Blogs from Portugal, Europe - page 244

Estas son algunas de las fotos que tomé durante mi viaje a Lisboa....Mi impresión de la ciudad fue mucho mejor de lo que me esperaba. Había escuchado todo tipo de comentarios en relación a esta ciudad: que si se caía a pedazos, que era decadente, que era fea. Por otro, lado también estaban los comentarios positivos: que la ciudad era bonita, que tenía mucho encanto....Y la verdad es que me gusto mucho....Es una ciudad entre colinas, con mucho colorido y con unas vistas desde los diferentes miradores por toda la ciudad que bien vale la pena visitarla. He de decir que la comida portuguesa es sabrosísima: el cocido a la portuguesa, las habas a la portuguesa, la feijoada, el arroz caldoso, el bacalao a la parrila, los embutidos, los quesos.....Es una ciudad que vale la pena ... read more

We took a day trip this Saturday to visit Porto, the second biggest city in Portugal, and the home of port wine. Porto is on the coast and is a 1-hour train ride north of Coimbra. The most popular attractions in Porto are the port wine lodges which are actually across the Douro river in the city of Vila Nova de Gaia. The port wine lodges have been used as warehouses for port aging, storage, and shipping since the mid 18th century. These days most companies have updated their warehouses with tasting rooms and tours. Visiting here was almost like going to Napa or Sonoma (or other wine regions), but all of the lodges are really close together so it’s pretty easy to walk between them. We went to three lodges: a tour and tasting at ... read more

Today we are in Lisbon, Portugal. When I stepped off the ship to go to our tour bus, I had to stop and do a double take. For a minute I thought the Captain had made a mistake and docked in San Francisco. To my relief I found that the illusion was The 25th of April Bridge over the Tagus River. Our first stop for the day is a park along the river that has two spectacular monuments. The first is the Belem Tower. Commissioned by Manuel I, the tower of Belem was built as a fortress in the middle of the Tagus in 1515-21. Starting point for the navigators who set out to discover the trade routes, this Manueline gem became a symbol of Portugal's great era of expansion. The real beauty of the tower ... read more

We just finished our first week of classes. It’s a pretty intense schedule, with 23 hours of class a week and four different subjects. We’re both in the beginning level, which has moved really fast (present tense, present progressive, ser vs. estar - all in the first 4 days!). As we expected, we are among the oldest students in the class. There are about 35 students in our class, and maybe 3 or 4 other people who are beyond standard college age. It’s been fine, though, and a lot of the students are really friendly. We’re the only Americans, and there are two girls from Quebec, and everyone else is European - there are a surprising number of students from Eastern Europe - Lithuania, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary - as well as a lot from Turkey. We ... read more

It was a hot month July … fortunately there were cool moments as well! Rotterdam was breathing jazz with the North Sea Jazz Festival and all kind of spillover events like the concerts at Dizzy, Floor or Prachtig. I liked very much the Brazilian-jazz concert in Doelen, with the Portuguese singer Magda Mendes. She started in her tiptoes but got more expansive as more people started entering the room. Yet, the absolute jazz related highlight was the 5-dinner-course jazz concert at Eendracht. What can I say? There were really moments of perfection: The complicity of Dana, Johan and Thomas, Pepijn’s menu, the blue notes, her voice, her presence … the Calabria’s glass as preface and that white-chocolate dessert … a ‘desiderio di morte’! “We cannot resist to a old wine, neither to a new idea” ... read more