PORTUGAL: PORTO, PART III - CAPELA DAS ALMAS, IGREJA DE SANTO ILDEFONSO, MAJESTIC CAFE

 June 28, 2022

After lunch we made our way back to the more interesting part of town. When we passed the church on the left, I thought, Wow, how beautiful is that! But then we came up on the church on the right, Capela das Almas (Chapel of Souls). Oh. My. Goodness. 

Yeah, take a look at those tiles. How can you not be overwhelmed at the first site of THIS?

OYSTER BAY, NEW YORK: SAGAMORE HILL, HOME OF TEDDY ROOSEVELT

While we were in New York City for our son's graduation, we planned a morning trip to Oyster Bay on Long Island, site of Sagamore Hill, Theodore Roosevelt's home from 1885 until his death in 1919. Oyster Bay is about 35 miles northeast of Upper Manhattan. In spite of what the map below says, it took us a good hour and a half to get there from our hotel in Fort Lee, New Jersey:

Long Island is 118 miles long and 23 miles wide at its widest point. The largest island in the contiguous United States, Long Island has a population of almost 8 million people, or about 5,600 people per square mile. Once you get past Brooklyn and Queens, however, it maintains a chic, rural atmosphere. I'd love to go back and explore its small towns, like Hicksville, Hauppauge, and Stony Brook, or even go as far east as possible in Long Island's south fork to visit the famed (and very wealthy) Hamptons, also known as the East End and site of Southhampton, Sag Harbor, and Montauk:

But our trip to Sagamore Hill was more than enough for the morning we had free:

PORTLAND, OREGON: AROUND TOWN

We started each day in Portland dealing with its infamous pea soup fog. Even the cars seemed to get swallowed up in this fog--except for Tilly. We were pretty happy about our sunshine-yellow Tillamook Kia.

Because we just happened to park next to it, the First Presbyterian Church, a building completed in 1890, was our first stop in downtown Portland.

The nice ladies at the front desk gave us a "visitor" badge and took us to the sanctuary. It has a rich brown wood vaulted ceiling that gives it a nice outdoors-y feel:

Their pipe organ at the front of the room is stunning: