Fall Guests

This message is a little overdo, but we've had a lot of company in the past month and I didn't take many pictures and didn't post any.

First Maggie and Dennis arrived on a Friday night. The following morning we went to the international festival on the UNC Charlotte campus. We go every year and it was fun to go with new people. Dennis got sucked in to every booth with drums ... first he joined a Brazillian band, then was having a drum-off with a woman from somewhere in Africa. I forget which booth!

Mom and Dad and Cecilia and the girls arrived that afternoon and then the whole crowd headed to the beach for the week. We stayed at home working until the following week-end, when the crowds passed back through on their way home.

Cecilia and the girls stayed for two nights so we got in a nice visit.  The girls are very into playing video games on their tablets, and also helped Uncle Miran with his games!

There were lots of outdoor games as well, including an extensive rough housing game. I finally got them to hold still for a better shot at the end.

Two weeks later, Cecilia and the girls came back for more fall fun. Friday night after they arrived, we went to an Oktoberfest at a German restaurant. There was beer hall style seating, beer, bratwurst, spaetzle, and other German food, and a polka band with lots of dancing.

The next day we went to the Renaissance festival. THere were lots of activities and Uncle Miran enjoyed participating in the maze, archery, joust and other activities. He skipped the trampolines that the girls loved!

And Sunday morning before the Andersons headed home, we did a Halloween craft - monster-themed shrinky dinks. I had no idea they still existed, but saw them the other day and couldn't resist buying them to try with the girls. It took me a few batches to master the timing so they actually came out flat. The girls seemed to enjoy them as much as Cecilia and I did! Here they are making monster faces and posing with the set up afterwards.

Lisbon Days 5 - 8

I guess I've been remiss about posting the second half of the trip. Things got busy once the conference started and we've been coming back to the hotel fairly late in the evening so I haven't had the energy to download images and post. So this will probably be a long one while I sum up the last few days.

Wednesday - Day 5

We spent the first half of the day in the hotel room and I graded a stack of papers that needed to be returned to my students. About midday we headed out to see the royal palace of Ajuda, which is back to the west in the Belem area. Apparently its closed on Wednesdays though so we just saw the outside and the impressive port cochere. This palace was built in the 19th century after the 18th century one burned down.

However the palace botanical garden was open so we walked through that and saw some amazingly interesting trees. We also had lunch in the cute little garden cafe.

We then walked the rest of the way down the hill almost to the river to check out the very amazing coach museum. The Portuguese kings seemed to have save every carriage, sedan chair, litter, and chariot they owned for 500 years and it makes for a pretty impressive display. Many were gifts or built for special occassions - weddings, baptisms, etc. The building is lovely too, but we never figured out its original purpose. Its possible it was the coach house always because it isn't far from the palace.

 And here is a random shot of tiled facades. Half the facades are stuccoed like in most of Europe, but the other half are covered in all sorts of different tiles. Its very pretty.

Thursday - Day 6

We spent the whole day at the conference and didn't really see any sites. We learned a lot from the paper sessions we attended and grabbed a quick dinner afterwards and came home.

Friday - Day 7

I gave my paper in a 9:00 session and by 11:00 we were off from the conference. We headed a bit north to see a few museums in, and on the grounds of, some palace. (There are lots of palaces here). The museum in the palace was of costume and it was very thorough. It even had rooms dedicated to historic undergarments as well as to 21st century fashion (in the chapel of the former palace!).

Across the gardens of the palace was the Portugese theater museum. It was incredibly thorough and I'm sure very interesting if we read Portuguese. They had costumes, set designs, props, playbills and posters and everything else. My favorite part was a section where they had models of famous Portuguese theaters as well as earlier historic theaters.

 Next stop the National Pantheon. This was the third time we'd tried to see it, so we were pretty happy to have success. Its a very large church on top of a hill. It has tombs of famous sons and daughters buried elsewhere (like Vasco de Gama who we saw at Jeronimos) as well as many 20th century poets, singers, politicians and other national heroes who are actually buried inside. There are great views from the roof terrace - it really shows how incredibly wide the Tagus river is. The bridge you can't really make out in this picture below is 16 km long and is the longest in Europe.

The boat cruise last night was a bit of disappointment. The main concern was that there was no dinner on the 6:30 to 9:30 pm cruise, so everyone was quite hungry. Also, it was basically a ferry boat, and we had hoped for something a little fancier. Also, the Lisbon skyline is ok, but its basically the same, and we didn't really need to look at it for 3 hours. By the time we got off the boat, found dinner, and got back to the hotel, we were pretty tired.

 Saturday - Day 8

This morning we went to the conference again until lunch time. As we were tired and it was raining off and on, we decided not to try anything ambitious and just went to the Gulbekian Art Museum, which was very near the conference venue. We had heard of the museum before the trip but hadn't prioritized it, and I am so glad we went there today. Its based on the private collection of a very wealthy Armenian from Turkey who spent most of his life in Paris buying art and retired to Portugal where he left his amazing collection. It was the really nice 1960s building and integrated exhibition design that I particularly liked. It was a dark day and a dark interior with no flashes allowed, so my photo doesn't really do justice.

 We have had a wonderful time and seen so much, but are both very ready to go home tomorrow!

Lisbon Day 4

Last night after dinner we took a walk along Liberty Avenue, a very wide French-style boulevard near our hotel.

This morning we took a segway tour of medieval Lisbon. It was more of an experience than on the segways to tour on Which We Could see anything or learn anything. But we had fun.

Here is a view of mommy and the rest of the group headed up one of the steep hills. We were glad we Were not walking at points like this. We did get to see a lot of the neighborhood but mostly just whisked past sites.

We did breifly stop at a scenic overlook with a nice view back towards the castle we toured yesterday.

After the segway ride, we went the museum of design and fashion, Which was fine but not that exciting. Then we hopped on the train to the town of Sintra at the very lovely Rossio station.

After the 40 minute ride to Sintra we got on the hop on hop off bus which made a circuit around the town to the various palaces. It was something of a summer resort area for the royals and nobles in the 19th century and there are many very elaborate palaces in and around Sintra. The bus loop turned out to be about a two hour drive, and the driver did not stop at many of the stops, so we got a nice driving tour of the countryside. We did stop for a 5 minute photo op at the westernmost spot on the European continent where we had stunning cliffside views of the Atlantic Ocean. 

Then the tour continued and the driver did stop to let us off to tour the Pena Palace. This cliff top 19th century palace was built like a fairy tale neo-Moorish style and was in a very elaborate garden with lots of follies and sculpture. Because the garden was on the side of the mountain, we did not walk around it much. But we did go through the palace Which had a lot or really decorative rooms in fantastic styles. Lots of faux finishes and elaborate decorations.

 After seeing the Pena Palace, we came back to Lisbon by train, had a nice Italian dinner, and returned to our hotel.

Lisbon Day 3

It is about 3:00 in the afternoon and after an active morning we are resting in the hotel room Really Mommy is napping and I am pretending to get some work done. Maybe after I send these picture to you all.

Before I get to today's adventures, here is one more from yesterday I couldn't download last night because my camera battery was dead. It is us in the cloister of St. Jeronimos Monastery.

We started this morning in Commercial Square, a huge plaza built after the 1755 earthquake. 

 

Once you pass through that huge triumphal arch you are in Baixa, the pedestrian area and center of the city. Its full of shops and restaurants. We ate there last night as well as walked around a bit in that area yesterday and today. Its between everything so we keep coming back to Baixa. Here is a view back towards the arch.

Then we started walking up the hill to the medieval part of Lisbon. The first stop was the Church of St. Anthony, which was built on top of the spot where he was born. We thought the Aresco's would especially appreciate this site. Below is a picture of the facade and of Mommy kneeling in front of the altar in the crypt which is allegedly the spot he was born. Apparently John Paul II kneeled on this kneeler and prayed to St. Anthony in 1982. So Mommy is in good company.

 

Right behind the Church of St. Anthony is the Cathedral, which had an early medieval Romanesque nave that hadn't been changed much in the subsequent centuries.

Then we hopped a tram the rest of the way up the very big an steep hill to the Castle of St. George. It was built originally in the 11th century by the Moors, expanded by the Portuguese kings between the 12th and 16th centuries when it was their main residence, damaged by the earthquake, and reconstructed in the 1930s and 1940s.  Here are views of the outside and inside of the castle.

And in one of the towers of the castle there was a camera obscura that using a mirror and two lens and a periscope gave us a 360 degree panorama of the city. A guide worked the controls and pointed things out. It was amazing how clear and focused and detailed the image was. We could see cars driving and people walking.

After that we took two different public outdoor elevators down the hill to Baixa, walked across that flat part, and took the 1902 Santa Justa elevator up the hill on the other side to the Ciado neighborhood. Here we had lunch and checked out the Carmalite Church, which was damaged severely in the 1755 earthquake and left as a ruin as a reminder. It was very dramatic. It has partially been rebuilt we think as well.

Lisbon Day 2

We had quite a day today. We slept until almost 10:00 and then hurried not to miss breakfast that lasted only until 10:30.  We left the hotel at 11:00 am and returned at 9:30 pm after a fun filled day of sightseeing!

We started the day by headed downtown by subway to commercial square, where we bought a 3-day lisbon card that gives us access to museums and public transit. We took a very crowded tram ride out to the western part of the city, called Belem. In Belem we toured the enormous and magnificent Jeronimos Monastery. The Order of St. Jerome was apparently just active in Spain and Portugal and was kind of a national thing here. This monastery was closely associated with the kings for centuries. Many were buried here and built parts of it. Their palace was up the hill behind the monastery. We toured the monastery, its huge church, and the very extensive and well done archeological museum which is housed in part of the monastery.

Here is a view inside the main cloister, that almost gives a sense of the size, but definitely shows the ornate carving. Its a late medieval building in the Manueline style - which was kind of Gothic but with lots of maritime motifs meant to promote Portuguese sea power.

In addition to the kings we'd never heard of who were buried here, Vasco de Gama's was also in the Monastery.

The monastery faced onto the river across a beautiful park. On the river was a huge Monument to the Discoverers built in the 1950s celebrating 500 years of  Portuguese discoveries. The photo above of the monastery and park was taken from the top of the monument. As was the photo below of the pavement in front, which had a nice map of the world inlaid in it. In fact, all throughout the city we've notice really amazing paving designs, every square an sidewalk is laid in different stone patterns and its all very pretty.

Then we walked along the breezy river's edge to the Belem Tower. A cute little fortress also in the Manueline style. It was used as a prison and had some canons I guess to attack anyone coming up the river. In this picture you can also get a sense of how wide the river is (very). This is the mouth of it looking out to the Atlantic beyond. This blurry picture also shows how sunny it is. Sometimes its so bright its hard to get a good picture. I climbed up the stairs to the top of this tower as well, but Mommy turned back halfway up because the very tight windy stairs made her a little nervous.

We returned from Belem around 5:00 and once back at Commercial Square in the City Center, we had ice cream in a nice cafe and then visited a museum called the Story of Lisbon. Its basically another city history museum, but privately run. It had no artifacts like the one we saw yesterday, but had an extensive audio tour in English so we learned more. There were also lots of videos and photos to help us visualize. We've noticed that the focus is definitely on the Age of Discoveries (under Manuel of the Manueline style) and the 18th century rebuilding after the big earthquake - then it skips to the 1974 revolution. Not much discussion of the 19th century and no mention of the dictatorship.