter, and there were still remnants of snow on the ground everywhere...amazing compared to the +90'F weather back down in Covilha. There were tons of interesting sights to see, but one of the highlights was a holy sight that translated to "Lady of the Holy Star". The image of the Lady, along with a few other images, were carved into the side of a rock face. There were several offerings at the foot of the carving, proof that it is still more than just a tourist stop. The plateau around this area was amazing. It was grassy with a small stream running through it, forming a waterfall that drained into the area of the carving. Surrounding all of this were giant rock faces and boulders with small hiking paths cut in between them...I really felt like I was in one of Indiana Jones' sites, rediscovering ancient secrets. This is one of the most remarkable and memorable places I've had the pleasure to climb and visit. After driving around and gawking at the sights for a little while longer, we headed back to Pedra do Urso and climbed around for another hour or so. We were able to explore most of the rest of the areas listed in the guidebook, as well as, some new areas not mentioned. After finally realizing how exhausted we were, and with the sun setting slowly, we dragged ourselves back to the car and back to the hotel. Once again, we ate some incredible food at Fernando's, and soon collapsed in the bed.

Sunday, we woke up, had breakfast at the hotel, and checked out around 11am. We had to have the car back by 3pm, but we had about an hour or so we could use to sightsee on our way back to Lisbon. About 2/3 of the way back, we stopped in a town called Tomar. In this town was an incredible monastery/castle with very ornate gothic architecture. We didn’t have time to tour the whole monastery, but we were able to walk around the courtyard and marvel at the intricate beauty of the structures. With our rental car time running out, we jumped back onto the highway and headed back to Lisbon, tired and satisfied from an incredible weekend.

I have to say that I have married the most incredible woman in the world to plan all of this, knowing that the focus for the weekend would be on rock climbing:) I felt terrible that we weren’t able to visit the archeological site she wanted to see, but she knew it would have been too much to add that in, on top of everything else we had already planned, and graciously offered to leave that for our next visit. I was so happy to be able to climb with Katy and get the satisfaction of her success on the rock, and not just mine. Rock climbing was one of the first things to bond us and bring us together, and it's always special when we can share it together.

Since then, Katy has been working everyday, except today when she isn’t feeling well:(...I told her that stuff she was drinking wasn’t milk:) She's already feeling better, but I've been taking care of her and nursing her back to normal, as much as possible. We haven’t got any definite plans for this weekend, but I'm sure we'll take in some more incredible sights and we'll blog about it as soon as we can. We have some great pictures from this past weekend, but I have to wait to use her computer to upload them...expect the pictures in the next few days. I was planning on going to Sintra and a 9th century Moorish castle today, but with Katy not feeling 100%, that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Keep the comments coming, and the e-mails and pictures of the baby (from Anne). I cant tell you how bright Katy's face gets every time she sees a new picture...its always the "most cute" or "most precious" picture of the baby yet!!! We miss all of y'all and love sharing our journey with you!