Ana Rita

M & D treated us to some real Portuguese culture as part of the weekend religious celebrations of one of the town's 'Our Ladys'.  The bullfighting season was kicked off on a rather cold and windy day with some Spanish style matadors and a fitting climax of a typical Portuguese bullfight featuring the fearless Ana Rita riding a mixture of horses in the ring with a rather aggressive bull.  At one point she fell from horse which had skidded on the rather slippery wet ground and had to make a hasty exit to recover and mount a new horse, featured here.  Portuguese bullfights do not permit the bull to be killed in the ring and so they all exited after being given the run around by various human performers.  This lady gave a stunning display of horsemanship (if that's what it is called), this picture captures a little of how close the bull came to the horse as they cavorted around the fairly small arena.  I must say, though it is not something I would normally watch, this was very impressive and really interesting from a local culture perspective.
Later we dined with the Padre and Ricardo with D & M and on returning to our very well appointed hotel, took a photo of the castle, lit up for the occasion.  See extra.  Morning in Lisbon was also great, but there are only so many photos!!