Blogs from Portugal, Europe - page 198

Europe » Portugal » Algarve » Tavira September 12th 2008

The main town in the Algarve is Faro. We spent a day walking round the old town and came back another day for a boat ride on the lagoon. The lagoon has a lot of migratory birds in the autumn and spring, even flamingoes. ... read more

Passing through Porto

Europe » Portugal » Northern » Porto September 12th 2008

Porto Downtown

Kane

Passing Through Porto We leave the Maranton House Hotel and take the tube to Victoria Station where we go up a couple levels to catch a train to Gatwick for a short flight to Porto. A couple hours later and we are walking through the Porto Airport which is an impressive new facility. It seems too large for a city the size of Porto but perhaps in Portugal there are some future thinkers and maybe an intention to develop the tourism industry. Leaving the terminal building there is a new metro/subway service practically at the door that wisks us smoothly and quickly downtown. I wish I had been able to take some photos of the airport terminal but its size just made it seem that pictures wouldn’t be able to tell the story. The cameras ... read more

The magic of Cintra

Europe » Portugal » Lisbon & Tagus Valley » Lisbon September 10th 2008

Cintra F

linzcrowe

Tim version: * Back in Lisbon, Caitlin and I head to Cintra then relax wit dvds n whatever for the night. * Head off to Madrid the next morning. Slightly longer than long version: Back in Lisbon, back in Oasis, back home. I love this place! Today I wanted to go to Cintra (Sintra) as it has a mythical garden area built up by a man who used to be an Opera prop designer, making for one rich dude with a lot of imagination and so inevitably a very cool elaborate garden. Took me a while to get moving but a few hours after hitting Lisbon Caitlin and I head off to Cintra. Its a 45 minute train journey a different way to the other ways Ive gone so it gives me a new set of ... read more

Day 4-5: Porto

Europe » Portugal » Northern » Porto September 10th 2008

Taylor's

EliBoudreaux

Day 4-5: Porto Day 4: Porto After a good nights rest via strolled down the street towards the old town center of Porto(read: we took the bus...the whole 45min worth of it!!!). Today would be nice if could start it with a nice and sturdy breakfast, so we went to our local diner and checked out some pastries. During our grand meal we prepared our visit of Porto. So at 12h30 we decided to visit this little church called Igeja de Santa Clara, but when we finally arrived there it was closed for the afternoon siësta! Until 16h!!!!!! Apparently everything closed till 16h! So we sat ourselves down at the Avenida de Aliados at some public tables and chairs and I started typing a blogpost which we posted an hour and a half later. We began ... read more

subscriber problems

Europe » Portugal » Northern » Lamego September 9th 2008

EliBoudreaux

apparently something went wrong with the previous post ut you can find it by going to this post and then clicking previous...sorry guys!!!... read more

Day 3: Braga

Europe » Portugal » Northern » Braga September 9th 2008

Igreja de Misericordia

EliBoudreaux

Day 3: Braga After our well deserved night sleep we went to the reception straight away to check in. Little did we know that they didn't even realize that we were there. Our clandestine operation was a success! Finally we visited Braga. there are two things you can not do on an empty stomach: fighting and thinking, so we ate some croissants and some tea/coffee at a local diner. Braga gives you a military feeling because of its many concrete buildings. Even the nicest place is mainly and basically a concrete slab! Anyway, moving through the city we got to this nice little church, Igreja de Miséricordia, and what a fitting name! Only the outside walls still exist and they overflow into the Sé. The Sé outside is kind of sober. This is because it ... read more

Day 2: Procession of Lamego

Europe » Portugal » Northern » Lamego September 8th 2008

Valley Rio Balsemao

EliBoudreaux

Day 2: Procession of Lamego After our stay in the public park, we decided to visit the local supermarket for some bare necessities like campingaz to cook. For us nothing is far away, so we dicided to walk the distance.... Still walking....Finally we found ourselves a supermercado were we bought our stuff. On the route towards the supermercado we saw a little sign for Capella de Sao Pedro de Balsemao..So we thought: "Why not visit it while we're here?". We started walking...again...30min....no chapel....1h....no chapel...1h30min....no chapel...1h45min...chapel closed on monday's!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Heading back intelligence struck us...so we thought...the thing is we were following the valley of the Rio Balsemao....in the mountains....and Lamego was on the other side of this valley, so we tried to cross it...Walking through a vineyard and olive ... read more

Day 1: The city of 1 EURO

Europe » Portugal » Northern » Lamego September 7th 2008

train safety

EliBoudreaux

Day 1: The city of 1 EURO We arrived in Porto in time. To be more exact, we arrived in Porto ahead of schedule....about an hour or so! This is a nice way to start our vacation, isn´t it? Anyway, get in Porto an hour early was a lucky break that we could use, because our first major stop was in Lamego. Lamego itself is nothing worth writting about except if you like the small town village life with nothing to do but just hang around the town square. But, Lamego IS worth writting about if you like Catholic festivals. So we left Porto heading towards Lamego. First up: Finding a train station. Just take your local metro to the center and take a train....no biggie! Second take: Ordering a ticket in Portugues knowing you're on ... read more

Back in Lisbon, this place feels like home already

Europe » Portugal » Lisbon & Tagus Valley » Lisbon September 6th 2008

Castle entrada from garden area

linzcrowe

Tim version: * Back to Lisbon, chilled with Caitlin for ages, awesome girl. * Went to Tomar for the day and night and saw the Knights Templar castle + assorted other stuff. Fuller version: So back to Lisbon from Sagres and due to my slowness getting up n stuff I miss out on going to Tomar today. Not only that but Tomar has been wiped from the train website as a destination, wtf! Small nuclear attack up there perhaps? Or is it really that sleepy and not much goin on that they just decided that meh, noone wants to go there so we're gonna stop running services? Heh in my nerdy way, this stuff all pops into my head as a more likely situation that just that someone has stuffed up the website locations list... I ... read more

Portugal

Europe » Portugal September 5th 2008

Lewi 21

After my early arrival into Lisbon I was at my best using my non existent Portuguese to try and figure out where I could catch a bus to Ericeira to meet up with Jack Perry & Nic Muscroft who were surfing in the World Qualifying Series event, as well as Brett Girvan who was there to film the boys surf. After a few metro trips, when it did finally begin running, and an hour and a half bus I arrived in town, but the problem was I was 45 minutes too late to see mushy surf and he had bombed out in an unlucky heat. Unfortunately I would also not get to see Pez surf as Mushy had taken him out the day previous and Robbo (Adam Robison from Portland) missed out the previous afternoon as ... read more

Brief history of Portugal

Following its heyday as a world power during the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal lost much of its wealth and status with the destruction of Lisbon in a 1755 earthquake, occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, and the independence in 1822 of Brazil a...more history

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