Heyjude

Postcards from Around the World

From Spain we are moving on to Portugal and the capital city of Lisbon. A compact city which despite its hills is very walkable, but you can also get onto one of the historic trams which is a common mode of transport for Lisbonites. The no. 28 is the best known, but there are others.

And don’t miss the Glória funicular which leads to the São Pedro de Alcântara Miradouro overlook above Lisbon or the Santa Justa elevator designed by Ponsard, a disciple of the great master of iron works, Gustave Eiffel, more than a hundred years ago.

I spent a few days exploring, mainly walking around the various districts of Alfama, Bairro-Alto, Baixa-Chiado and Rossio and admiring the views from the various viewpoints around the city.

But do not miss a visit out to Belém where you will find two unique monuments: Jerónimos Monastery and the Tower of Belém which are World Heritage Sites. This historical and scenic district, along the River Tagus, is about 3 miles (5 km) west of downtown Lisbon. Getting there by the 15E tram (which goes to the tower) proved difficult from the train station Cais Sodré, as by the time it reached this stop it was full. Patience paid off though and just when we were considering catching a bus, one came along with standing room.

Jerónimos Monastery in the Gothic Manueline style

There was already a queue to get into the monastery and with time being short we opted to just look from the exterior and instead visited the nearby Maritime Museum which is a World of Discoveries. It reflects the importance of the experience and knowledge that the pioneering Portuguese navigators brought to the world. Great if you are fascinated by the Portuguese explorers (as I am).

The Museum of Contemporary Art is worth a look too before crossing over to the Jardim da Praça do Império (Empire Square), built for the Portuguese World Exhibition (1940) which commemorated the 800th anniversary of the independence of Portugal and the 300th anniversary of the Restoration.

Because of a main road and railway lines you need to use an underpass to get to the area along the waterfront which is lovely.

A symbol of Portuguese flag, the armillary sphere, place close to the “Padrão dos Descobrimentos”. By Edgar Barreira

Here you find the extraordinary Monument to the Discoveries / Padrão dos Descobrimentos which was first erected in 1940 in a temporary form, as part of the Portuguese World Exhibition, built with perishable materials. The 171 ft (50 m) tall monument was reconstructed in 1960 to remember the 500th anniversary of Prince Henry the Navigator’s death. You can go up to the top but again be prepared to queue.

The figures includes explorers like Vasco da Gama and Magellan, monks, cartographers, kings, writers, navigators, and missionaries among many other professions. At the base of the monument is a large mosaic with a world map showing where the Portuguese explorers landed and important dates during their expeditions.

And there is a lovely walkway alongside the River Tagus to the Belém Tower,

Of course our last stop was to the popular Pastéis de Belém patisserie which is the original home of the delicious Pasteis de Nata or Pasteis de Belém (custard tarts). Good coffee too.

Postcards from Around the World

The first thing my daughter and I did on arrival in Barcelona (after dropping our cases off at the hotel) was to join a free walking tour starting from Plaça de Catalunya and finishing at the waterfront. Of course a free walking tour is not exactly free, you are expected to offer a donation at the end of the tour, which in this case was well worth it.

Feeding the pigeons in Plaça de Catalunya

We wandered around the many back streets and the Gothic Quarter a stone’s throw from La Rambla and believe me there are so many narrow alleyways that when we tried to find some of the places later on by ourselves, we got completely lost.

Carrer Petritxol, in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter – it has a lot of shops, murals, and art – and home to one of Barcelona’s most delectable treats: the perfect hot chocolate and churros.

Just about every shuttered doorway is covered in murals and graffiti and I was frantically snapping shots as we moved on.

Barcelona is a shopaholic’s paradise as well as being full of historical buildings and art. I was fascinated by these tiled murals that decorate the walls in this narrow pedestrian street, Carrer Petritxol, in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. It runs from Portaferissa to Plaça del Pi, not far from La Rambla. The murals tell stories of past events and famous residents or visitors.

There are several art galleries along this street as well as shoe shops, soap shops and chocolate shops!

The end of the tour was at El Cap de Barcelona from where we headed down to the beach and the Makamaka restaurant for cocktails and some food.

Created in 1992, the Head of Barcelona is a 64-ft. abstract statue by American Roy Lichtenstein.

(The header photo is the balcony detail on the Casa Pia Batlló, which is located on the corner of Rambla Cataluña and Gran Vía de les Corts Catalanes. The building is in the Modernist style, built between 1891 and 1896 by the architect Josep Vilaseca i Casanovas.)

Postcards from Around the World

There hasn’t been an awful lot of travelling for this blog in recent years and whilst stuck at home during the dreadful wet weather I have been sorting through my photos. A very slow task! But I realised how many photos have never made it onto a blog post, so my idea for this year (2024) is to pick out some of my unused images for a journey around the world.

We’ll begin with this very apt photo of a shoe shop in Barcelona. Though I think you’d need rather longer boots to cope with our rainfall!

Primary Colours: RYB

Sofia’s challenge for us this week is all about colour. Specifically primary colours: red, yellow and blue. BUT like many things in the world, the issue of what are primary colours has become more complex. Most of us would have learned when painting at school that RYB (Red, Yellow and Blue) are THE primary colours, but now we have to take into consideration the way light blends colour for instance the RGB colour model, which has red, green, and blue as your primary colours, and is used with things like television screens and computer images. Then there is the CMYK model which includes cyan, magenta, yellow, as well as black, and is mainly utilised for printing.

“I found I could say things with colour and shapes
that I couldn’t say any other way;
things I had no words for.”
~ Georgia O’Keeffe

Since the main colours for paint pigments are red, yellow and blue and cannot be created by mixing other pigments I’ve stuck to photos in these colours for the challenge.

Fishing boats

Positive Form

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #264 | Primary Colours

Nature Photo Challenge: edibles

Once upon a time (2016) I ran a challenge on my Earth Laughs in Flowers blog with different topics for each month. During July it was edibles. So I have picked out a few of my favourites from that month for Denzil’s challenge this week.

As summer comes to an end you see the fruits appearing in the orchards all over the country. Kent is known as the ‘Garden of England’ and where better to show you fat, juicy, purple plums

and fresh crisp pears.

Known as zucchini in the USA, Germany and Australia from the Italian word zucchina or simply squash or baby marrows in other parts of the world. The word courgette comes from France. Although considered a vegetable in the culinary sense, botanically it is actually a fruit.

Herb gardens and potagers are favourites of mine. And herbs are really the only edibles that I have been successful in growing.

My herb garden: Society Garlic, Golden Marjoram, Lemon Verbena, Sage, Nasturtiums, Sweet Cicely, Parsley, Borage, Garlic Chives, Origanum

A potager is really a combination of a traditional English kitchen garden (which always used to be consigned to the back of the garden) and the style and elegance of a French garden. Plants are chosen for their edible and ornamental nature and put together in such a way to look beautiful whilst providing food for the table.

Potager where edible flowers and herbs grow among vegetables.

A potager can be any design, from traditional knot gardens to informal cottage garden style.

Sunflower seeds or kernels are commonly eaten as a snack food. Often used in bread making and baking, added to muesli and other cereals, mixed with peanut butter or even made in to sunflower butter as well as being sold as food for wild birds.

Finally my daughter’s allotment. With a growing family and a full-time job as a child minder as well as studying for a degree she no longer had time for it so had to give it up, but for several years she managed a plot a few hundred yards from her home where she learned how to grow her own produce for the table. Beans, carrots, onions, squash, courgettes, sweetcorn, garlic, peas, radishes, beetroot, strawberries, rhubarb and even Cape gooseberries.

An allotment is a lot of hard work – preparing the soil, digging in lots of compost and manure (where she lives it is all clay), weeding, sowing, watering, keeping bugs at bay – but the rewards are immense.

Not only the flavours of freshly picked produce, but also the ability to grow unusual varieties not found in the supermarket, the knowledge that no air miles are involved, the sense of achievement in growing your own and the enjoyment of sheer hard work keeping you fit and healthy and outdoors.

Denzil’s Nature Photo Challenge #24 | Edibles