October 11
Today our pilgrimage would begin. It all began when I searched the Internet for a pilgrimage group that visited Fatima, Avila, Lisieux, and Lourdes. I only found one with a tour group that I had never heard of: 206 Tours. When we were working at the Carmelite Monastery in Georgetown, it looked like our best opportunity would be in April 2010. But when the monastery had to let us go because of financial needs, we signed up for the one in October 2009. Many blessings followed: (1) We were able to end our monastery venture as we had started it with a pilgrimage; (2) This pilgrimage tour included an extra day at Fatima on the anniversary of the final apparition; (3) our tour guide and chaplain were both fabulous; (3) We weren’t constrained to the two week vacation that we had agreed upon with the monastery, so we could include extra days to visit family, London, and Paris. Oktoberfest 2009 was born.
Early that morning we quickly packed our luggage and asked the man at the desk to call a taxi. Within a few minutes we were headed for the airport. Our trip was 5-10 euros cheaper (than our arrival) since there was no late night surcharge. At the airport we had a simple breakfast then waited to see our tour guide. First, we ran into a fellow pilgrim, Mary Ellen, from Long Island. Soon after, we saw our tour guide, Javier, and our bus driver, Miguel. An hour or so later everyone boarded the bus for the Hotel Mundial in downtown Lisbon. I was impressed immediately by Javier’s knowledge of the area and his organizational style. He gave us a great overview of Lisbon as we drove from the airport to our hotel.
While everyone rested for a few hours at the hotel, Barbara and I found a spot for pizza and beer (Super Bock) before joining our fellow pilgrims for a quick bus tour of Lisbon. 206 Tours provided a professional local guide in Lisbon who expanded on the basic overview which Javier had provided. We were treated with special guides in all of our stops.
We saw the tomb of Vasco da Gama at the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos
then had a special pastry.
Later we visited the Church of St. Anthony where I found
a key ring for our son, Joseph Anthony.
“In this house, according to tradition, Anthony was born and lived…” The Italians claim St. Anthony since he moved to Padua. The Portuguese insist that he is, first of all, Portuguese, and have a great devotion to him.
Back at the hotel we noticed our power converter was hot and smoking. The instructions didn’t tell us to set the adaptor to high voltage. At least we didn’t ruin the laptop or burn down the hotel.
We enjoyed the first four star dinner of our Oktoberfest at the hotel on the 8th floor with a spectacular view of Lisbon. What a great start for our pilgrimage.
206 Tour of Lisbon