It’s Saturday, so time to go off on another adventure. We are dedicating more time to getting to know our town, and I asked Bruce to desig a walking tour of a different part of town than we’ve focused on before. We will cross through familiar territory and then veir off in a new direction. I added one stop to his plan because I found a shop that has my name on it (I’m sure you know what that means!).
Something this city is known for is the street/park art. With all of the art students at the College of Art and Design here, graffiti has become quite the thing. Not all of it is great, but where the city has sponsored specific activities, it can be pretty fun. The wire sculpture on the upper right is a favorite, although it’s really hard to photograph. The mosaic on the upper left is really typical of many park sculptures I’ve seen, combining monumental sculpture with the ceramics that are such an import part of the history and economy here. Many incorporate the tiles that are part of the architecture here (see photo here to the left). And of course the architecture also is different and interesting.
But back to work. The child-size socks are progressing, and I now have the yarn in hand for the adult sizes. I also have the lovely skeins of Scottish mohair from Guardswell Farm to continue work on the Fisherman’s socks. Those do knit up a bit faster than the colorwork on size 1 needles.
Of course time has passed since I started this post, and we’ve been off on another adventure. We went to Alcobaça, about minutes away by car, to do some banking business. While there, we walked along the street in front of the beautiful historic monastery, and suddenly heard this wonderful singing on a side street. It was coming from a man named João Paulo Ferreira who has an amazing contra tenor voice. His rendition of Ave Maria literally brought tears to our eyes. While I did record some of his singing, I wasn’t able to compress it sufficiently to put it in the post, but you can find him here.
We had hoped to finish off the day with a side trip to Nazaré, where the big waves can be found in the right season. We did get there, but the town was swarming with tourists getting off and on big busses. The town is really small, so the crush of people was overwhelming. Having lived in a beach town in Massachusetts for many years, I could quickly see how very much I wouldn’t want to do that again. It’s a very popular place — just not the place for me! Instead, we used the time we had left on our rental car to go grocery shopping and bring home multiples of heavy things. I had to set up a secondary pantry in one of the bedrooms for the overflow, but I’m sure it will be really nice not to have to go shopping for canned goods for some time.
I did find a yarn shop/coffee bar here in Caldas Da Rainha on one of our recent sojourns out. It’s called Traça Trapos (the Moth Shop), and they make lovely salads as well as selling yarn and sponsoring classes in a variety of techniques. There is one on weaving tapestry in June, and they just had one recently on macrame. As there was a class going on at the time I was there, I didn’t try to do any shopping, but I’m sure to return soon to really check out the yarns. From what I can see there is some native Portuguese wool in addition to brands like DROPS.
Finally, I have to say that it always is a joy to come across new and interesting ceramics. This just had to come home with me yesterday. Now I have to find some really long-stemmed flowers (although it looks quite fine as it is). I did try to send the image to some of my knitting friends, but the internet is choosing to be picky today.
Time for more knitting. I really want to get this wee sock done so I can move on to the next one. But in the meantime, stay calm and craft on.
Love the vase. I’d love to make something similar.