Breaking the Rule at the Palace

Yesterdays post was about "Palacio de Pena" in Sintra and i´ve shared photos from the exterior part of the palace showing mostly the beatiful and diversified style in architecture.

We are not allowed to take photos inside, i broke the rule (could´nt resist it even though security are all over)as i wanted a souvenir photo for myself to keep and now i would like to share it as well.

First, was the beautiful sitting room with a beautiful work of art in limestone or white marble (i think) at the ceiling. We cant go inside, the door is blocked with glass baricade.This photo was taken while hubby was the look out for the security.



Next was the Royal dining room, showing dinnerwares at the table and on the other side are the silverwares.



Now, i´m not sure wether this was the Kings bedroom (i guess it was), the reading room next to it then the bathroom.Last was the observatory room of the King.



After these photos, i was not able to take more as the securities started following us closely when they perceived we´ve been taking pictures.
Therefore,the Queens and her lady in waiting bedrooms,the family room and other guest rooms were spared.I can only be happy with what i´ve got.

Palace Wonderland

Last Saturday, we went back to Sintra(Pls.read my previous post" A visit to the Castle in Sintra",Sept.07, 2007).This time, we are finally visiting the "Palacio da Pena"( Pena Palace)a National Monument built by King Fernando II who fell in love with Sintra when going up the mountain range for the first time and sighted the ruins of an old Convent of Frades originaly built during the reign of King João II and transformed by King Manuel I who ordered it to be reconstructed in praise of Our Lady of Pena, donating it again to the Order of Monks.

Entrance fee for tour to the Park and the Palace cost 8 euros each
Below are the signs showing us the way,followed by hubbys photo at the entrance gate.Then I noticed this group of young people dancing and having fun.We could have taken the classic bus up to the palace for 1.50 euros but we did´nt, thinking that walking way up was not that dificult as it was not that far from the gate.BIG MISTAKE!!



As we reach the Palace, we were enticed by its beauty! Like the ones in the childrens book of princess and prince enchanted kingdom as shown below.Pls click the photos to enlarge



The Palace constitutes one of the major expression of the 19th century romaticism in Portugal.The then young Prince Fernando who acquired the old convent which was devastated by Lisbon eartquake in 1755,began his romantic dream to reconstruct the convent and annex a new part of it to Portugals Royal Family summer residence. Almost the entire Palace stands on spectacular and enormous rock as you can see from the photos above.

The palace has a profusion of different styles and the volume movement has an unusual architecture.The mixture of eclectic styles,(neo-gothic, neo-manueline.neo islamic.neo-renaissance and among other styles)are intentional.Details of different styles will be shown below.

First photo is the main gate and the two watch towers above it.Next is another entrance door,colums or pilars,doors,windows and many more details that i could only post some of it for now.

Another Day Out

One Saturday morning , while having our breakfast at around 8:30 AM, hubby was telling me about something he read in one magazine featuring events for the week end. He said, he forgot to asked me the night before if im interested to see a falcon hunting show in Alter do Chão, Alentejo.Show starts at 10:30 AM, we might not make on time if we decide to go.

As hubby is not familiar with the place, he could´nt tell me how far or how long will it take for us to travel to the place.We checked our map to locate the area and calculate the distance ,its about 200 kms. drive from Lisbon! We´ll not make it to see the show on time but as i wanted to go and see another new place in Portugal, I tried to enticed him by reading a typical menu speciality of a restaurant nearby the place. As expected,"Prepare yourself quick and lets go!" That order was music to my ears..hahaha!

The drive to Alter do Chão was a pleasant one, it took us 2 hrs to get there and as we entered the village,this was what greeted our eyes..A small pleasant looking village and I did´nt expect to see another 13th century
"Castelo" in the area.




We stoped by the tourism offuce in this building below and took the photo next across the building.



We decided to have our lunch before proceeding to" Coudelaria Real" (Royal Stud Farm) an institution founded during the reign od King João V in 1748.

For lunch, we started with, "Quejo curado"cured cheese of the region (usually from goats milk), "Torresmos" crispy fried pork belly, olives and again " Pão Alentejano" bread from Alentejo. And for the main dish, hubby had "Pesinhos de Coentrada" (young porks feet with lots of coriander)Not my kind of food but its one of the speciality in the region, and i did eat a piece, it was good! Anyway, I ordered "Borrego no forno com arroz amarelo (yellow rice)"a baked lamb chops with safron rice.As for dessert we had a tarte called "Tecomeco" exquisite name for dessert but was also good as it was made of almonds,egg yolk and white pumpkin sweet.We ate very well!! Ahhh! and a very good house wine from the region! For everything that we ate, hubby only paid 27.50 Euros!! Quiet cheap is´nt it?



After lunch, we then proceeded to Coudelaria Real where we were told we could have a guided tour for the sum of 3 Euros. We had a wonderful time! We first went to the Museum where they have collections of medieval sadles ,arms and armours used during that period, then the best of them all are the famous Lusitania horses , some arab horses anf a cross breed of lusitano and iberian horses, falcons and others. We had a wonderful day!!
Below is a collage of the photos i took that day at the Coudelaria Real.
Pls click to enlarge photos

Polo Barong or Barong Tagalog

Polo Barong is a less formal version of Filipino national dress called "Barong Tagalog". The Barong Tagalog is used for a more formal ocassion, it is hand embroidered and the fabric is made of "piña" (pineapple) leaves or "jusi" fabric made from abaca or banana silk. It must be worn untucked.

Whereas the Polo Barong is usually worn as office wear or as in any less formal ocassion. Materials used is ramie or cotton fabric and unlike the Barong, this Polo Barong is machine embroidered.

Yesterday, I was busy cleaning and removing summer clothes from the closet to give way for our winter clothes. Now, just thingking about all the clothes that I have to wear on cold winter days made me wishful of our island holidays in Philippines.

Anyway, I started clearing my hubbys clothes by starting with his daily office wear . When I finished folding his Polo shirts and T- shirts, I realized that he was not able to wear all his Polo Barong this summer. Then I started counting , he has 6 pcs of short sleeves polo barong and 5 long sleeves . He enjoys wearing the polo barong ( even if his mom & children dont like to see him wearing it) because he says, he´s comfortable with it. As it is worn untucked , he has more freedom of movement.

Pictures below of hubbys Polo Barong office wear.

For me and even hubby thinks they are nice... Dont you think so?

Peace On Earth

Last Friday, Oct.19.2007, 8 innocent people were killed and several others were injured in a blast at a shopping mall in Makati, Metro Manila,Philippines. Till now, no confirmation yet if it was a bomb blast or just a gas leak that victimized all those people.

But whatever is the real cause of this tragic incident, I would like to offer my condolences to all the parents,brothers or sisters,husbands and children who lost their love ones ......

May the Good Lord Bless and Keep them Always.....May He bring Peace in our disturbed souls, in our homes, our place of work but most of all Peace on Earth!!

Portuguese Arroz de Marisco

Coming back home to Lisbon after our Greek holiday, I craved for a typical portuguese dish called " Arroz de Marisco ( Seafood Rice) "

It was Sunday, hubby picked up mom in law in her house to have lunch with us. As I still have jet lag and dont have all the ingredients at home to prepare the Arroz de Marisco, we decided to eat in a restaurant in Guincho along the coastline of Cascais, about half an hour drive from our place. We have´nt been there for many years now as the restaurant is always full and their food and service is becoming pricey as well.

As expected, we waited almost an hour seated in the bar area, along with a dozen people who came ahead of us. Finally, when a table for three was set, the person in charge lead us to a table with a beautiful view as i´ll show you in the photos below. Our starter, while waiting for the" Arroz "which by the way not really "Marisco " as i first mentioned but instead, they changed the menu and its now called "Arroz de Lagosta ( Lobster)", we had a small plate of thinly sliced "Presunto ( cured smoked ham)", another plate of a local "Queijo ( cured cheese)",local bread and a bottle of the cold white wine .

Photo shown below is the outside view, next is our photo, mom in law , hub & I.

Pls click photos to enlarge.

Can you see the beautiful pot aof Arroz de Lagosta below and my plate??? It was yummy!!! We cleaned well that pot of arroz!!! ( And its a good thing we did as we found out later that we paid 62.50 euros for that dish alone) I´m not complaining, as it was worth it though.....By the way, a lot of prawns was also added to this dish.

Whereas, Arroz de Marisco is a mixture of different kinds of seafoods such as mussels, crab, prawn,and other shellfish, the preparation is always the same.

I adore Portuguese food that even though I can eat and enjoy tasting food from different countries, within a week or two,I will start longing for the portuguese dishes especially the seafoods and also their very rich variety of sweets made from egg yolks.

Of course I´m not excluding my native dish that i also adore, which is also quiet simillar to the portuguese and spanish dishes.

Food Delight

Hubby is a food lover, he enjoys international cuisines.I like to eat as well, but with limitations and my taste for food now varies too. Aside from my native country dishes, I also like portuguese, spanish, italian,miditeranean,asian and arab food.

Cant say Im really a good cook as i dont really enjoy much cooking ( maybe i do but i dont like the preparation), but hubby is all praises to whatever i prepare or put on the table and he tells everybody how a good cook I am..I guess, I learned the hard way when we went into a restaurant venture ( i´ve written about it in my previous post )

When hubby and I first lived together, I was a skinny girl that dont enjoy so much eating except for some favorite desserts. I let hubby believed that I cant cook as I can see that he enjoys cooking and also because I have no knowledge about international or portuguese cuisine.Besides, hubby is very meticulous with the preparation of food especially when he´s preparing something from a recipe book. Everything must be by the book and its not my way especially when im so hungry I like to invent.I always complain that he takes so much time preparing our food and it takes only less than half an hour for us to devour it.

We were still in Dubai, UAE at the time, he comes for lunch and off from work at 12:30 and I finish mine at 1:00, as we live near his work at Dubai Drydocks and I work in mostly in the field, i have no exact time of arrival for lunch. Hubby used to checked my arrival from the kitchen window as he can see our car park from there. He usually prepares me a an orange juice with a little bit of vodka and two crackers with liver pate or cream cheese for an apetizer. Ai´nt he sweet? Its how I was conquered! Lol !!!

He would served me a big piece of steak and would insist that i must eat all of it, and for dessert? He buys me always my favorite black forest cake at Hyatt or the Lebanese sweets in one famous pastry shop! Aaahhhh,those were the days...... This went on for three years until we came to Portugal to live here for good...and bad...

Speaking about food in Greece,the most famous dish is Mousaka, it is a traditional dish prepared with a layer of grilled slices of aubergine in a baking dish, toped with sauted minced meat, toped again with slices of aubergine then covered with white bechamel sauce. At least, Its how I learned how to prepare it taken from one of the recipe book we have. Another hubbys passion, collecting recipe book from all over the world!

We ordered Mousaka in the restaurant to taste the real one, sorry to say i did´nt enjoy it much ( maybe because I prefer my own way) but the Greek salad that we ordered apart was good as it is always served with real fresh crispy cucumber, quartered tomatoes, onion, green pepper, topped with a very good 1 cm thick slice of Feta Cheese!

In another restaurant, we ate an aubergine salad, this was different...its about 4 pieces of a slice grilled aubergine rolled and filled with i think a chick peas paste and smashed meat of the aubergine drizled with olive oil and sprinkled with oregano, beautifully presented in plate as i will show you in the photo below.It was very good!!!

I also had a grilled octopus and hubby had the typical Gyros, slices of grilled pork meat, served with pita bread, fried potato, greek salad with a youghurt dressing.

And for dessert, we had Cassata, some sort of ice cream and we have to drink our espresso with it.

Eating in restaurants in Athens is not so cheap,our normal bill per meal always cost us no less than 45 euros for two. Comparing to Portugal when it comes to meals in restaurants, we served better here and cheaper in price. Our seafoods here and so with the spanish are better prepared and more tasty.

But food aside, Greece has so many more things to offer, so many places to explore and we really enjoyed our holiday .

By the way, we were eating at the roadside splanade next to an ancient building and the name of the Taberna ( restaurant) I could,nt read as it was in greek so I asked the waiter about the name and he told me something like Espinges Taberna in Plaka Square.

Day of New Experience

Coming out of the Stoa of Atallos museum, and after 3 hours of walked around Acropolis, i was so thirsty that I told hubby that we should come back another day for the other places in Acropolis to visit. There are no stall or shop inside where you can buy water or any drink.

But as we got out of the exit door, hubby spotted a dringking fountain...I was so relieved that finally i can drink water,water & more water!! I gave the camera and a shopping bag to hubby to secure it while im dringking then i went inside the comfort room nearby.

Toilet was very clean, the only problem i encountered for a while is the position of the flush of the toilet tank, i looked on the wall, above the ceiling, then i told myself it must be automatic flush as the toilets in Amsterdam, i waited a minute ,nothing. Then I look down, there it was on the floor a small rounded metal next to the seat, just press down the button with your feet and alelluja!!

To use the faucet to wash our hand is the same way, while your feet press the button on the floor you´ll have the water running!! Different countries, different ways !!

I then met hubby outside, we were both feeling better and relieved..He then sugested one more stop to the Temple of Apollo, Oh No!!! Its almost 3:00 Pm , we must eat!! Of course he was only teasing me as he knows I have bad humour when im hungry...

We then asked for information where is the nearest way out to go to the restaurants across the street that we can see from the museum. The guides pointed us the way and off we go.

But along the way, I could´nt resist to take a photo of the 3 beautiful sculpture on the way to the Temple of Apollo.I asked hubby for our camera, he said its not with him as he remembered i was the one taking photos inside the Stoa. I insisted that i gave it to him while i was dringking water. We run back to the Stoa, hubby went straight to the mens toilet and myself, i sat down in one of the bench thingking the worst! There are so many people around, im afraid we will not find the camera. I saw hubby coming out of the mens toilet empty handed, talked to one of the guides. I also talked to one near me, I told her what happened, she said it will be difficult to find something we lost when there are so many people who comes and goes .

When hubby came to me, he made a gesture we should leave but I did´nt moved, thingking about all those photos we took, all the pleasures and trouble we´ve been through taking photos! I felt sad even with the assurance that hubby said we´ll buy a new camera and we´ll come back to take photos again. I just remained seated.......Then hubby turned his back to me, walked again in the direction of the toilet, When he came out i saw him with a smile on his face and waving the camera for me to see!!! He found it!!!!

He said he found it right at the corner behind the door where he droped the shopping bag so that he can wash his hands, not knowing or feeling that the camera sliped from his wrist and fell outside the bag. He went back in the toilet recollecting his memory and luckily for us, the camera was still there waiting to be recovered!!!

The three sculptures behind me were the reason why i remembered our camera..I dont even remember their names and even we did´nt do justice of their photos as the sun was already behind them. Thank you guys!!!

That was our experience of the day!!

The Church Of The Holy Apostles at Ancient Agora

Photos taken outside and inside the 11th century old Orthodox Church at the Ancient Agora, it was reconstructed in the year 1956

My First Encounter With Greek Ancient Times

We found our way to Acropolis without getting lost, not bad for first timers like us in Greece..

To get through the Parthenon, we must buy a ticket that cost 12 euros, it will entitle the holder to visit the museums of the Parthenon,Ancient Agora, Romain Agora,the Temple of Olympia Zeus & others, the ticket is valid for four days, I understand later on why.

If you want to see and know everything about Ancient Greece, you must go all the way to the top to see the Temples that dates back to the 4th or 5 century BC, visit museums to see the artifacts during that period and read everything there is to read about it.

The first photo was taken before we started our climb to the top. As you can see, its a long way to the temple high above.

Second photo is my hubby, we are almost halfway to our goal. At the background is the Herod Atticus Theater, a stone structure theater built in 161 AD by Herod Atticus in memory of his wife Aspassia Annia Regilla . Till now, this amphitheater still being used as venue for theatrical, musical and dance festival in Athens during the months of June through September. Fortunately for us, the day was sunny but a cool breeze refresh us during our walk way up.So we did´nt suffer much from the heat of the day.

Third photo, again is the Parthenon, an Ancient Greek Temple of the Godess Athena.

Fourth photo,The Caryatids, the sculpted female figures that serve as architectural support taking the place of a column or pillar as shown at the photo. The Greek term karyatides means " maidens of Karyae" an ancient town of Peloponesse.

The photos above is only to show you the view from the top and again on one side is the Ancient Agora ( public space or place of assembly) At the beginning of radical democracy ( after 509 BC)

the Boule, or city council, the Prytaneis or presidents of the council and the Archons or magistrates all met in the agora.Law courts are located there, and any citizen who happened to be in agora when a case is being heard, could be forced to serve as a juror.

A drainage system, fountains,and Temple to the Olympian Gods were also built sometime in the 5th century BC

We also visited the reconstructed Stoa of Attalos, built by and named after King Attalos II of Pergamom who ruled between 138 BC and 159 BC.

The stoa is identified as a gift to the city of Athens for the education that pergamon received there.

The last two photos above were taken at the Holy Church of the Apostles, an orthodox church, built in the 11th century and restored by the American School of Studies in Athens in 1956 with the permission of the Dept. of Education .

Photos below were from the Museum of Stoa of Attalos.

I have to end from here ,we did a lot of things in just one day . There are still so many things to tell and im also writting this for myself as a memoire of my greek escapade...7 days was not enough, we have to go back again someday to see the islands although we´ve been to three of them in a one day cruise..