When the American Bridge Company finished building the first bridge across the River Tejo in Lisbon, so the joke went, the company president sent a cable to the Portuguese government saying:
"What name shall we put on the inauguration plaque?"
"Why, the name of the most famous Portuguese of all!" the dictator's representative cabled back.
"Do you spell Eusébio with an 's' or a 'z'?" the Americans responded.
The bridge, of course, was inaugurated on 6th August 1966 with the name Ponte Salazar, which it kept until the Carnation Revolution of 1974. Now it is known as the Ponte 25 de Abril to commemorate Portugal's peaceful liberation from dictatorship.
Wouldn't it have been wonderful if the joke had become reality, though; if that iconic footballer, the first black African to become a really international football star, had been commemorated instead?
I think the Ponte Eusébio da Silva Ferreira would have sounded great.
Rest in Peace Eusébio!
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To read more about the Serra da Estrela, its inhabitants and their traditional woolen material, burel, click here.
Just on the outskirts of Porto near the Rio Douro is Villar D'Allen, a 19th century villa boasting a comprehensive collection of around 600 camellias, my Mum's favourite tree and hence the reason for our visit.
To read more about Julie and her Mum's visit, click here.
If you were to design and build a castle, isn't this exactly what you would draw: a square keep, four turrets with little conical hats on top, a crenellated wall with arrow slits. It's almost a perfect Lego design. Yet this is no Lego, it's a historic castle standing on a hill in Santa Maria da Feira, a region just south of Porto.
Against the sun the castle manages to look severe, threatening even but that is because we were there at the wrong time of day and couldn't stay for better pictures – we were due at a meeting in Porto later.
To see more about this castle, and its importance in Portuguese history, click here.
What is it that makes us interested in something? Is it our genes? Or maybe our surroundings? Our childhood experiences? Who knows? One thing that is certain is that some people experience an overwhelming fascination which may be incomprehensible to others. Most of us, for example, find entomology a bit of a turn off. Beetles and greenfly? Who cares as long as we can rid our gardens of them? Other interests, even if we don't share them, are more understandable.
Here I'm going to share with you the obsession of Dr Lopo de Carvalho, a doctor who lived in Geraz do Lima just off the southern road from Viana do Castelo and its suburb of Darque to Ponte de Lima.
To learn about his special interest, click here.
You won't see too many flesh and blood shoeshine boys in Ponte de Lima, not even ones as well coifed as this one. I'm delighted to say that our little town is thriving and provides plenty of good work without young men having to clean someone else's shoes.
We also have an entrepreneurial mayor who has encouraged people into the town by sponsoring every sort of festival you can think of, from the Festa de Sarrabulho, a local dish made from pork offcuts and rice stewed in pigs' blood and the Festa do Vinho Verde, a green wine festival, through exhibitions of science and technology for students to wedding dresses and accoutrements. Some festivals are more appetising to an outsider's taste than others: what about a festival of lampreys? I find the fish so ugly that it puts me off but others claim it is really tasty. Whatever your particular interest, though, there will be a festival for you in Ponte de Lima, so all summer long the town bustles with locals and visitors.
To find out where this charming, old fashioned scene of a city gent and shoe shine boy fits into the picture, click here.
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