The sun made a rare appearance a few days ago, allowing us a chance to get out and explore the little town of Belmonte, known for its enduring Jewish community. Jews here have kept their faith alive for many centuries, often in secret, and throughout various periods of intense persecution. I have noticed only maybe one other visible instance of Judaism elsewhere in Portugal, but you can barely walk a block here without seeing a menorah or a mezuzah.

We headed straight to the castle, a short walk from the very old little stone house where we stayed. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves, and the kids always love a good castle. With relatively warm air, sunshine on our faces, birdsong on the breeze, and beautiful views of the rolling countryside, our spirits felt revived. The weather held for wandering around town and getting in a good afternoon jog – a gift!

We booked this stone house ages ago, shortly before leaving home, and since it was a nonrefundable booking, we had no choice but to stick with our plans and stay. While charming a bit in its age, we quickly noticed that everything was old: mattresses, the sponge, towels, appliances that barely worked, etc. It made for our most uncomfortable lodging in Portugal.

One silver lining, for the first half of our stay while it worked, was watching the Olympics on TV. Nic and I have not had access to watching the Olympics since we got married, so having cable while traveling is awesome! Our kids have seen very little Olympics footage, and they are loving it now. Figure skating wins as crowd favorite, but they are happy to watch skiing, snowboarding, luge, speed skating, or hockey.

Persistent rain dampened the rest of our Belmonte stay after the one day of sun, so we didn’t get to do much other than school there.

We have moved ourselves south to historic Évora now, after a driving day that brought us back to barf territory. Jude got carsick partway through our drive, unfortunately preceded by a breakfast that included a full cup of Greek yogurt. He appears to be just fine now, and we’ve managed to clean the car seat up in our Airbnb shower.

We arrived in Évora in sunshine, on a vibrant early spring day. Driving south through central Portugal, we saw little other than endless green fields of grazing sheep and cows. The occasional whitewashed village with accompanying castle dotted the countryside. Eucalyptus and pine trees tilted east and had obviously received a tough thrashing in recent storms. We drove over one dam with crazy churning water on the low side. As Portugal continues to struggle with flooding, we continue to be grateful to be away from the problematic areas. All the water from the higher inland areas where we have been for over a week now is flowing down and still causing major problems by the coast.