Chessler Adventures: April 2025

Monday, April 21, 2025

San Francisco - Lands End and Legion of Honor Museum

This past Saturday Steven, Samuel and I went to land's end, or really Lands End (no apostrophe), the Northwestern portion of San Francisco, right on the Pacific. Lands End is a national park, full of wind-whipped cypress trees, wild California irises, bright yellow lupines, and magnificent views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

We stopped first at Lands End National Park store where I learned that the Golden Gate National Parks includes the Presidio, Crissy Field, perhaps the world's best known penitiary (Alcatrez), Fort Point (see previous post), Muir Woods (see previous post), Marin Headlands, Point Bonita, Tennessee Valley (not in Tennessee), Fort Funston and Sutro Heights. I bought a Deneen mug to commemorate it all, plus a map of Lands End, a 200 acre park home to very cold sandy beaches, the ruins of the world's largest bathhouse (Sutro Baths), a public golf course with expensive veiws, and a unexpectedly magnificent museum, the Legion of Honor.

As it had taken longer than expected to drive from the Embarcadero to Lands End, we made a bee line for the 101-year old Legion of Honor Museum. We arrived at 4:30 pm, just in time for free admission (it was closing in 45 minutes). A concert was just disbanding in the main hall, and much to my amazement, this stately old museum was home to many Rodin sculptures and some seriously famous artists - Titian, Bronzino, El Greco, Gainsborough, Dali, to name a few we saw. I then later learned I missed the Ruben and all the Impressionist painters. In short, I need to visit again. The museum also houses some lovely 17th and 18th century furniture displayed in complete rooms that Jane Austen would feel comfortable in.

Here you see Steven studying El Greco's portrait of John the Baptist.

Here you see Steven and Samuel ignoring the famous Three Shades, sculpted by Rodin using the same model.

Here you see the height of fashion (pun intended), circa 1745, with mile high hair and mile wide skirts.

Here you see the supposed reliquary of a few of St. Thomas Becket bones, fashioned by Limoges. And also a platter, again by Limoges, of Moses parting the Red Sea.

Here you see a countess, who had 19 children, with some of her brood, looking decidely unhappy, but dressed to the nines.

After our short but satisfying visit to the museum, we admired Rodin's Thinker in the outdoor courtyard, where high school students had gathered for their prom and pictures, and then headed for Lands End viewpoints.

We finished near Sutro Baths, a series of saltwater pools and one freshwater pool that opened to the public in 1894. Thomas Edison even made a short film of the pools in 1897. It was a popular place, built by engineer and millionaire Aldoph Sutro. According to Wikipedia, "During high tides, water would flow directly into the pools from the nearby ocean, recycling the two million US gallons (7,600 m3) of water in about an hour. During low tides, a powerful turbine water pump, built inside a cave at sea level, could be switched on from a control room and could fill the tanks at a rate of 6,000 US gallons a minute (380 L/s), recycling all the water in five hours." A marvel indeed.

Now it is just a series of graffitied concrete ruins and a big pond that birds appreciate.

I would be remiss not to mention Seal Rocks, which make for pretty pictures. Seals did not actually lay on these rather dangerous rocks, according to the National Park Service, but they did haul up on the beaches nearby.

We ended our hike by driving a couple miles East through SeaCliff with its exclusive neighborhoods of stately mansions, on to an an excellent meal at Han Il Kwan, a Korean BBQ in the Richmond district. It took an hour or so to get our meal, with a 10 minute hunt for parking (pretty typical in SF) and the 50 minute wait (also not atypical in SF). But well worth it.

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Sintra, Portugal: Moorish Castle and Pena Palace

Yes, we visited Portugal in September of last year. Yes, it's now April of this year. But there is never a bad time to talk about castles. I still have a vivid memory of the Moorish castle we saw in Sintra, an easy day trip by train from Lisbon.

The ruins of a Moorish castle, built circa 711-714 by Berbers and Arabs, are a big draw. Here is my quintessential idea of what castles should look like. Shrouded in fog on a craggy hilltop (though it was perfectly sunny the day we visited), and whipped by ferocious winds, it has a series of sentry walks and towers that put you in mind of a medieval castle, but not quite. A bird's eye view of the ramparts puts you in mind of the Great Wall of China skirting a cliff, though not so long as to be seen from space. And the castle has many layers, from the 12th and 13th century, and again in the 19th century when King Ferdinand II rebuilt some of the "romantic ruins," to the continued restoration in the 20th century.

Next to the ruins of Islamic houses are Christian necropolises and the Church of Sao Pedro de Cannaferrim with traces of Gothic paintings from the 15th Century. The church now houses archeological finds. You can spend all day walking the grounds, and we nearly did. We braved the wind the walk up to the Royal Tower, highest point of the castle.

From the ramparts you can see various palaces. Sintra is full of palaces - The Monserrate Palace, the Seteais Palace, the Regalaeira Palace, the Sintra National Palace, and the very colorful Sintra Palacio da Pena.

If I didn't know better, I would have thought the Pena Palace had been built by Walt Disney himself. Built on monestary ruins by Ferdinand II and finished around 1860, it is a fantasy castle, in styles ranging from Arabic to Portuguese gothic, with a lot of pastel thrown in. After wisely buying a shuttle bus pass, we used the shuttle bus to visit the Pena Palace, or as much of it as we could. Tickets to see the interior were all sold out, so we strolled on the grounds with one billion other tourists and walked up to the palace until a ticket was required. Fodor's tells me the interior is "ostentatious and bizarre" so I'm sorry I missed it. But the exterior is its own delight.

You could spend several days in Sintra exploring this historic village and royal summer palaces. Arrive by train (parking is nearly impossible), wear sturdy shoes and a windbreaker, and buy that shuttle bus pass. Worth every cent of the 13.50 euros for the day pass.