The Roman Ruins at Conímbriga

Conímbriga. A Roman city sited atop an Iron Age settlement, predating Coímbra.

I took the bus out and back, two and a half euros each way. It is absolutely the last stop on the line, and the buses at the end are an hour apart. 

It goes through almost a dozen minuscule and not-so-small towns to get there. In one there is an ice cream stand that is built out into the roadway . . . traffic cones and everything, including chairs . . . the bus has to navigate around. Coming back downhill there was one of those "Your Speed Is" signs with the flashing lights. The posted limit was 30kph. Uh, we were doing an unapologetic 50kph. Just sayin'. 

Twelve sheep in a field. Town name on an arrow sign pointing uphill at a road a single lane wide. Old man and young girl in a field - him cutting cane ten to twelve feet long; her holding a batch of a dozen or so as he works. Kids getting on and off with schoolbooks. Little girl carrying a cell in a brown plastic zipper case. Ads for the McDonald employment openings.

And Conímbriga. Stunning in what it was. Breathtaking in its modeled reconstruction inside the museum. And field trips of school kids (three third- and fourth-grade groups and one high-school), beautifully behaved, learning their history. It made me wonder that American students don't visit Revolutionary- and Civil War sites, and more living-history sites.

Met a trio (Finnish, Dutch, German) of young hikers a week and a half out of Lisbon on their way to Santiago de Compostela. Conímbriga is a station where they can get their certification stamped that they walked the route.

I'm having to consider that. Lisbon to Conímbriga is 200km. At a week and a half that makes the remaining distance from Conímbriga of 400km another three weeks. That is a major investment of thought and effort. Especially for a married man who wants to stay married.

There are signposts just behind the visitor center to destinations showing distances.

I'm grateful Kathryn wasn't with me that walk. The weather turned blustery cold and rain-spit. I wish Kathryn could have been with me to see what I saw. 

And I'm going to be haunted by then ghost of not having bought the little red-glazed oil lamp with an erotic scene molded into its top. It cost thirteen euros. I didn't want to lug its minuscule weight around for the next five months, though I could mail it "home" to my cousin's, who's being our de-facto address in the states. I first saw clay oil lamps in a French or Belgian museum when I was a nineteen-year-old UT midshipman on a summer cruise. The placard behind that original display noted that two of the lamps were made by the same potter . . . the thumbprints in the clay were the same. That's a near to immortal as a human is going to get. As I say, haunted.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rambling about my rambling.

Because Life is Good.

Realized a couple of days ago, those hikers were headed for Santiago de Compostela to be there in time for Easter.