Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic is located in southwestern Europe whose territory is located in the western part of the Iberian Peninsula and islands in the Atlantic North. There are two major cities – Lisbon in the south and Porto in the north.
Gloria had it her mission to buy a new leather purse specifically made in Portugal. Along the way we saw a lot of interesting people, places and shops.
beer along the way, looked for shoes, watched street artists and had dinner.
The last two weeks have flown by! Here we are getting ready for our next leap in the adventure – this time to Europe! Over the last 2 weeks, we have had a wonderful time visiting with family,
eating way to much and had the joy of our friends Jessie and Phil from Pasadena come to DC to help me turn the page on the next decade spending all of my birthday with us as we did a pub crawl
through old town Alexandria, a boat ride on the Potomac
to Georgetown for a wonderful dinner at an Italian Restaurant (Filomena’s).
Tuesday we head to the airport for our flight to Lisbon Portugal and the start of the next leg in our journey – 4 months in Europe. So, continue to follow along – provide comments as you feel the urge – and we will try and entertain you with comments, photos (not all of food) and highlights as we discover new parts of the World we all live in.
It doesn’t matter if you voted for the current occupant a tour of the White House isn’t about politics it is about HISTORY. This past Tuesday Jason arranged a tour time, then was able joined us for the “self-guided” wander through the 8 of 10 rooms on the first floor.
The White House is the oldest public building in the District of Columbia, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the most famous address in the United States. Every president except George Washington has conducted the government of the nation here but it wasn’t until T. Roosevelt was this building officially became known as The White House. In the early 1900’s, the Presidential offices, the West Wing and Oval Office replaced the glass conservatory enjoyed by 19th century Presidents families. The East Room, largest of White House spaces, includes the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. The painting was saved from fire, during the war of 1812, by Dolly Madison who smiles at him through a corridor of the Red Room.
Our walking tour was through several of the more well know rooms (on the first floor) including the Vermeil Room, the China Room, the Diplomatic Reception Room, State Dining room and the East Room. It was interesting to note the roll up the edge of the carpet to allow the visitors to walk through the rooms but not on the carpet. On display were a number of artifacts, portraits and lovely furniture.
Most rooms had a Secret Service person who could explain the features of the room and what kinds of events the room has had. Janeen chose the Grant China in the corridor as a favorite, but the China room and the Visitor Center display much more glassware and china purchased for the standing Presidents.
All in all an interesting tour and really glad we made time in our schedule to visit this place.
After bidding Jason goodbye, so he could go back to work, we walked back towards the metro stopping at Old Ebbitt Grill for lunch.
Old Ebbitt Grill is a historic bar and restaurant and is Washington’s oldest bar and restaurant. It opened as an unnamed restaurant in the Ebbitt House Hotel. The Hotel distinguished itself as the first hotel in Washington to remain open all summer instead of closing when Congress adjourned.
Since 1970, because of its popularity Old Ebbitt Grill has been frequented by numerous politicians, some known for scandals and maneuvering.
Known for its oysters and seafood it was a wonderful spot to stop and have a bit and a bottle of wine.
After our lunch we continued on to the Metro for our ride back to Springfield.
The route from Illinois, through Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, and Maryland into D.C. and Virginia often followed the National Highway (US 40. sometimes U S 22) and one could envision frontier families, Civil War Companies, Appalachian hikers, through the decades, even from the four lane Tarmac.
Mills Run, PA is the location of the Western PA Nature Conservancy, which administers entrance to Fallingwaters. Kaufman, Jr. deeded the family retreat and surrounding acreage to the Conservancy in the mid 1960s with the conditions that his family home would be viewed, not as a museum, but as it was imagined by FLW and. used by the family; an island of calm and a retreat into nature.
Monday – our last day on the Road across the USA – found us heading to Fallingwater.
Fallingwater, or the Kaufmann Residence. Frank Lloyd Wright designed “Fallingwaters ” the weekend retreat cabin of the Philadelphia Kaufman family that was built in 1938-39 at a cost of 150,000 dollars; the cliffs and boulders of Bear Run Creek and its falls envelop the cantilevered house. Asked to describe the house in one word, the Kaufman’s son, said,” Romance”. Liliane and Edgar Kaufmann owned the Kaufmanns department Store in Pittsburg and had a small “cabin” near the location and wanted something nicer for weekends and summer vacations. Fallingwater was the family’s weekend home from 1937 until 1963 when Kaufmann Jr donated the property to the Western Pennsylvania conservancy. In 1964 it was opened to the public as a museum.
The design, by Wright, was intended to bring the outdoors inside with the use of windows and outdoor seating areas. In the seating area, or living room, there is a large stone fireplace – the stone around the fireplace is bedrock and incorporated into the structure. On the left side of the fireplace, hangs a red round globe – this could be filled will mulled wine and the entire globe swings into the fireplace for heating and out again for distribution of the warmed wine!
Our tour included most of the rooms and areas of the building – quite interesting. While I could certainly “live” in Fallingwaters I think the MAINTENANCE required to keep the house up might be a bit difficult! We are glad we visited this special spot.
After finishing our tour we completed our trek across country by arriving at our son’s home in Springfield Virginia. While here we will visit with friends, tour the White House, celebrate my 70th birthday and do packing for our next adventure – ACROSS the Atlantic to Portugal, Germany, Italy and any other place we find ourselves.
Early this morning we left Macomb and continued our journey towards Virginia. After several hours of driving on the freeways we dropped down to US 40 and cruised along through a number of small towns – Greenfield, Knightstown, Dunreith, Lewisville, Straughn, Dublin, Cambridge City, Centerville – until we reached Richmond. US 40 is an east-west route running the entire width of the US starting in New Jersey and ending in Utah (OK, not the entire width of the country). It seemed like every one of these small towns was having a garage sale or yard sale everywhere. We didn’t stop. Our Best Western was near the eastern side of town and really almost on the state line between Indiana and Ohio.
For dinner we went to the number one Trip Advisor restaurant in Richmond – Galo’s Italian Grill.
Expecting a nice Italian place, I said “Buonasera” – which we all know is an Italian phrase meaning “Good Evening”. Well, they thought I meant “I want Sara to wait on us “and put us in the bar…not liking that spot I moved us elsewhere. When Sara came over and asked if we had requested her station…we said, no, just honoring the restaurant theme, seems Italian isn’t something they hear much in the restaurant.
We started with a Prosecco which was OK and an appetizer of bruschetta which was OK but not as great as it could have been had they used heirloom tomatoes.
Janeen ordered the grilled eggplant lasagna with spinach, ricotta and mozzarella cheese while
I had the Bolognese sauce with pasta and an added meatball .
To accompany this we had a Banfi Chianti Classico.
Maybe we have higher expectations then we should be overall the meal was OK – not what I would have expected for the number one restaurant for the area. Each of our food dishes was pleasant but had no special ingredient to have it stand out from something you might pick up at the frozen section of the supermarket and the wine list, well, it left a lot to be desired.
So, we are back in our room with the rest (half) of the bottle of Chianti some ice and sprite to make some coolers to enjoy for the rest of the evening.