Colares & Azenhas do Mar

We were looking for Colares, as I had an obsession with this place. I have a beautiful guide of Portugal, with lovely pictures, and I desperately wanted to "see the picture" for real...so we looked for Colares and we ended up in Azenhas do Mar. Actually this is the place we should have looked for...it is really breath taking...the cliffs are great, the ocean was not in the best "mood" so it made it more dramatic-I could have stayed there for ages and ages, enjoying the Sun, the wind, the waves and the magnifiscent scenery. This was on Saturday, the 28th of July. :-)

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Vila Nova de Santo Andre - 20th of July 2007

We took the bus to see a W.Shakespeare's play....and we traveled for about 2 hours to see it...and it was beautiful, and full of surprises - you can look for them on the Internet - Footsbarn Theatre - http://footsbarn.com/index_en.php

Batalha - July 2007

Santa Maria da Vitória na Batalha is a Dominican monastery - one of the best and original examples of Late Gothic architecture in Portugal – built to thank the Virgin Mary for the Portuguese victory over the Castilians in the battle of Aljubarrota in 1385. What is extraordinary about this place it is that it took two centuries to build, starting in the 14th century and ending in the 16th century, spanning the reign of seven kings. The construction stoped when the king João III of Portugal decided to put all his efforts in the construction of the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon and so the Chapels were never ended – they are called As Capelas Imperfeitas (The Unfinished Chapels) and can be very easily missed as they are accessible only from the outside. What is amazing about this place is the contrast between the darkness of the
gothic passages and the light offered with generosity by the open air Chapels, from which
you can
have one of the most emotional views of the sky and the clouds.
I wonder how one can feel if it stayed there under the rain or when a storm begins....,
or how one could
feel coming to pray every Sunday in these Chapels, looking so straighforward in the sky.

Alcobaça - July 2007

Alcobaça, whose name comes from the two rivers - Alcoa and Baça – is famous for its magnifscent gothic church, built by the first king of Portugal, Afonso Henriques, who wanted to mark his victory over the Moors, in 1147.
What I loved in Alcobaça was the grandeur of this construction, the large square in front of it and of course the beautiful and tragic story of the two royalties – King Peter I and his murdered mistress Inês de Castro. Legends says that Pedro loved Inês that much that he ordered the remains of his beloved to be transferred to her tomb in Alcobaça and made her be crowned as Queen of Portugal and ordered court members to pay her homage by kissing her decomposing hand. Well…that´s the way love goes… sometimes.

Cabo da Roca - June 2007

Aveiro

OPorto

OPorto is the city I fell in love with. Instantly! I loved its air, its silence, the fog, the streets, the buildings, the heights, the sunset, the dogs...
I went there without knowing what to expect as part of my friends were telling me - it's the most magnificent city  I have ever seen and the other was telling me - it's old and dirty and just another city. Well, I am telling you - it is not! I discovered it in four hours -well, what can one discover in four hours- abandoning one place and entering into a new one, getting into a garden by chance and ending up in a cab next to one of the nicest cab drivers I have ever met, who taught me what alfandega means and I taught him what ladybird is :-) I learned by walking, I started to cry with happiness when taking pictures from the Sé Cathedral and I still believe it is one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever lived - it could be subjective as I stayed a short period of time and tryed to "swallow" all the impressions, to feel all the stones and to breath in the fog. It could be that my perceptions were biased at that moment, it could be that I was only with my camera and wanted to tell the whole world how beautiful it is....it might be all of these...I do not know but I know that I would openly tell anybody - go see for yourself.