Hooray - the countdown to Hornucopia 2011 begins! We're now just over a month away so I think we're all agreed that it's a good time to starting thinking about what we want to do. I've created a list over on the righthand side of the blog based on the various suggestions people have made. What else do I need to add?
Also - do we want to revive the Hornucopia Yahoo group?
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Portugal: the sights - Sintra.
I'm finally getting round to posting some Portugal pictures. And we have a lot. So I thought I might as well group them into themes/days.
So here's Sintra - a UNESCO protected site, for its architecture (Lord Byron apparently liked it). There are a lot of palaces, including this one (Palácio Nacional de Sintra), which we drove by, but didn't visit:
There is a really great castle, originally built by the moors (it's called Castelo dos Mouros), and then adapted and expanded by others. It has some nice intact features and has a real castle-y feel:
We also visited a palace - the Palácio Nacional da Pena (in my head I always added an extra 'n'), which you can walk to from the castle. Here it is from the castle:
And here's the entrace. It's all pretty colorful throughout.
If you look closely, that middle building with the archway, is kind of blue-ish. It's actually covered in tiles that look like this:
The level of intricate detail on a lot of the palace was crazy. And we found out that Portugal has a lot of tiles. We walked around inside, where you weren't allowed to take pictures, and they made you wear your bags on your front, I guess so you don't accidentally knock into anything. But sometimes you ended up on the outside, where we could take pictures.
We also stayed in a nice hotel in Sintra. An old converted villa, in lovely grounds, with a pool, and views of the castle in the distance. Very nice!
So here's Sintra - a UNESCO protected site, for its architecture (Lord Byron apparently liked it). There are a lot of palaces, including this one (Palácio Nacional de Sintra), which we drove by, but didn't visit:
There is a really great castle, originally built by the moors (it's called Castelo dos Mouros), and then adapted and expanded by others. It has some nice intact features and has a real castle-y feel:
We also visited a palace - the Palácio Nacional da Pena (in my head I always added an extra 'n'), which you can walk to from the castle. Here it is from the castle:
And here's the entrace. It's all pretty colorful throughout.
If you look closely, that middle building with the archway, is kind of blue-ish. It's actually covered in tiles that look like this:
The level of intricate detail on a lot of the palace was crazy. And we found out that Portugal has a lot of tiles. We walked around inside, where you weren't allowed to take pictures, and they made you wear your bags on your front, I guess so you don't accidentally knock into anything. But sometimes you ended up on the outside, where we could take pictures.
We also stayed in a nice hotel in Sintra. An old converted villa, in lovely grounds, with a pool, and views of the castle in the distance. Very nice!
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