Hi,
This week I want to tell you about our visit to Citânia de Sanfins (8JF7+98 Sanfins de Ferreira, Portugal), an archaeological site not far from here (about 25 miles). It’s been a while since we’ve visited a historical site like this, so it was great to get out amongst the ruins and marvel at the orderliness of our predecessors. The straight lanes running through the houses show that city planning was as important back then as it is to me today.
We spent about an hour wandering around, having the entire city to ourselves. It was a beautiful sunny day and the dogs were in heaven sniffing every blade of grass and rock in the walls. Everything is new and exciting to Opal and Onyx, and I heartfully agree with them. Seeing centuries old homes and defense walls around them was an amazing way to spend our time.
Most of the homes were circular in shape, and only built up a couple of feet from the ground. One set of stones was built up and roofed over so we could get an idea of how a family would have lived in it. I videoed that home in detail, but the camera didn’t handle the darkness as well as I had hoped it would. Still, you can get the gist of it.
All in all, it was a lovely visit to an extremely old city. But that is what Europe is all about, right? Visiting old cities is top of the list here!
Nola
NOTE: Near the start of the video we take a sloping path to the right of the entrance as opposed to taking the stairs to the left. This resulted in us climbing up a short wall (about two feet tall) to change levels from the lower level of the city to the upper level. I just want to point out that if we had taken the stairs to the left, we would not have had to climb up the short wall. Accessibility is available (not for wheelchairs, but there are stairs available). This was my mistake because I am still cautious on stairs due to my leg sometimes giving out on me. If I had known I would be climbing a wall, I definitely would have reconsidered my choice! Still, as we learned later, we did not need to climb that wall. There was a sloping path further along that would have led us up to the upper level. But, we didn’t closely examine the sign out front and the visitor’s center was closed so we didn’t have a map on us to refer to. Live and learn, right?