Blogs from Portugal, Europe - page 160

Visita à Rota do Fresco - Alentejo - 22 a 24 de Outubro 2010 07h00 – Pontualidade britânica em Portugal. Chegamos em carro ou de táxi simultaneamente com o autocarro que nos levará ao Alentejo para uma Visita à Rota do Fresco (projecto baseado numa rede de parceiros locais – proprietários de património, entidades públicas, comerciantes, associações de desenvolvimento local – que tem por objectivo promover o desenvolvimento sustentável do território abrangido, e a preservação do seu legado cultural). O projecto foi criado em 1999 por Catarina Valente Gonçalves, historiadora de Arte e na sequência levada a cabo sobre o núcleo de pintura mural de Alvito. Rapidamente nos instalamos e o autocarro põe-se em marcha. Um nascer do sol esplendoroso: labaredas de fogo em céu azul ferrete. Viagem acompanhada por uma névoa insistente que sugeria temperatura ... read more

Update it's 7.50 in the morning and I am in bed listening to the pouring rain and the trucks removing hundreds of bottles. Last night and the night before we had a party happening outside our corner room in the street outside both of our windows. Apparently we are staying in the party area where there are 100s of bars. things don't start to happen until around 1.00am. Also yesterday absolutely poured also so we were unable to do our walking tour and not much else. It finally eased up after lunch so we went to a contemporary museum and saw an Andy Warhol exhibition which we both enjoyed. We also saw some other very weird modern art. I am seriously hoping the rain stops this morning or we might want to kill each other.... read more

After 5 lovely days in Lisbon we are in the air, en route to Istanbul via London. My parents, who are flying to meet us from Amsterdam (where they spent 4 lovely days with Thai family partying it up and eating yummy hot Thai food…… why didn’t we think of going there again????) are still there as their flight was overbooked, but they got a VERY decent euro compensation! Anyways back to our story! We arrived in Lisbon on Friday afternoon from Sintra. Our hotel was very central, a short stroll from the metro and bam in the middle of one of the main pedestrian malls in Lisbon. We took a stroll down to Placo de Comercial in the late afternoon to take some happy snaps. And got numerous offers of hash along the way! I ... read more

We are now on an Urbano train service to Lisbon. Sintra was a lovely little town, situated 29km from Lisbon. Our accommodation was a salmon pink manor overlooking the historical centre. The owner of the manor was a nice (and a touch eclectic) man named Luis whom we suspected by the Portuguese brochures was a follower of the new age Baha’i religion, which is very refreshing and interesting and so he is probably a hippie at heart. So the manor overlooked a large (unkempt) yard with pool, Jacuzzi, pond etc. Oh and squawking birds too! Wednesday evening we ventured around town and of course the centre is packed with souvenir shops, mostly selling cork products such as (expensive) handbags, purses, postcards etc. I couldn’t believe how useful cork is (not just used as a stopper in ... read more

The next day we flew to Porto. Now, I have flown within the Schengen zone before (Amsterdam to the Canary Islands) but the no passport check back then that didn’t make sense to me now does. Flying within the Schengen zone is like taking a domestic flight which we found out when we went to the immigration window and need not have had our passports checked, nor should we enter the ‘international zone’. Our flight was a small 57 seater - 1.5 hours to the lovely Porto. After a long walk to our hotel, we rested for a while and ventured out to the river whilst stopping many times along the way for photos of the beautiful old buildings. After along long time walking we reached to beautiful Douro river and had dinner there with my ... read more