#travel The Great Travel Journey Channel
[Music] most people who visit this country head south for the sun and the sand and I'm interested in that but this place has so much more to offer it has an incredible history after all it helped lead the discovery of the new world it's steeped in tradition and folklore it's got rugged countryside there's definitely a real life here that most visitors haven't yet explored this is Portugal [Music] portugal once one of the great European empires is situated in the North Atlantic and shares a 500m long border with Spain the country's territories include the Azor Islands my journey takes me from the rugged terrain of the Petta Harris National Park to Porto heading south I visit Santorm passing through Fatima I head for Lisbon before traveling south to the beaches of Yalgar i end my journey in the remote Azor Islands for some whale watching [Music] [Music] [Music] peda Herz is Portugal's only national park now what makes this particular land so special is that they're trying to preserve not only an ecosystem but also a way of life that is on the verge of becoming extinct there is so much to do here you definitely need a guide this is Pedro should be exciting [Music] definitely that's here a really good point of view you can see almost all the park can see of that part is Amarella region jur the east part of the park is Ptoria Junior and here Paneda and if it were clear with no clouds I could see the um Empire State Building yes with a good Oh it's [Music] great this hike that Pedro has been leading me on has us almost reaching the tops of these mountains but what's really neat is that there are all these little villages kind of dotting the hillside and uh he says they're all ghost towns when was the last time that a community of people lived here in these houses perhaps 25 30 years ago it's the end of a sort of culture and the only future will be the tourism down in the valley some people do still live there in a very traditional way and Pedro knows a man who is going to cook us a very typical lunch from these [Music] parts you are we are going to eat some uh traditional plate from here is pork salted because when ancient times they will not have refrigerator so only thing they have for unexpected visitors like us was pork salted and some potatoes i love that that's great okay we're going to see let's see yes this is a good way to get your aggression out as well is that where one potato two potato three potato four comes from perhaps quite possibly quite possibly maybe they're such peaceful seeming people because they get all of their aggression out on the food she pounds the potatoes he slaps the bacon around oh they are always lots of work so and it's onions peppers oil and white wine white wine from all all from all from the region you know food always tastes incredible when it's that close to the source ah that's my kind of wine glass for sure look at that very very very generous people up here in the mountains oh my god can we dig in excellent yes uhhuh [Music] they certainly make you feel like family here so much so that they've invited me to stay in this other house if I want to tonight oh wow this is incredible this this actual structure is 700 years old and they live in it today like they did 700 years ago of course with little electricity here and there i think this is really special and it's great too because if I get the munchies during the night they've got some salted cod hanging from the ceiling [Music] with my leg muscles barely intact I start out on the first stage of my southbound journey about 2 hours south I enter wine country or to be more correct about it port country my destination is the town of Porto on route I passed through the vineyards of the Duro Valley where the story of Port actually begins this is such a spectacular journey it's just vineyard after vineyard and this train follows the path of the river down to a porch where they deliver all the casks and I mean just the scenery alone is delicious the vineyards here in the Doro produce over 100 million bottles of port yearly and here you will find all sizes of port producers from the larger more well-known companies to the smaller familyrun labels in fact if the grapes for the port have not been grown in the Duro technically it's not port [Music] [Applause] [Music] porto has always been a wealthy city profiting from the trade the Jura River has provided at Salento station the opulence of the past is evident the huge handpainted tiles depicting scenes from Porto's colorful past show just how far back its history goes porto is Portugal's second largest city life is still based around the river and besides the port industry tourism is really important here the city is known for having five very interesting bridges the one behind me was designed by Gustaf Eiffel's assistants you can kind of see it this is the area of Porto where all the wine lodges are it's called Villanova de Gaya there are over 30 in this area it is truly a maze around here i'm looking for one called Wars i'm hoping it's this one here hola it's nice and cool in here the majority of Porto's business is in export and from the beginning Great Britain was one of the largest importers which is why today many of the big labels in Porto are British companies henry what exactly is port then well port is a fortified wine so if you have a table wine that will generally have between 12 and 13° of alcohol uh port is fortified and will have between 19 and 20° of alcohol i love this whole place because it feels like if I were wandering here 200 years ago it would probably look pretty much like this well that's right even though we're now in the 21st century a lot of things are still done in the traditional manner for example look at the coupage the coupage right [Music] this is how they've been making barrels then for a few hundred years yeah yeah do you think that his father did the same job probably i think in the past the father used to teach the son and they used to pass on their tools as well the tools but I don't think that happens anymore but that's that was in the past this is really It's crazy it is just like it's a time warp would you like to taste some pork if you insist oh definitely there we go okay what do we have here and how do you how do you do this well this is a vintage character port so it's a dark ruby color and very fruity aromomas right first thing to look for is the color right just swirl it around in the glass okay it's a lovely color ruby and then smell okay and taste so that's really nice it's like velvet kind of buttery mind can I taste it again you can have it [Music] beautiful now I'm headed south for Santorm Portugal's bull fighting region and hopefully in time to see a bull fight [Music] i'm in the town of Santorin which is the center for bull fighting in Portugal and I'm with my friend Jo who is here to explain to me the subtleties of Portuguese bull fighting what are we going to do today we are going to see some some horse training some bull breeding some forcados and I guess you'll see the top of it the most of it everything culminates in a bull fight which I'm really excited about that's that's the big part right okay all right we're off [Music] portuguese bull fighting is different from the Spanish style in two important ways in Portugal they don't kill the bull and the matador is on horseback those are some big big bulls these are the ones these are the prime animals that will be used in the bull fight in the kuras i'm telling you behind this fence I'm fine but you wouldn't get me anywhere near them look at that one especially me [Music] the horsemen on the farms are called campinos and they are as meticulous about caring for their horses as they are about their work after all it takes some serious bulls to do this job [Music] [Music] the purpose of this session is to train the horses not to be frightened of the bull this bull however is just a baby used only for practice [Music] do you want to go there Megan do I want to go there and what no no couple minutes are you serious okay I'm going to go in with this man now um why i don't know they just see if something something goes wrong so no problem about it right never don't don't let it go Megan you never let it go okay just to the side this is stupid on my part he's looking at us he's looking at us yes but oh my god oh my god i'm never going back in there again oh my god i am not cut out to be there my heart is beating so fast oh somebody now is the day it all comes together no more practice bull no more ranching bulls just horsemen and bull head to head oh this is really exciting it is the dawn of the big fight of the day and to me it feels a little bit like a combination of the county fair and the World Series so you've got all types of people and there's a great buzz all around the old town is here the high class the lower class everybody's here it is the place to be at the moment it's such amazing pageantry all these guys look like "Hello I have arrived and I am As good as it gets it's amazing the cheese here's the first one he's great oh my god get the heck out of the way boys is what I say oh my that is a big baby [Music] [Applause] so that that ball is basically 1,000 lbs of pure energy directed at that man on that horse [Applause] don't turn your back on him what are you crazy and the you can see the for are they are anxious to get in they are they on the walls jumping at the bit one might say grabs the bull by the horn completely [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] into saw that that's amazing that is a fierce bull that one really scared me that was a very close one the object here is for the first Forcado to grab the bull by the horns and the rest to control the bull if the group don't manage to stop the bull with or without shoes the young Forcado must face his quarry again i'm on this roller coaster ride half the time I'm all for the bull the other time it is serious threat to that man the thing is the man's chosen to be there and the bull has [Applause] not from the traditional to the faithful my next destination is Fatima the town that displays reverence to a different religion yes it's going all right i'm joining all of these people who are pilgrims going to one of the holiest places in the world for Catholic people it's to the town of Fatima 4 million people a year make this journey many on foot carrying their bags all to see the place where three children apparently saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary it's a long walk for the very faithful [Music] this is definitely not what I expected of Fatima i mean I kind of thought it would be a sleepy kind of holy feeling town but obviously with all the people coming to visit you can make some money off of the tourist industry here so you've got backpack shops and shoe shops next to holy icon shops it is it's a little bit like Disney World it's kind of strange in Fatima there are dozens and dozens of shops selling any kind of religious paraphernalia that you can imagine this particular one is a veritable emporium of iconography see what I mean pilgrimage sites are big business some of these stores make millions of dollars a year four floors of shopping pleasure there's so much to choose from i don't know how anyone manages apparently there are 50,000 different icons that you can take home with you ah of course i I definitely like this one it's a glowinthe-dark virgin when you wake up at night you can see the light no no this is it got to have this the Virgin Mary snow globe definitely a must well I've seen some pretty incredible things to buy regarding faith today but these to me are the most interesting this is kind of one of the main things that draws people to Fatima so if someone has had trouble with their eyes or maybe their ears and they've been healed they come here and burn these thanking the virgin for whatever part she played in their healing as well if someone is sick or if someone that they love is sick they'll come and kind of ask for a blessing for a particular body part and hope that the virgin can help them in some way they have everything they've got hearts and ears and heads and kidneys and we also have intestines which I think is quite interesting i went to India a while back and I've been traveling with a bit of a bug ever since so I think I'm going to buy this and see how it works we'll try anything at this place this is the place that everyone is heading for it is incredibly holy for Catholics and people here many of them are on their knees because they're here to pay promises that they made to the Virgin for her help and kind of curing them or someone that they loved and it is believed that this spot where this chapel is is exactly where the apparition happened and just over there where the smoke is is where they're burning the limbs and the candles as offerings [Music] [Music] mary King [Music] here is hoping and praying that this is the end of my deli belly as I leave the smell of burning incense and the chanting of the a maras behind me it becomes obvious I'm approaching Portugal's capital and no it's not San Francisco although the main bridge into Lisbon was inspired by the famous Golden Gate Bridge it's from this port that the very brave in my opinion Portuguese charted unsailed waters discovering new lands and bringing back a great deal of wealth in gold and spices they created an incredible capital that is still thriving centuries later this is beautiful Lisbon along the dock side in Lisbon there are castles and monuments dating from the 15th and 16th centuries known as the age of discovery these intrepid explorers included Vasco Deama who discovered new routes to India and others who discovered Brazil West Africa and the Azors the spices silks and gold from all this exploration and colonization made Portugal very wealthy and for 200 years one of the dominant empires in the world so beautiful it's unbelievable but at one point in the history of Lisbon the entire city would have been covered with tiles like this tiles were introduced to Portugal by the Moors they used geometric patterns rather than figures reflecting the Moore's Islamic prohibition against imagery of [Music] people lisbon is a city of seven hills and they are really quite steep so they have a great cable car and tram system so luckily you don't have to walk up them if you don't want to gonna take it a little easy michelle are they going to make me walk up those stairs i'm getting [Music] spoiled there are tons of great and cheap places to stay in Lisbon they're called pensalos but in the summer especially you must book ahead this one is only $30 and the rooms are okay but you get this amazing view of Lisbon and you know how I like a good view it's beautiful all right this is the moment of the bellum cake hola hola may I have a bellum cake please sure okay they sell these all over Portugal but this is the place for them it's tradition to eat them with cinnamon and sugar you're the expert okay first the cinnamon and then the sugar okay this is the one i've seen them around they've never looked this good before do you love these i do love these ties they are very very [Music] good m you're jealous i know this is so good it's cinnamon it's a sweet custard but there are some unidentifiable things in this can you tell me how it's made i wish I knew you don't know how it's made no i worked here for 24 years i don't have the slightest idea they don't give the recipe out yeah nowhere no no are you kidding me only four people in the world four people the four chefs in the world no and they're all right here in this place yeah only in this place no nowhere else think that they would tell me they won't tell anybody yeah but I'm not from around here i'll just take it away at home and nobody will have can I take some to go then okay ah couldn't get it out of her here goes my Bellum cake franchise this is so engrossing on live television national broadcast there are 10 people getting married today in this very church not allowed inside cuz it's really just for families but it's all to honor St anthony who is Lisbon's patron saint of matchmaking this celebration attracts a lot of attention even the priest knows he's on TV to honor the spirit of the day the state is paying for all the wedding expenses that means the dresses cars receptions honeymoons the whole kitten kaboodleoodle [Music] yay imagine hundreds of complete strangers celebrating your wedding throwing pink paper hearts and of course the television announcer letting the nation know you're finally off the market woohoo [Music] this is one of my favorite nights when you come to a country is when you actually stumble upon a local bar no it's kind of cheaty because they brought me here but we're here to hear f music which is a very traditional Portuguese music it's a little bit like the blues but what I love the most is kind of the ambiance [Music] the word father means like fate and destiny fate or destiny exactly that's like the word fun means and it's about like sadness and things that happen this is like a normal bar and most of the singers are amateur as a matter of fact we have yes they are like just people in the crowd i mean if you feel like singing you can go and sing i I know that that's a bad idea you just have to notify and express your feelings and you can go and sing that the way this kind of places singing as the music is playing I hear her humming you know and they're kind of both sway yeah i just don't go and sing because I'm a terrible singer but anyway I know the lyrics cuz I listen to it [Music] [Applause] sentimentality is the key to the Portuguese and many festivals and ceremonies are still observed throughout the year the weddings are only the beginning of the St anthony celebrations the festival continues well into the night they love their St anthony and to celebrate they have one of the largest street parties I have ever seen it's about 12:31:00 and it's just now starting to pick up not believe how many people are out hey [Music] I can't dance [Music] i cannot believe it's still going this crazy it's 4:00 in the morning i got to travel tomorrow i got to call in a night i'm telling you it's a grave party now for my journey into the deep south I'm heading to the famous beaches of Valgar but before I get there I'm stopping off to see a special chapel in the town of Eva [Music] oh [Music] wow i heard them say Chapel of Bones but I didn't think they so literal i think I thought maybe cases or Oh my god there's a whole body hanging over there and these walls are incredible because it your eye only sees bones there's no kind of structure wow what happened was when they enlarged this city which was enclosed by walls they found a bunch of graves and so they had to bring the bodies in and it was out of respect for the bodies that they buried them here in this church these two bodies of a father and son they still have and of the tatters of their clothing and even some of their skin on them and the story behind it is that they were really bad to the mother and so upon her death she cursed them and um and it said that the the earth wouldn't even take them in the worms wouldn't take them so their bodies were brought here to kind of pass the rest of their time from Eva my next stop is the Algarve Portugal's Riviera although people have been fishing and living here for over 3,000 years the Moors were the first people to develop the Algarve starting around the 8th century development has continued pretty steadily since then making the Algarve Portugal's most popular tourist destination the Algarve it is basically the tourist mecca of Portugal people come because it has year- round sun really great slightly crowded beaches it's pretty inexpensive but nestled in among all of the tourist traps are sweet villages like this [Music] one the Moorish influence can still be seen everywhere the white domed buildings and blue trim whitewashed houses are classic examples of Moorish architecture [Music] [Applause] [Music] if you want to get out of the more touristy parts of the Algarve you can stay in some of these little villages and especially in peak season families will rent out a room in their house for you oh hello little dog it even comes with your own little dog it's a very kind of livedin place to stay it's only about $20 a night okay the dog's going crazy i'm going to escape upstairs oh shoot and absolutely the best thing is the beach is within walking distance you got to like Well pretty much this is what you're going to find in the Algarve all along the coastline there are nice beaches like this one especially during the summer however they're going to be extremely crowded i just wanted to warn you in advance one of those situations if you can't beat them you got to join them into the west with my batteries fully charged I fly for 2 hours across the Atlantic to the Azor Islands my final [Music] destination the Azors an archipelago of nine islands were first discovered by the Portuguese in the 15th century formed by volcanoes erupting from the ocean they are the westernmost point of [Music] Europe nice volcano this is the island of Fel i'm now 800 miles away from mainland Portugal i can't wait to see it [Music] in September of 1957 a major volcanic eruption occurred here now the fishermen they were the first to notice they saw that the seas had begun to boil and the fish were all coming up dead and there was a black cloud that had begun to form in the distance the villagers basically thought it was the end of the world judgment day they were about to suffer the wrath of God so they took to the streets praying and singing hymns asking for forgiveness it lasted for 13 months sometimes ashes would rise 2 and 1/2 miles into the air and basically when it all died down this brand new mountain had been formed at the end of their island [Music] over 1,000 yachts visit Horta the capital of Fial every [Music] year this is the marina at Horta and for centuries this has been a major port of call for ships crossing the Atlantic and it is still incredibly important especially for those serious yachties making long journeys they come and they kind of mark it as a ride of passage putting their ship and the name and with whom and when they came it is incredibly legendary in those [Music] circles just met Chris and Sarah and their three kids and they are as a family unit all five of them traveling on a yacht for how long about three years but we don't really have a time frame and we've been sailing through the Bahamas through the Caribbean and then we did this crossing across the Atlantic how long was that crossing and what did it feel like when you arrived here in Hora um it was 16 days 16 and a half days straight days no days no land no sightings nothing no no parking no parking no parking um we stopped the boat once didn't we to take some showers earlier on uh do you have room for one more can I go you want to it's pretty small my trip to Portugal see you i'll go get my [Music] bags this little bar in the Zorus is famous worldwide among sailors and apparently when you're traveling you can pick up your mail here [Music] hola do you have any postcards for me my name's Megan McCormick are you on a boat no I'm not on a boat but people knew I was coming here and I given them this address can you check on the list please here and also here yes wow i can't believe they actually sent it yeah this would be me okay so anybody who's knows they're arriving here can send mail to you and you're kind of the local post office yes the tunnelist from the sellers they send us mail when they know that they're going to pass over here here's two postcards for you wow how nice they're from my very good friend who misses me dearly right one is a naked beach somewhere in Spain which I'm not going to show you and one is the Sigra Familia it's so nice to have this come from home yes imagine if you're crossing the Atlantic to receive the mail it's nice for the sellers cookies from mom all of this kind of stuff that's a great role that this place plays and has done for a long time yeah yes since 1918 1918 well you obviously haven't been here that long it was my grandfather my father Peter and me now oh wow what's your name jose jose nice to meet you thank you for my postcard thank you very much a pleasure [Music] this bar is a veritable institution for yachtis anybody who does the transatlantic crawl will have stopped here at some point all of the famous sailors have done so one named Sir Francis Chichester when he had a closed call at sea and almost died everyone said "What were your last thoughts?" He said "Well I thought of my family i thought of my friends and I thought of Peter and his bar in the Azorus." So it really is quite legendary and everybody looks really kind of seaorn and and hearty and I don't really fit in so I'm going to put this hat on and see if it helps drink my traditional drink boy hello the cheapest way to get around the island is by ferry and I'm off to Peeka W [Music] one of the main things to do in Pico is to go whale watching which is what I'm headed there for however the weather in the Azor is completely unpredictable one day it's sunny the next day maybe even 5 minutes later you get a storm like this i don't know if I'm even going to get to go out but we'll see i definitely hope so the islands of P and Pico two of the larger islands are only 30 minutes apart by boat [Music] this little village is called Les it was at one time a whale hunting community and the men would start out from this harbor head about 10 miles out into the incredibly turbulent Atlantic Ocean eight men in one very small wooden canoe using harpoons literally harpooning by hand massive whales they did it this way because they thought it made it a fair fight they only caught around 130 a year which isn't so many when you compare it to how many the major companies were catching which is around 4,000 when whale hunting became illegal in 1984 they had to reinvent themselves and now they are known as a mecca for whale watching [Music] it's cloudy the seas are rough and so all the whale watching boats are in the harbor while I wait and hope for the weather to change I'm going to visit one of the whale lookouts with Carlos the director of the local whale hunting museum i'm on the hillside just above Les and this is Carlos who's going to introduce me to the Via who is on duty and somehow is able to spot a whale way out there at sea how in the world do they do that you your binoculars to your face and we start looking i know but me looking through those binoculars is not going to be able to see a dirty great whale in that huge ocean no matter how big it is okay you see them nope i see the boats but I don't see the whale oh oh I just saw it oh you did i saw it i saw it i saw it okay yeah I can see that now but this isn't fair because you've lined it up it's like seeing you know a grain of sand in in the desert in my opinion but I'm very very impressed by your eyes and your knowledge of these animals look son true to the Azorus the weather has changed and the word in town is that the whales are out here about 10 miles and I'm going to go out with Louise who's going to be my guide for the day all right i'm so excited whales out there right it's going to be good isn't it if you really want to see whales come here from May to October during the annual migration oh my god a dolphin smell yes here all this anticipation you're kind of chasing these whales and on the kind of like is a side dish you get dolphins you get these beautiful birds skimming the sea ow come here oh right there right there right there oh look at that look at that hello oh right in front of me right in front of me oh hello there's two of them look at that three four oh my god what kind of dolphin is that a what dolphin i don't think there's anything common about dolphins but I'm still waiting for that big kahuna that whale apparently they've been they've dived down so they might be down from 45 minutes to an hour so now it's just kind of the waiting we've got the opening act with the dolphins oh I love it it's all ah did you see that they're there they're there whoa right there you can see this the blow hole squirting in water they're sperm [Music] whale my heart is beating so fast i'm so excited come on oh over there over there he's going to die he's going to die check it out sweet egg [Music] the thing that makes Portugal so special is the way that they've managed to maintain their traditions and their values at the same time as catching up with the rest of the world so somehow you know their horses now have four wheels but the way of life hasn't changed at all and you can have all of these really simple pleasures like a meal in the country to simply being on a boat and watching from a distance these beautiful beautiful creatures it is a really magical place [Music]
2025-04-05 17:35
