Saturday, we drove to the Minho Province from Oporto, Portugal. Our first stop was Guimaraes, which was the first capital of Portugal and the birthplace of the first king. There we visited the palace of the Dukes of Braganca. This palace has 39 chimneys and a lot of furniture from the 17th and 18th centuries. From the palace we walked down to the center of town, which was picturesque. The we rebounded the bus and headed for Braga to see the Bom Jesus Sanctuary. The twin-towered church is at the top of a very long staircase that the devout and those with better knees than ours climb to visit the church. Apparently, there are chapels along the staircase that represent the Stations of the Cross. There is also a funicular that one can ride up to the church from below, though we arrived by coach.

We had lunch at a very nice restaurant near the church that had beautiful views of the town below. We had a very good thick vegetable soup, followed by veal with potatoes and some other vegetables. Strangely, they then came around with a huge platter of rice that was sort of sautéed and flavorful. Our guide said that it was a custom to have both potatoes and rice.

After lunch we drove down to the city of Braga where we saw its cathedral, which is known for massive gilded organs that together have over 3,000 pipes. Then we took a walking tour around the area and had some free time though it was siesta time so not that many shops were open.

The we boarded the bus and headed back to the ship. We got back to the ship just in time for trivia, which was ot well attended and not very difficult. We won with 14 of 15 questions correct. As I mentioned above dinner was with the Rodmans and Simpsons and was very good--most had an appetizer portion of asian style tiger prawns, followed by magret de canard.

Again, it had been a cloudless day with temperatures in the high 70s or low 80s.

Yesterday, we were in and around Lisbon and I'll try to report on that. Today is Cadiz/Seville. It's supposed to be considerably warmer. Tomorrow, thank goodness is a second and last sea day,

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Eugene

P.S. The "special" event is later this morning for gold, platinum, titanium--Spanish tapas and sangria.