And every photo we had was stolen!
There is always a catalyst, something that gives you a push, this trip was our catalyst to write this blog.
I had in my wish list (a very long list, I know) to see the end of the earth. So my tour agent, Sergio, got Ryanair tickets to Oporto, and we rented a car in Portugal, just a couple of hours away from Cape Finisterre.
We were smart enough to pay full insurance for the car, and we got a room in a cheap hotel: Hotel Premium Porto - Centro, they offered nice rooms and in house parking, so that was everything we needed. The hotel was in an area of not so nice houses, many of them seemed abandoned, and we got a room in the 1 floor (not the ground-floor, for my non european friends). And I kept thinking how easy it could be to just go in the room and run in to the abandoned houses across the street. And as every self fulfilling prophecy, it was my own fear what got us into trouble.
The first day we strolled around Porto, a very picturesque city, the colors and the old architecture create an amazing environment.
The second day we went to Finisterre, and it was as amazing as one can imagine. It is really beautiful and standing in the edge of the rock, one can really understand why they thought it was the end of the world. At this location, many pilgrims end their Camino de Santiago trip, a spiritual walk to honor the apostle Saint James the Great passing through the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Sergio asked a street vendor, the only person other than us there, where should we eat, and following her recommendation, we ate in a local fisherman restaurant what was probably the best fish I have ever tasted, and Sergio overdosed in fresh clams. We took the rest of the day to visit Santiago de Compostela, with a cathedral as impressive as it can be. The town is small and very symmetric, it gives a movie feeling.
On our second day we went the other way, towards Fatima. This sanctuary is very well known, and a very nice structure. On this day, I asked Sergio to take his bags with him. It so happens that we bought a new 2 TB external hard drive, thinking that our pictures were only stored in Sergio's laptop and in our small hds, So, something that should not had happened, that both our external drives were in the same place, plus his laptop, plus the new external drive, happened. And because I was scared of someone entering our room, everything went to the car trunk. We left our rental car in the official parking lot of the sanctuary, Sergio's bag (with all the electronics) was in the trunk and his laptop was under the driver's seat, not on the open view. Sergio left also his jacket in the car, and he forgot to take his passport out (OUCH). When we came out of the sanctuary, the car electric system was totally kaputt, the thieves had broken in, they took the laptop and Sergio´s bag, gladly, they left the jacket there, so at least we had our documents. And gladly, the car was fully insured, because the key system was not working after that. We went to the police, and they were very nice, but told us that it was very common for rental cars to be robbed of their contents (so if you rent a car in Portugal, get the full insurance, just in case). He took our data, but told us that very likely we will never see our things again. And that is how we lost all of our pictures, 11 years of pictures gone. Plus some family pictures.
That was the end of the trip for us, the remaining day and a half we were just walking around Porto,to sad and angry to care about sightseeing.
We are active(annoying) facebook sharers, because our families follow our steps through the pictures we post there. And thanks to facebook, we recovered some of the pictures, and we decided to start this blog and to store out pictures in as many places as possible.
There is always a catalyst, something that gives you a push, this trip was our catalyst to write this blog.
I had in my wish list (a very long list, I know) to see the end of the earth. So my tour agent, Sergio, got Ryanair tickets to Oporto, and we rented a car in Portugal, just a couple of hours away from Cape Finisterre.
We were smart enough to pay full insurance for the car, and we got a room in a cheap hotel: Hotel Premium Porto - Centro, they offered nice rooms and in house parking, so that was everything we needed. The hotel was in an area of not so nice houses, many of them seemed abandoned, and we got a room in the 1 floor (not the ground-floor, for my non european friends). And I kept thinking how easy it could be to just go in the room and run in to the abandoned houses across the street. And as every self fulfilling prophecy, it was my own fear what got us into trouble.
The first day we strolled around Porto, a very picturesque city, the colors and the old architecture create an amazing environment.The second day we went to Finisterre, and it was as amazing as one can imagine. It is really beautiful and standing in the edge of the rock, one can really understand why they thought it was the end of the world. At this location, many pilgrims end their Camino de Santiago trip, a spiritual walk to honor the apostle Saint James the Great passing through the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Sergio asked a street vendor, the only person other than us there, where should we eat, and following her recommendation, we ate in a local fisherman restaurant what was probably the best fish I have ever tasted, and Sergio overdosed in fresh clams. We took the rest of the day to visit Santiago de Compostela, with a cathedral as impressive as it can be. The town is small and very symmetric, it gives a movie feeling.
On our second day we went the other way, towards Fatima. This sanctuary is very well known, and a very nice structure. On this day, I asked Sergio to take his bags with him. It so happens that we bought a new 2 TB external hard drive, thinking that our pictures were only stored in Sergio's laptop and in our small hds, So, something that should not had happened, that both our external drives were in the same place, plus his laptop, plus the new external drive, happened. And because I was scared of someone entering our room, everything went to the car trunk. We left our rental car in the official parking lot of the sanctuary, Sergio's bag (with all the electronics) was in the trunk and his laptop was under the driver's seat, not on the open view. Sergio left also his jacket in the car, and he forgot to take his passport out (OUCH). When we came out of the sanctuary, the car electric system was totally kaputt, the thieves had broken in, they took the laptop and Sergio´s bag, gladly, they left the jacket there, so at least we had our documents. And gladly, the car was fully insured, because the key system was not working after that. We went to the police, and they were very nice, but told us that it was very common for rental cars to be robbed of their contents (so if you rent a car in Portugal, get the full insurance, just in case). He took our data, but told us that very likely we will never see our things again. And that is how we lost all of our pictures, 11 years of pictures gone. Plus some family pictures.That was the end of the trip for us, the remaining day and a half we were just walking around Porto,to sad and angry to care about sightseeing.
We are active(annoying) facebook sharers, because our families follow our steps through the pictures we post there. And thanks to facebook, we recovered some of the pictures, and we decided to start this blog and to store out pictures in as many places as possible.
