Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: The Michael Hatfield re Max team presents real estate and more.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Bay Area real estate is different than in all of America. And why? What's up with homebuyers? What's on sellers minds? How is the market? And much, much more.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: Now here's your host, Michael Hatfield. Welcome to the real estate and more show. I'm so happy you're here with us today. We're going to talk about some neat things, especially the country of Portugal. I notice a lot of people have the country of Portugal a little lower on their list to go and take a look at and retire, perhaps lower than it should be because it's quite an amazing place. Well, the questions kept coming up to us, and we kept asking ourselves, what is so cool about Portugal? So we ended up taking a trip there to find out. And we do heartily agree that this country has a lot to offer by way of visiting tourists, tourism, or perhaps even retiring. But before we go too far with that, I want you to know is we're not planning on retiring from our real estate brokerage anytime soon. So we're there to help you with buying or selling a property. But let's dive into this area in Portugal that we visited, which would be Lisbon, and areas around it, such as Cuskais, as well as Obidos, as well as Aguincho beach and the areas around Lisbon. What an amazing place. And to help me today, I have my partner Nancy here to put in her opinion, which definitely she always does. Hi, Nancy. Hi, Michael.
[00:01:43] Speaker C: Hi.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Tell me about Lisbon.
[00:01:46] Speaker C: Tell you about Lisbon. Well, you know, Lisbon is an area that's populated by about 500,000 people. So anyways, interestingly, Lisbon is one of the starting points for the Camino de Santiago trail that some industrious people like to hike on. The Camino de Santiago is actually many trails representing ancient pilgrimages originating from medieval times. So the trails were called the way of St. James, where pilgrims traveled to arrive at the church of Santiago de Compostela at Galicia, Spain, we understand to hike the trail is very beautiful, and many parts of it have views of the portuguese coastline, vineyards, and wonderful, small, quaint villages.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Yes, it can even go through the mountains regions. If you take one of those trails. It's quite a, quite a hike. I think the shortest one is roughly 115 miles, and I understand they do about 15 miles a day. So you have to be in shape a little bit to do that, would you not say?
[00:03:01] Speaker C: I think so. We should aspire to that, yes.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about the city of Lisbon. The 8th century castle of St George. It's a fortification consisting of a view terrace, a small town inside and the castle itself. It's an impressive overlook of the old town area of Lisbon, called Alfama. The rebuilt ruins are from the second century and the site has been occupied by the Romans, then the Moors, until it was conquered back by the Portuguese in 1147. Portuguese explorers were, you know, prominent and they called it the age of exploration. And it just happened to coincide with the Renaissance era, back after the 15 hundreds. And the two most popular explorers were the likes of Vasco da Gama, which he was from 1460 to 1524, and Ferdinand Magellan. Any us child has heard about Fernand Magellan. He was 1480 through 1521. But interestingly, the son of King John and Queen Philippa. There was another famous explorer and they called him Henry the Navigator, who somehow earned his title without actually taking too many voyages himself.
[00:04:22] Speaker C: How interesting is that? Next, let's talk about the church of saint. Oh, sorry. Church of Deronimos, which was built in 1495 by King Manuel. It was a gothic structure of architecture. And the church of Geronimos, its monastery and tower is a 900 foot long belem. It's belem, right? Belem waterfront structure along the shore in Lisbon. It required like 100 years to build. Imagine that. Finally completed in 1495 by King Manuel, who erected it to thank the portuguese explorers for their efforts and their daring, you know, daring do.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: To go out and undertake all those voyages on an ocean that was hostile, at the very least, all the way around the world in these old wooden ships that from the moment they built, they started to deteriorate and so forth. And this, the castle of the church of Geronimos, pardon me, 900ft. How long is a football field? Do you remember? Is it like 110?
[00:05:36] Speaker C: 110? 110? 120?
[00:05:40] Speaker A: Like 300ft or so, 400 something?
[00:05:42] Speaker C: 440, isn't it?
[00:05:43] Speaker A: 900Ft is a long way. And the church of Geronimo is actually an interesting place because it has the priest quarters as well as the church. And then someone very special was buried there.
[00:06:02] Speaker C: And actually, explorers, the explorer seamen, would spend their last nights before they embarked on their voyages. And they would be praying, and I would pray too, before undertaking these exploratory voyages. And Vasco da Gama's tomb is located inside the church.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Tell me something fun.
[00:06:22] Speaker C: Okay, I will. Something very sweet I will tell you about. So here is a fun part. Nearby this church, right?
You can have delicious vintage type pastries from pastes de belem. And these are amazing. You got to taste them. But anyways, a little history on that dating back to the early 18 hundreds. When the monks made and sold these specialty pastries in that location, they would serve the most, you know, most amazing pastries there and. And called pastel de natas. Actually, that's what they're called. And they're made of. The same recipe is made today as it was back then with the monks. And this is a place you gotta go to.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, you know, the interesting part of it is we tried these pastries throughout other areas of the region, and no one could compare with the recipe and the taste of the pastes de bellum. And it's a special bakery that they have right there where the monks were actually plying the goods for commercial purposes back many centuries ago and from time to then till now.
[00:07:37] Speaker C: And remember seeing the horses, the horse drawn carriages? It was a really quaint area along the waterfront, which. That's so wonderful about Lisbon. So many places you go and to the outer areas, it's right by the water, which is really lovely.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And actually, you could actually see the bellum structure from the castle of St. George up above, on the top of the hill overlooking the city and the waterfront. It's just totally amazing.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: And vice versa.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, Lisbon has many great restaurants. We found that they specialize in mussels and clams and saute garlic prawns, spider crab. And there was one restaurant that we really liked, it's Serviharia Ramiro, and it's very popular dining spot, and they do the best at serving these seafoods. It was just amazing. And that's where you first sampled the portuguese wine, the green wine.
[00:08:37] Speaker C: I think the green wine, which was rather interesting and very fresh tasting. So I would drink that again.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Yeah. You and your buddy Bernadette were having a ball with that, were you not?
[00:08:47] Speaker C: Don't tell our secrets.
Anyways, there's another area that we visited and that we would suggest. It's called Sintra. And Sintra lies on a mountaintop in the hills of Cerra de. I think it's Cerra de Sintra. It's a popular town of many castles, palaces and amazing mansions. Grand mansions. The location is said to be desirable because of the temperature that is more moderate than Lisbon, which can become rather warm. And on the way to Cintra, the Palacio national calous is a beautiful palace which was built in approximately 1747 for royalty, and they would holiday in the summer there away from the city. The palace was.
Was the birthplace and final home of, I think it was King Pedro IV of Portugal. And it's a very impressive place.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back. Urimax.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: And here's Michael Hatfield, business owners.
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[00:10:35] Speaker A: Call us now.
[00:10:37] Speaker C: Get help with buying or selling by calling the Michael Hatfield re max support team at 1800. 857 63. That's 1800. $857.63.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: And now back to our show to see beautiful fountains.
[00:10:54] Speaker C: Were there great photo ops? Just a wonderful, serene place.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I noticed that the photo ops are great for other people, but they put me in them and I tend to ruin the photo. Not actually. The reason most people want to go to Sintra or stay in Sintra is that the temperature is more moderate there than in the city of Lisbon. Although we were very comfortable the whole time we were there. Very nice. The people were extremely nice. We got around town using uber very well. And then when we were going out of town, it was very reasonable to hire a driver. And it sounds like, oh, you're getting chauffeured or whatever, but not so. It was very reasonable. They took us all around where we wanted to go, showed us the sights and it was very, very interesting place to be.
[00:11:42] Speaker C: It's lovely.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, one of the photo ops in the country of Portugal is called the Palazzio da Pina. And it's one of the most colorful castles. It's like every turret, every castle, every tower had a different color. It's situated on the top of a hill in the Sintra region and it was built by King Manuel I on a site where it was originally a ruined church. And they took, and they built this new palace and it took the place of the old ruined area and they made it a monastery called the Monastery de Nosa Senhora de Pina, and was built in the 12th century. Popular, popular place for most tourists.
[00:12:25] Speaker C: Yep. And on the way up to Sintra, which is in the higher elevation areas, one of the things that we noticed and we actually stopped to look at was cork trees. Cork trees that are actually the cork that we use in our wine bottles here and around the world. And cork is also. Cork items are also handcrafted by.
By these cork trees and the cork that comes out of them, and they make it into purses, wallets, luggage, all those things you like, and even shoes, which I like best.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: So you can have shoes that are made out of cork. That's incredible. I just thought cork was used for one thing and one thing only, and that's for wine bottles. But I see that it's different.
[00:13:09] Speaker C: No, no. Cork shoes are very comfortable. And then in Sintra, Michael, remember, we've had visited Palacio National Dicentra, which was a place with outstanding views and a taste of this charming town was just, you know, so sweet. So sweet to go to. Notable was the moorish influence and the architecture. And actually, I believe that Captain Cook, wasn't it, Captain James Cook lived there in approximately the 700. So that was kind of interesting history.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Wow. Going north? Yeah, we went actually further north to Obydos. And Obydos is a prime grape growing region where amazing grapes for wine are grown in Portugal. Portugal, known for their port, are also famous for its vino. Vina. Vinha.
Forgive my pronunciation, or it's the green wine. It's the one that Nancy and Bernadette happened to like so much, and they thought it was pretty wonderful. And also in the Caloris region, along the ocean, you can discover the most western point of the european continent. It's right there. It's called the Cabo da Rocca. It's a beach. It's a very popular place to go. The views are absolutely lovely as it provides just wonderful views of the beautiful Atlantic Ocean.
[00:14:32] Speaker C: Oh, yes, that was just spectacular up there. And one of the things I found interesting that was Portugal was founded in approximately 1143, and it was recognized as a country 350 years before Spain. And Spain, I guess, was founded in about 1492. And the portuguese kind of like that fact which we discussed.
That's kind of cute.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Just south of Lisbon lies my favorite location in the entire area. It's a beach town called Cuskais. And I may not say that one quite right. Cuskais. And it's spelled cascais. And it consists of lovely area of cliffs, dunes and crystal clear water. It's become a place where many wish to visit, to have a second home there, to perhaps even retire. And although it's tough to say the name, the area is full of locals that enjoy singing and dancing in the popular square areas in town. And they make it easy for you to savor their culture, their delicious seafood, impressive surroundings, and amazing restaurants with ocean views. And they keep telling you that there's no sharks in the ocean out there. No sharks in the ocean out there.
[00:15:57] Speaker C: I believe them. But, you know, I thought one of the things about Portugal that was so lovely were the people who we met. They were very lovely as a whole. We just really enjoyed meeting the people who were originally from Portugal. So that was fun. But one of the things in Cascade Kush case. Right?
Will you say it for me? Yeah, yeah. That. That's the place where James Bond was created as Ian Fleming, I guess, knew a, like, spy in real life. So he created zero zero seven, where he lived there. And whether that's true or not, I don't really know, but I enjoyed the place a lot.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Well, we're listening to. You are listening and hopefully viewing to the real estate and more show.
We're doing the world stage Lisbon, Portugal episode. I'm your host, Michael Hatfield. We have my partner in life, Nancy Hatfield, here with me. Please be so kind as to go to our new YouTube channel. It's called my real talk show. That's my real talk show. Subscribe. And hopefully, if you would be so kind to push, like, button, it helps us a little bit. And every time we see one of those kind of makes our day. And now let's hear more from Nance.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: So next on our journey in Portugal and the outer Lisbon areas was Obidos. That's 53 miles north of Lisbon. And we transitioned there to their wine country up there, which lies the Castel de Obidos. And Obidos is a walled city full of tons of history, and it dates back to roman times, which was really fascinating. Recent excavations have revealed, like, roman bath, a forum, and some other roman structures. Really amazing and fascinating. Obidos gets its name as a derivative from opidum, the name of any main settlement of any main settlement in any ancient roman area.
A roman style architect or a roman style aqueduct was built in the 15th century, which we saw, and it was built by Queen Catherine. And it delivers water to two of the fountains that are in the walled city.
Yes. Avobidos really, really neat. And if you have tons of energy and you feel a little adventurous, you can even walk on the very top of the walled city. But, you know, might be a little risky, but adventurous.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: There's no actual guardrails up on the top of that wall, but I understand the views are just amazing. We didn't do it because we were going to find some more pastes and compare those to the ones that we had down on the bellumental waterfront, where the monks recipe was prominent and the location very prominent as well. But it was an interesting city, obydos. And what was interesting to me is that I saw the aqueduct, and I thought, wow, that's pretty amazing shape for something that was built in roman times. And then later on, we discovered that it was the 15th century that King Catherine had actually, actually had built it. So another thing in Oviedos is that they have this local specialty of wine. It's a Ginga cherry liqueur the town's known for. It's called gingacha. I think everyone loves it, and for good reason. It is served in a chocolate cup. And this type of drink has been present in Portugal since the first century, but then it became very, very popular in the 17th century when the monks started making it and adding sugar and using some aqua dente. It has to be 50, maybe 100 proof. Good going, monks.
[00:20:04] Speaker C: You don't need to know how to say it, you just need to know how to consume it.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And it was in a chocolate cup. Unbelievable.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: Yeah, pretty cool, actually.
Another area that we discovered was Nazare, which is an amazing, amazing beach town. My kind of place, where the largest waves in the world occur during the month of November and I think early winter. And one of Nazareth's major attractions, of course, the waves and the surfing, thanks to the Nazarene canyon, which is a submarine geomorphological phenomenon that allows the formation of these perfect giant waves to occur. So we did stop there, took a photo or two and blew away in the wind. But it was really amazing to stop and kind of consider that along Nazareth, the largest underwater canyon is in Europe, is there. And it's said to cause, is said to be the cause of so many of these perfect giant waves. It's really fascinating.
Our driver claimed that there are no sharks again, right there off the coast of Portugal. So we're not quite sure about that. But that was really an incredible, beautiful place.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Well, I've never done much surfing, but if I did, and if I was any good, I would be like all the rest of the surfers that come from all over the world to enjoy the surf of these incredible waves. And Nazaire.
[00:21:32] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Wow. Incredible. You know, popular story of the time of the town of Nazaire is that the legend of Nazaire is, is well known by everyone. And it came from a small wooden statue of the Catholics. Virgin Mary, the Madonna. This statue apparently was secreted from the Holy Land, Nazareth, by a monk and taken to a monarch monastery near Merida, Spain, in the fourth century. It was then stolen and hidden in caves near Nazaire. The statue was later found by a humble fisherman, a local fisherman near Lazare, and then is said to have performed miracles. Eventually, they presented the artifact in a small church overlooking the beach, and portuguese explorers of the age, exploratory age, came there to pray before departing on their hazardous exploratory voyages. Vasco da Gama was a regular prayer person to this location before beginning his voyage to India.
[00:22:37] Speaker C: I think he was smart. I would be doing that too, if I were him, to embark upon that. Those, you know, those things, those voyages.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: At the time were incredible because the ocean is not always relatively smooth and calm, and then they embark in these old wooden ships that, you know, wood is great, but they tend to get little bugs into the wood, and at some point it tends to become precarious. So what is that point?
[00:23:05] Speaker C: Rather impressive, though, for sure. In the beach town below that is one of the best seafood restaurants that we discovered in Europe on our trip, and it was called Mar Bravo. Situated, situated right on the Atlantic. Spectacular for the cuisine and the ocean views. Just loved it. Loved it. Again, a beautiful beach town. Another thing that we saw there was, well, along our travels, was the church of Batalia. The church of Batalia, or Santa Maria d Vittoria monastery, is really spectacular, magnificent and fascinating. Boasts the influence of gothic architecture. And the Monsterio de Santa Maria da Vittoria was erected in memory of the 1385 battle of Al Jubarota.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: They're all Juburota.
[00:24:01] Speaker C: Yeah. And was intended to be the burial church of the 15th century portuguese royalty. So that was kind of interesting.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: You know, one thing is the architecture, just amazing. You could see the gothic influence competing with the manuelian influence of architecture at the time. It's just very, very fascinating. You know, I gotta bring this up because we're getting shorter on time than what I thought, but I've not seen a Pan am, Pan american world airways sign in probably 40 years. And then on the way from the church of Batalia, Fatima.
[00:24:39] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Which is where also a location where the Camino de Santiago trail from the portuguese way goes through. But there's this big blue sign on the side of the roadway that's still there advertising Panama. So it was just amazing. Now, Fatima was our next location. We went there, and it's a huge church and a huge square in front of it, and it has an ambiance to it that makes you very calm and very much at peace, whether or not you're of catholic persuasion or whatever. It's an interesting place because that's where the three young people saw the vision of the Virgin Mary. And at the time, this was, like, in 1917, it was a prediction of three promises that was given to these three children. The first two of the shepherd children only lived for a couple years past that point. But then there was one Lucia, that lived into her nineties and eventually passed, I think, in 2000, I don't know, six or thereabouts in old age, that she kept the third promise with her. The way that we understand it don't hold us to total accuracy with that, but it was a very interesting place to visit, and we'd recommend to anybody to take a look, see what it's all about.
[00:26:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Fatima was rather fascinating, actually.
Another thing along the portuguese coastline that we saw were several forts, fortifications, that were built in the 16 hundreds to protect Portugal. And guncho beach near Cache case has fortaleza do windshield. Yeah.
This Fort beach is an ancient fort built to protect the citizens coastline there. And it is prominently built on a bluff. Amazing structure above the ocean, sunsets like you can't imagine. Just a lovely five star hotel. Its restaurant, and just everything about it was so neat. And Michelin star restaurant, I mean, nearby, I think, wasn't it the one that was nearby, the five star?
[00:26:59] Speaker A: It was actually in the hotel.
[00:27:01] Speaker C: It was a Michelin star. Okay, that was a Michelin star restaurant, but pretty incredible.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Okay, well, in conclusion, we have discovered the wonderful country of Portugal, and we have to say, put it up on your list of places visit, to hang out, to retire, maybe, if that's your chapter in life. And I understand the eligibility for portuguese citizenship can be established through various means, including residency, marriage to a portuguese national, descent from portuguese ancestors, or through investment means such as the golden visa program. It's pretty straightforward, I understand, for a us citizen, if you wish to apply for dual citizenship. But we've talked today on some of these lovely areas around Lisbon and agree these locations are worth visiting twice, wouldn't you say, Nance?
[00:27:54] Speaker C: Absolutely. No question about it.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Nice people, nice places to go. I mean, what else could you ask for? You enjoy yourself in Portugal. So a huge thanks to my partner, Nancy, for being on today and recounting some of the stories that we had from our trip to Portugal, just around the Lisbon area. But it was just amazing. We're going to save the next trip to go north, wouldn't you say? Thanks for being on the show, Nance. Thanks Michael, you've been listening to the real estate and more show entitled the World Stage Lisbon, Portugal episode, and we'll be right back with our next guest, our next special guest.
[00:28:30] Speaker D: Stay tuned.
