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At the mountains in Portugal
By Rodney Wheal | November 30, 2008
I went to Portugal with my Friend Martha Harvey and her Parents and her Cousin, Sherryl. On our way there we flew from Paris to Zurich and then from Zurich to Lisbon, which allowed us to fly over the Alps and the Pyreneese which were beautiful. We stayed in a tiny town called Azoia which was just a little out of the town of Cinta, and about an hour away from Lisbon. The house was great, and had an amazing view of beautiful green hills cascading down to the ocean. Just about a ten minute drive towards the ocean was Cabo de Roca, the westernmost point in Europe.
We spent some time just relaxing at the house, and went to a town called Cintra and walked around some. For the most part it was just a relaxing vacation and was nice to have a house and a family again.
We visited a few different places including one palace called the Pena Palace which was originally a monastary and was then converted into a palace for Portuguese royalty. It looked like a castle from Disneyland and was very vibrant. We took a tour of the palace and it was a luxurious place, with a lot of artistic influences from Asia.
We also went to a castle that was built by the Moors in the eleventh Century. I enjoyed that castle because it was very high up and offered a great view of the Portuguese landscape. It was very different from most of the castles I’ve seen in France because It was a very militaristic castle more of a fort than all of the luxurious ones in France.
We also visited a mansion called Quinta de Regaliera which was a very elaborate estate owned by a free mason. Because a free mason constructed the estate, there was a lot of symbolism and many things tied into the nights of templar. There was a well which had nine levels of stairs to dencend to the bottom, and once you reached the bottom there was a labyrynth of caves to walk around in. It was supposed to symbolize rebirth and one of the many different routes led to a garden full of water and plants. The water that it led to was supposed to be another sign of rebirth.
I went to another fort called the Tower of Blem which was another militaristic fort which guarded Lisbon and we also walked around a Cathedral and monastary. We went to the cathedral and it was during a mass of some holy day, but I don’t know which one, I’m pretty sure that it was All Saint’s day. I didn’t really understand what all was going on in the mass because I don’t speak Portuguese but having gone to a lot of Catholic masses I understood the structure of it enough to appreciate it and enjoy the time of prayer.
I should only have picture of the first few things that I talked about because they were the last things that I saw in Portugal and all of my other pictures of the cathedral, tower of Blem, and the stop in Switzerland are on my friend’s computer because I ran out of space on my memory card and had to load them on her computer. I should have them up here soon though, and bought a new memory card so I don’t run into the same issue in Italy and Dublin in the upcomming weekends.
If you want to regularily check into this you should probably subsribe to my blog if you haven’t already. I think that subscribing means that you will recieve an e-mail whenever I post a new entry and maybe you’ll be able to view all of my photos because I know that some people have been unable to view my photos that aren’t attatched to an entry.
That’s all for now! I leave for Rome tomorrow morning, and am stopping by Florence for a day on my way out.
Bye, Rodney
Topics: Travelers Stories |
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