Return to Le Roy, Home of Wausaneta

It so happens that Moraine View State Recreation Area is only a few miles north of Le Roy, Illinois, a burg I passed through more than five years ago. At that time I made the acquaintance of Wausaneta, an imaginary Kickapoo chief. His statue has stood in Kiwanis Park in Le Roy for more than a century now, gift to the town of the wealthy crackpot who dreamed him up. I mean, gift to the town of the spiritualist and leading citizen who communed with Wausaneta those many years ago.

As of Sunday, the statue of Wausaneta still stands in Le Roy’s main square.Le Roy, Illinois

I didn’t remember the carved stump tree nearby.Le Roy, Illinois

Panther Tree, it’s called. The local high school mascot is a panther. The reason I don’t remember it is because it wasn’t there until late 2019; I came in March of that year.

While Yuriko dozed in the car, I took a stroll down Main Street, learning that this isn’t the only Le Roy.Main Street, Le Roy, Illinois Main Street, Le Roy, Illinois Main Street, Le Roy, Illinois

Most of the buildings are occupied by one business or another. The former Le Roy State Bank is now the Oak & Flame Bourbon Hall.Main Street, Le Roy, Illinois

Every town worth its salt had an opera house, once upon a time. In this case, that time was 1892.Main Street, Le Roy, Illinois

The Princess Theatre had an abandoned look, but its web site that says that Horizon: An American Saga is playing there once a day until August 3. Only $5 for seniors and children, and $6 for adults, which might be what it’s worth.Main Street, Le Roy, Illinois

“Marcus West, son of Simeon West, built the Princess Theater in 1916,” the web site says. Simeon West was the aforementioned wealthy crackpot.

“Architect Arthur L. Pillsbury designed the brick theater with limestone accents. The first movie was Tennessee’s Pardner on November 21, 1916. The original theater was a silent movie house with piano accompaniment, as talkies did not make their debut in Le Roy until 1931. A grandson of Marcus West recounts that West’s daughter, while in high school, substituted as piano player when the regular player was unable to accompany the film.”

This building looked genuinely empty. Not only empty, but still sporting a Trump-Pence sign, already a relic of yore. It has a future as a hipster bar, maybe.Main Street, Le Roy, Illinois

Guns & Glory. LeRoy Illinois Main Street

Guns & Glory offers firearms, cleaning, repair, concealed carry classes, and Bibles.

“We are probably the only gun shop and religious book store combined that you will find,” its web site says. “We believe we can provide the two most important things to protect you – ‘God and guns.’ ”

Used to be the First National Bank. And a Rexall drug store.LeRoy Illinois Main Street

Someone went to some lengths to blot out the Rexall name, but not enough to efface it completely, if you know what you’re looking at.LeRoy Illinois Main Street

I believe the drug store in Alamo Heights where I bought comics in the early ’70s was a Rexall, but I’m not quite sure. At some moment after I left town, it disappeared. That same dynamic happened so much that the brand now enjoys only a whisper of its ’50s coast-to-coast retail glory.

The McLean County Museum of History

Revel in the obscurity: Details of posters advertising a regional brand of candy that hasn’t been made in years, created by a commercial artist no one has ever heard of, on display in a large town few people visit.McLean County Museum of History McLean County Museum of History

Bloomington-based Beich Candy Co. was the candy maker, and the posters advertise its Whiz Bar, whose slogan – until inflation made it obsolete – was “Whiz, best nickel candy there iz-z.”McLean County Museum of History

The posters are behind glass at the McLean County Museum of History, and thus hard to photography in total without glare. But details work out nicely.

We visited the museum on Saturday morning.McLean County Museum of History McLean County Museum of History

“These posters were created by Don Shirley (1913-2001) for States Display, a local commercial art business,” notes the museum. “He was an artist and illustrator.”

A Prussian immigrant by the name of Paul F. Beich founded the candy company that carried his name. Beich Candy Co. lives on as a unit of Ferrero, with a candy factory in Bloomington (recently expanded), but Whiz seems to be no more. A chocolate-marshmallow-peanut confection, it sounds something like a Goo-Goo Cluster.

An even deeper dive into Beich Co. is at an Illinois Wesleyan University website. It’s the story of a food technologist who worked for the company, one Justin J. Alikonis.

“He designed and patented, among other things, a marshmallow-making machine, the ‘Whizolater,’ named after the Beich flagship candy bar, the Whiz,” the site says. “With no moving parts and operating solely on pressurized air, the Whizolater could make 1,400 gallons of marshmallow or nougat per hour.”

As local history museums go, McLean County is top drawer, with enough displays and artifacts to inspire all sorts of rabbit-hole expeditions, besides 20th-century candy making in central Illinois. Such as friends of Lincoln who otherwise would be lost to history.History Museum of McLean County

He even looks a little like Lincoln, but maybe that’s just 19th-century styling.

Otherwise obscure incidents in McLean County history make their appearance as well, such as one in 1854, when a mob of Know-Nothings smashed 50 barrels each of brandy and cherry bounce, and 50 casks each of “high wine,” gin and whiskey taken from groggeries in Bloomington, according to the museum.History Museum of McLean County

I had to look up cherry bounce. For those who like their neurotoxins sweet, I guess. The Know-Nothings were destroying the alcohol – “washed the prairie” with it, said a contemporary account, though perhaps some of it was squirreled away by thirsty Know-Nothings – presumably because it was associated with immigrant saloons.

A flag. For union and liberty.History Museum of McLean County

A replica of the one carried by the 33rd Illinois Infantry Regiment, which has its start comprised of teachers and students and former students at Normal University (later ISU), with university president Charles E. Hovey as its colonel.

Most local history museums have oddities, and so does McLean County.History Museum of McLean County

It’s a little hard to tell, but that’s a large chair. Though I’m six feet tall, my feet barely touched the ground. “Yes, please sit here!” its sign said. “The owners of Howard & Kirkpatrick’s Home Furnishings places this oversized chair outside their store to draw customers inside.”

The displays and artifacts are one thing, but what really makes the museum sing is its digs in the former courthouse.McLean Country Courthouse McLean Country Courthouse McLean Country Courthouse

Especially the former courtroom.McLean Country Courthouse McLean Country Courthouse McLean Country Courthouse

In which hangs a portrait of Vice President Adlai Stevenson.McLean County Museum of History

The courthouse dates from the early 1900s, a time when officialdom at least believed that the physical structures of republican government ought to have a touch of grandeur.

Bloomington Ramble ’24

Want good soft serve ice cream in an unpretentious setting? Look no further than Carl’s Ice Cream, a plain-looking shop deep in the heart of Bloomington, Illinois. Also, look for its anthropomorphic soft serve cone rising over the parking lot.Carl's Ice Cream Bloomington Carl's Ice Cream Bloomington

Yuriko and Ann had strawberry, I had chocolate. Carl’s in Bloomington – there’s also one in Normal, with an ice cream muffler man outside – was an early afternoon stop on Saturday. We spent part, but not all of the weekend, in Bloomington.

Something we (I) also had time to do was take a better look at the impressive three-legged communications tower in downtown Bloomington. It’s visible for quite a distance, and makes me wonder, why aren’t more communication towers this interesting?Bloomington Eiffel Tower. Well. Sort Of

Much of the day was hot, or at least very warm, and sunny, a prelude to heavy rains early Sunday morning. So Yuriko was content to stay in the car – with the AC running – when I took in a few closer views of tower.Tower Center Bloomington Tower Center Bloomington Tower Center Bloomington

Pantagraph articles about the tower are paywalled, but snippets poke through from search engine results:

In the last 30 years of telephone, radio and other network service, the Tower Center became a sort of landmark for downtown Bloomington, lovingly nicknamed the city’s “Eiffel Tower.”

Bloomington’s ‘Eiffel Tower’ changes hands after 30 years

The McLean County Center for Human Services Recovery Program is gaining a new home beneath the iconic 420-foot communications tower in Bloomington…

Another source tells me that the tower dates from 1989. The Tower Center is the two-story building under the tower, now belonging to McLean County.

After the rain cleared away, late Sunday morning was as toasty as Saturday had been, but more humid. I decided against a walkabout at the Park Hill Cemetery in Bloomington. It’s good to ration your time under those hot and copper skies.Park Hill Cemetery, Bloomington

Still, we drove around a bit through the cemetery. Not a lot of memorial variety, but not bad.Park Hill Cemetery, Bloomington Park Hill Cemetery, Bloomington Park Hill Cemetery, Bloomington

Now I can say I’ve seen Mike Ehrmantraut’s grave. But not that Mike Ehrmantraut, of course. The fellow offed by Walter White, being fictional, must have an equally fictional grave.

Adjacent the cemetery is the sizable Miller Park, which includes the Miller Park Zoo. We didn’t want to use our ration of intense sunlight at a zoo either, but in the park itself.Miller Park, Bloomington

When you see a steam locomotive in park (and its tender), you really ought to get out and look.Miller Park, Bloomington locomotive Miller Park, Bloomington locomotive Miller Park, Bloomington locomotive

Three million miles. So the train could have, with the right track, gone to the Moon and back a number of times, provided it took its own oxygen to keep that engine going.

And what would the display be without a caboose? Partly because that’s just a fun word to say.Miller Park, Bloomington caboose

Ignorant fellow that I am, I didn’t know the Nickel Plate Road, so I looked it up later. Once upon a time, it was a major regional RR, spanning northern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Miller Park features a sizable war memorial.Miller Park, Bloomington war memorial

In its vicinity are some retired weapons of war, such as a captured German 210 mm Krupp Howitzer (in better shape than this one).Miller Park, Bloomington German Cannon Miller Park, Bloomington German Cannon

As well as a WWI tank. Created for that conflict, at least. An M1917 light tank. Apparently none made it to the front during the war, but were put in service for a few years after the war by the U.S. Army.Miller Park, Bloomington WWI Tank Miller Park, Bloomington WWI Tank

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one of those on display. I’m reminded of my great-uncle Ralph. I understand — from my mother, and maybe even grandma told me this — that he was in a tank corps in France, with the American Expeditionary Forces. Such a posting is said to be fairly dangerous, and I believe it. Supposedly, Ralph was poised to go to the front at the time of the Armistice, which might well have saved him.

Letters, 1969

The great volume of paper letters from my mother to me didn’t begin until I went away to VU, but there were a few before that, such as when I visited my aunt and uncle and cousin around the time of a certain historic event 55 years ago now.

Considering how old it is, the letter is in pretty good shape. Only slightly yellowed.

I believe Sue and Ken and Ralph had come to visit us in San Antonio in mid-July, and I went back with them for a visit to their home in Ardmore, Oklahoma, that happened to coincide with Apollo 11 landing on the Moon.

I’m positive we were driving to Ardmore on the 20th, because I remember hearing about the impending landing on the radio, and a discussion in the car about whether it would happen by the time we got to their house. I might have been eight, but I knew what was going on. I had watched the launch and was following the mission closely. As it happened, “Tranquility Base here, the Eagle as landed” moment was not long after we arrived at their house.

Moon walk or no, life on Earth goes on. My mother wrote another letter on July 27.

My mother said they were coming to pick me up on the 31st, as I’m sure happened. From there we took a driving loop around the South – from Oklahoma through Arkansas and Tennessee, reaching the northwest corner of Georgia before turning back and heading through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana before returning to Texas.

The Great Southern Loop, I called it retroactively. Maybe 20 years later. Or the Great Southern Loop of ’69 even later, to differentiate it from the Southern Solo Loop of ’09 or the more recent ones of ’19 and ‘21. It’s hard to keep track sometimes.

He May Ride Forever ‘neath the Streets of Boston

Something I never thought of until today: you can buy booklets to hold fortune cookie fortunes. One at Amazon promises 10 pages that hold 40 fortunes, for $12.99. That came to mind, or rather set me looking, when I happened across another fortune I saved:

Magic time is creale when an unconventional person comes to stay.

I supposed “created” was meant, but in any case that sounds like the pitch for a sitcom episode.

I’m not buying a fortune holder. Those little slips will be tucked away with my business card accumulation: five holders so far, holding some hundred number of cards. Many are restaurant cards, some dating back to the ’80s. Others include a sampling of hotels, museums, shops, even a few churches.

Also, transit cards. I got a kick out of this one.

I used it during my most recent visit to Boston in 2018. Previously the system used metal tokens, but of course those are gone. CharlieTickets and CharlieCards were introduced in 2006.

Charlie was the sad-sack (and poor) protagonist of the song “M.T.A.,” which I know well. That is, the Kingston Trio’s 1959 recording, but not so much about its background. So naturally I had to look into it.

“The text of the song was written in 1949 by Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes,” writes Jonathan Reed, once a student at MIT. “It was one of seven songs written for [Walter] O’Brien’s campaign, each one emphasized a key point of his platform. [He was running for mayor of Boston that year.]

“One recording was made of each song, and they were broadcast from a sound truck that drove around the streets of Boston. This earned O’Brien a $10 fine for disturbing the peace.”

The Kingston Trio got ahold of it a decade later and it sounds like they had fun with it. Clearly the song endures locally, enough to receive a sort of official recognition by the modern MBTA.

The Pearl Incident

The run of 90° F. (or so) days will run a little bit longer, see below, but as usual for summer in this part of the world, that kind of streak won’t have the staying power you see in certain other summertime places I’m familiar with, where 100° F. days line up in a seemingly endless array.

A site that sends me email sent a link to a Juneteenth article today with the slightly annoying headline: “5 Black History Landmarks in the U.S. You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.”

At least the publication included “probably.” But I checked, and I’d heard of four of them. Mostly they were not great unknowns. The Ebenezer Baptist Church was on the list, for instance. C’mon.

Still, I will give them their due by informing me of an event I hadn’t heard of: The Pearl Incident, which involved the unsuccessful escape attempt in 1848 by 77 slaves sailing from Washington City on a schooner called The Pearl. There is a plaque noting that fact “in the bricks of Wharf Street,” according to Wharf Life DC.  If I’m ever in the Wharf district in DC, I will look for it.

Félicette

Another gabfest has come and gone: the 10th anniversary event, since the first one was held on June 14, 2014. This should have been the actual 11th event, but it was only the 10th, since we skipped 2020. Or maybe I should consider it the 11th event anyway, like how the Olympics still regard the canceled Games (1916, 1940, 1944) as numbered Olympiads (VI, XII and XIII, respectively).

This year, rain came on Saturday afternoon, so for the first time, we stayed indoors, and I cooked the hamburgers and sausages inside, though I cooked inside in ’17 because of high winds. We had the same good old time, with old friends eating and drinking and talking, without reference to any hand-held electronic communications gizmos.

The main beer drinker didn’t come this year, as he was ill, so what little alcohol we drank consisted of white wine. With cat astronauts on the label. Today the weather was better, so I posed the bottle outside on the deck table.

The wine, which is French, is called Félicette. After a cat that the French shot into space in 1963.

We all know about Laika and Ham and Enos, and even Pigs in Space, but not Félicette. Could be she’s more famed in the French-speaking world. Good to know. Might even be a Trivial Pursuit answer. When was the last time I played that? Not since sometime in the 20th century, I think.

Portuguese Mix

Early last year, I ordered a number of 4″ x 6″ tabletop flags from an online vendor that doesn’t happen to be Amazon. I have pocket change and postcards and tourist spoons and all kinds of bric-a-brac from the places I’ve been, so why not flags? One for each nation I’ve visited.

So I ordered a Portuguese flag last week, to add to the collection. While Macao was still administrated by Portugal when I visited in 1990, it was too much of a stretch to say I’d been to Portugal, until last month.

Something I never noticed on the flag – behind the shield of Portugal, which has a lore of its own – is an armillary sphere, a model of objects in the sky. A navigators’ tool, among other things, which fits Portuguese history nicely. A cool design element.

We saw other representations of the globe — terrestrial or celestial — at Pena Palace in Sintra.

This one at Jerónimos Monastery.

For sale at the Cod Museum, canned fish. At fancy prices.

For sale at a Portuguese grocery store, canned fish. At everyday prices.

In case you didn’t buy enough canned fish in the city, at the airport there’s a branch of Mundo Fantástico Da Sardinha Portuguesa, a sardine store on the Praça do Rossio.

For once, the Google Maps description is accurate: “Souvenir shop showcasing fancy tins of Portuguese sardines in a wacky, circuslike atmosphere.” You can even sit on a sardine throne.Mundo Fantástico Da Sardinha Portuguesa

The “Beer Museum” off Praça do Comércio seemed more like a restaurant and bar, but anyway you have to have a beer at a place like that, and I did. A Portuguese brew whose name I was too much on vacation to remember.Portuguese beer

I wasn’t awed by the beer, which was good enough, but I was awed by this display. That’s one artful wall of beer.Portuguese beer

We didn’t make it to the castle overlooking Lisbon (Castelo de São Jorge), so I can’t comment on the view from there. I will say that the roof of our hotel offered a pretty good one.Lisbon vista

Looking up at the city is another kind of vista. There’s a ferry port (and subway station) on the Tagus near Praça do Comércio. Step outside there, and some of the city is visible. The stone tower is part of Lisbon Cathedral.Lisbon vista

We emerged from the subway one morning and spotted this.

Monumento aos Mortos da Grande Guerra. I had to check, and found out that about 12,000 Portuguese soldiers died in WWI, including in France but also fighting the Germans in Africa. The memorial is on Av. Da Liberdade.

Europe, in my experience, is pretty good at putting together leafy boulevards.

That’s a tall order for a sandwich shop. We didn’t investigate the claim, either the number of steps, nor the state of mind.

At Basílica de Nossa Senhora dos Mártires, we encountered this fellow.

Rather Roman looking, and I mean the ancient Roman army, not “prays like a Roman with her eyes on fire.” At first I thought he might be Cornelius the Centurion, but the key clue is HODIE (“today”) written on the cross, meaning he’s Expeditus. I don’t ever remember seeing him depicted in a church. The patron of urgent causes, among other things.

We saw a flamenco show in Barcelona last year, but no fado in Lisbon. We did see a fado truck, however.FADO TRUCK, LISBON

We ate at the Time Out Market Lisboa twice.Time Out Lisboa Time Out Lisboa

There was a reason it was crowded. Everything was a little expensive, but really good. Such as this place, whose grub was like Shake Shack.Time Out Lisboa Time Out Lisboa

The last meal of the trip wasn’t at Time Out Lisboa, but a Vietnamese restaurant with room enough for about 20 people. It too was full.

Spotted at one of the subway stations we passed through more than once. Alice in Wonderland‘s fans are international in scope.Lisbon subway rabbit

On the whole, the Lisbon subways are efficient and inexpensive, and the lines go a lot of places. Even so, elevator maintenance did seem to be an issue. There were times when our tired feet would have appreciated an elevator, but no go.

Scenes from Parc Eduardo VII, which includes green space and gardens but also elegant buildings.Edward VII Park, Lisbon Edward VII Park, Lisbon Edward VII Park, Lisbon

There was an event there that day, at least according to those blue signs, that had something to do with the Portuguese Space Agency. I didn’t know there was such a thing. I’d have assumed Portugal would participate in the ESA, and leave it at that. But no, the Agência Espacial Portuguesa was founded in 2019, and is looking to create a space port in the Azores.

We didn’t investigate the event any further, but we did look at the tiles on the building. Nice.Edward VII Park, Lisbon Edward VII Park, Lisbon

Among the kings of Portugal, there was no Edward VII – only one Edward, who reigned from 1433 to 1438 – so when I saw it on the map, I figured it was for the British monarch of that regnal name. Yes, according to Wiki: “The park is named for King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, who visited Portugal in 1903 to strengthen relations between the two countries and reaffirm the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance.”

Lisbon manhole covers. Maybe not as artful as some of the other street details on Lisbon, but not bad.Lisbon manhole cover Lisbon manhole cover Lisbon manhole cover

I saw S.L.A.T. a fair amount. Later, I looked it up: Sinalização Luminosa Automática de Trânsito – Automatic Traffic Light Signaling.

Museu Calouste Gulbenkian

On the day after much climbing around the Sintra hills, that is, Friday, May 17, the idea of visiting the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and the surrounding Calouste Gulbenkian Garden had a lot going for it. A reportedly great collection of art, for one thing, in a vivid green park. Just as important, it was walking distance from our hotel. A fairly short walking distance, with the interlude of a leisurely brunch on the way. Our last full day in Portugal was going to be leisurely.

The brunch. Mine anyway.Portuguese brunch

There are pancakes, as you might find in North America, but under the meat and eggs, a position that’s less common over here. Good pancakes too. Considering the cost of living in Portugal and the relatively strong dollar vs. the euro, we enjoyed high-quality breakfast food at IHOP prices.

Much has been written about the oilman Calouste Gulbenkian (d. 1955) elsewhere, for feats of industrialism and a colossal amount of philanthropy. Then there was the matter of collecting art, which he did with both hands.

Apparently he liked Lisbon a great deal, and who wouldn’t, especially after Paris got too hot in 1940. Much earlier, he and his family escaped Ottoman persecution, so while you can’t call such a wealthy fellow a refuge, he did feel the need to flee occasionally, along the way evolving into a shadowy British-Armenian billionaire with a massive art collection. These days, his artwork is in the museum named for him in Lisbon, developed by his posthumous foundation.Calouste Gulbenkian Museum

“When it comes to sheer diversity enhanced by the highest of standards, then the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon is in a category of its own,” the NYT reported in 1984. “Its collections range from art of the ancient Greeks to the Impressionists, from Iznik faience to Jacob armchairs made for Marie Antoinette, with a goodly complement of carpets, coins, tapestries, ivories and illuminated manuscripts thrown in…

“Unlike most other museums (the Frick is a significant exception), the physical plant has been designed to fit the collection, rather than the other way around. There are vast halls for carpets, and small rooms for silver, vitrines designed so that objects can be seen from every side, and all in such a way that nothing ever looks crowded. The light, too, is unusually good.”

The description is still accurate. The variety doesn’t hit you until you’re past a half-dozen galleries, but then it hits all at once. The aesthetic appetite of this oilman emulator of Le goût Rothschild spanned centuries and continents, and he had the means to act on it.

Among other things, I spent quality time with his ancient coin collection. Gulbenkian had examples from all around the Greek world in the first few centuries after the invention of coinage in Lydia. He had some from Lydia itself; some of the first coins ever.

A good number of Near Eastern carpets were on display, some near the floor lying flat and lightly roped off. To my eye, flawless works. They gave me the opportunity to pass along the idea (to Ann) that certain carpet markers of yore, perhaps Persians, deliberately included a small imperfection in their work because only God is perfect. Something I heard years ago, I don’t know where, and I can’t vouch for its accuracy, caveats that I also passed along. I’m not the only one to wonder.

The Gulbenkian Foundation complex, including the museum, didn’t open until until more than a decade after his death, and pretty much screams 1969.Calouste Gulbenkian Museum

The garden, lush in an Iberian May, takes some of the edge off the brutalism.Gulbenkian Museum Gulbenkian Museum Gulbenkian Museum

We visited the museum first, then strolled the garden afterward.Gulbenkian Garden Gulbenkian Garden Gulbenkian Garden

The museum includes an indoor-outdoor cafe, where we stopped for pastries late in mid-afternoon, sitting outside.Gulbenkian Garden

Note the birds. They were not afraid of people.Gulbenkian Garden Gulbenkian Garden

Not at all.

Sintra: The Moorish Castle

Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle (Castelo dos Mouros) aren’t very far from each other up in hilly Sintra. So close you can walk the narrow road for a few minutes to get from one to the other. Even if it starts to rain on you. We visited in the drizzle after our tour of Pena Palace.

Both sites were inspired by Romanticism, they say. But different takes on the ideal.

Pena Palace: Fancy Colorful Halls, The Romanticism of Kings.

Moorish Castle: Stony Ruins on High Hills, the Romanticism of Abandonment.

Romanticism guided the 19th-century quasi-redevelopment of the Moorish Castle, a ruin from Islamic times, modified after the Reconquista, abandoned and decaying by the time King Fernando II took an interest in 1840.

From the Sistema de Informação para o Património Arquitetónico on the Moorish Castle, machine translated:

“Military, medieval and romantic architecture. Castle with an irregular plan located on high ground, formed by two belts of walls, with the interior reinforced by five towers and several cubes with a quadrangular and circular plan and vertical elevations. The list includes a Visigothic chapel, rebuilt in the Romanesque period…

“The Moorish Castle, due to its geographical situation and robustness, was considered, together with that of Santarém, one of the main points of the military structure of Belata – a Muslim province that more or less corresponds to Ribatejo and Estremadura. The property underwent extensive renovations over time, with the character of a romantic ruin predominating…”

The rain added to the Moorish Castle’s romantic appeal, both in the poetic sense, and the sense that stirs amorous couples. If there were any couples around, that is; there weren’t many, or anyone else. Off the beaten path in this case turned out to be stony and steep and wet. Even so, worth the effort.Moorish Castle Moorish Castle Moorish Castle

On the way up, we passed a mossy tomb.Moorish Castle Moorish Castle

Its sign said (in English, below the Portuguese): “The works promoted by King Ferdinand II damaged part of the Christian necropolis located around the church. A small tomb was thus built to lay the remains that been unearthed. The head stone bore the engraving of a crescent and a cross with the following epitaph: ‘What man has assembled only God can set apart,’ alluding to the fact that it was impossible to distinguish whether the human remains were Christian or Muslim.”

The climb continued. Where were those hiking poles when I needed them? At least one. Back in Illinois, that’s where. But we made it to one of the hilltops, with me trailing about five minutes behind.Moorish Castle Moorish Castle Moorish Castle

That flag was one of a number flying over the ruins, and I believe it was the 19th-century flag of the kingdom, possibly as a tribute to Ferdinand II. The flag over the highest peak — we didn’t make it all the way up there — seemed to be the first banner of the kingdom, associated with the first king of Portugal, Afonso Henriques, who also happened to take the castle from the Moors.Moorish Castle

We were tired on the return from the castle, but I have to say that even the stone path and the forest below had its romantic charms, even in the rain. King Fernando was on to something.Moorish Castle Moorish Castle

More of a light drizzle most of the time, except for the downpour waiting for the bus back out near the road. The various tuk-tuks and other for-rent vehicles that came by looking for business were tempting, but in the end the bus didn’t take that long. That was the only rain we had during our Portuguese days.