Blogtrotter Revival - the 70s & 80s

ISOLA BELLA & SURROUNDINGS - AUGUST 1986

2011-02-20T22:23:00.002Z

LAGO MAGGIORE - ITALY

"LAGO MAGGIORE"

"STRESA - LIDO. Isola Bella"

"STRESA - PERLA NERA"

"STRESA - PERLA NERA"

"ISOLA DEI PESCATORI"

"BAVENO"

"ISOLA BELLA"

"ISOLA BELLA"

"ISOLA BELLA"

"MOTTARONNE"

"MOUNT ROSA"

"MOTTARONE"

"ON THE TOP OF THE HILL"

"MATTERHORN"

"ISOLA BELLA - From the funivia..."

BERNER OBERLAND - AUGUST 1986

2009-12-22T11:45:00.003Z

A TOUR IN BEAUTIFUL SWITZERLAND

The Bernese Oberland is one of the most beautiful places in Switzerland and in the Alps! The Interlaken region is wonderful and the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau mountains are awesome. Here we'll see mostly a journey towards the Jungfraujoch, said to be the Top of Europe in winter times!! It started and ended at Interlaken and used one of the most famous routes of the unbeatable Swiss Railways: Interlaken Ost - Lauterbrunnen - Wengen - Kleine Scheidegg - Jungfraujoch - Grindelwald - Interlaken Ost!!

"INTERLAKEN - Nestled between Lakes Thun and Brienz at an altitude of 570 metres above sea level and boasting a fantastic view of the Jungfrau Massif, Interlaken is the ideal departure point for a tour of the region. Like Felix Mendelssohn wrote: «If you haven’t seen the Interlaken countryside, you haven’t seen Switzerland»"

"LAUTERBRUNNEN - Famous for its waterfalls and for the huge and much needed parking for all those heading to the car-free villages of Wengen and Mürren..."

"WENGEN - In the fog..."

"WENGENALP - An alpine meadow at an elevation of 1874m"

"KLEINE SCHEIDEGG - Twenty years and twenty pounds less... At least..."

"KLEINE SCHEIDEGG - At an altitude 2061 m, the pass between the Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald Valleys, lies directly beneath the trio: Eiger, Mönch & Jungfrau"

"JUNGFRAU RAIL - From Kleine Scheidegg the Jungfrau Railway climbs to the station at Eigergletscher and then the trip continues through the Eiger tunnel to the stations at Eigerwand and Eismeer. The large observation windows provide spectacular sightseeing of the solid Alpine rock"

"JUNGFRAUJOCH - At an amazing 3454 metres, this is Europe's highest-altitude railway station! And there one may find the Ice Palace, the Ice Gateway, the Sphinx observation terrace, the Plateau for hikes in the eternal snow, the «Top of Europe» Glacier Restaurant and the High Alpine Research Exhibition..."

"JUNGFRAU - But the best is the mountain!!

"GLACIER - The Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn region, listed in the UNESCO's World Heritage List, is the most glaciated part of the Alps. Here we find the Aletsch Glacier, Europe’s longest, and a whole range of classic glacial features including U-shaped valleys, glacial basins, horn peaks and moraines"

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"GRINDELWALD - A bit blurred..."

THE ENGLISH RIVIERA - AUGUST 1986

2008-08-08T08:08:00.001+01:00

FROM DÜSSELDORF (APRIL 1986) TO EXETER (AUGUST 1986)

After the wet 1985 summer in Ireland, I had a quiet travel year and stayed most of the time at home. In April 1986 nonetheless, I had a professional trip to Düsseldorf. The only views I had, however, further to my room at the old Breidenbacher Hof Hotel (before the new owners from Kuwait had torn it down and built a brand new one) were these two lousy pictures taken from the room where meetings were held!"

"DÜSSELDORF - I wonder where Peter was on these days..."

***

In August 1986, I went back to the University. Actually, I attended a conference on European Law (Portugal had just acceded to the European Communities), which took place at the University of Exeter, in Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom! On its margins, I profited to have a look at what is known as the English Riviera, the area around Torquay!

"THE CAMPUS - It is said that the University of Exeter has one of the most beautiful campuses in England, in one of the most beautiful counties in Britain"

"THE PROSPECT INN - A bar and restaurant at Exeter Quay"

"WHARFINGERS HOUSE - The Wharfingers Office was built in 1778 to house the City's harbour master. From 1981 it housed the Exeter Quay and Canal Trust, formed to develop the Quay and Canal area"

"EXE RIVER - It was responsible for the development of Exeter city in medieval times"

"ROYAL CLARENCE HOTEL - The historic Hotel is located in the heart of Exeter's Cathedral Yard"

"CATHEDRAL - The Anglican cathedral in Exeter is the seat of the bishop of Exeter. The original cathedral, dedicated to Saint Peter, dates from 1050; the present building was completed by 1400, and has the longest uninterrupted vaulted ceiling in England"

"MOL'S COFFEE HOUSE - It is said that Mol's was a coffee house opened by an Italian in the 16th century. In addition, it's also said that Drake, Raleigh and Hawkins met to discuss their victory over the Armada, in the upper room of Mol's. However, it seems that much of the history of this building was concocted by a Mr Worth, who ran a gallery from the premises in the late 19th and early 20th century. In 1986, it was occupied by the jewellers Nottingham and Walsh, but they also left the premises some time later. It seems that the present occupier is Connection South West, a high-class boutique that sells everything from Mont Blanc pens to expensive handbags..."

"SHOPPING STREET - Is C&A still named for Cheap & Awful?"

"ST. STEPHENS CHURCH on High Street was probably built by a wealthy patron for the use of his family. The church was first mentioned in 1086, although the crypt is probably of Saxon origin. In 1658, Cromwell decreed that all churches in Exeter be closed apart from four. St Stephen's was then sold, to be used as a stable. Four years later, St Stephen's was in the process of restoration when it was destroyed by fire. In 1664, the people of the parish rebuilt the church"

"EXETER WAR MEMORIAL - Dedicated on 29th April, 1923, it is considered to be one of the finest of its type. It shows figures in bronze of a soldier at rest, a sailor, a prisoner of war, a group of Exeter men with prisoners of war in Germany and a nurse. The 2.5 metre high figure of Victory trampling over the Demon of Tyranny and Wrong stands on the top of the granite pedestal. A bronze plaque is dedicated to the 958 men and women of Exeter who died between 1914 and 1918. Additional bronze plaques for the dead of the Second World War were also included"

"EXETER"

"DARTMOUTH is a town in Devon. It is a tourist destination set on the banks of the estuary of the River Dart, also famous for its Royal Regattas"

"TORQUAY is a city at Torbay, an east-facing bay and natural harbour, at the western most end of Lyme Bay. It lies 26 kilometres south of Exeter and 61 km north-east of Plymouth. Tourist authorities call it the English Riviera on account of its beaches and mild climate"

GOODBYE IRELAND - AUGUST 1985

2008-05-24T16:43:00.001+01:00

SOMEWHERE IN IRELAND, THE WETLAND!

By the end of our tour the weather improved a little bit; a way to try to bring us back one day...

"ENNISKILLEN CASTLE, located by the River Erne in County Fermanagh, was built in the fifteenth century by Gaelic Maguires. It was strategically important throughout its history, as it was the guard of one of the few passes into Ulster. In the 17th century it became an English garrison fort and later served as part of a military barracks"

"DERRAGARRA INN - According to the publicity in the Internet, «The main bar & restaurant will cater for 70 people in comfort and style. The Auld Bar is a separate function room for private parties, so why not have your birthday, christening or any other celebration here. Outside, there is a beautiful wooden decked area overlooking the River Annaly, where you can eat & drink with only the geese to disturb you». Impressed?"

"RIVER ANNALY - As the picture was next to the Inn, I believe this is the Annaly River. Correct me if I'm wrong..."

"TOURIST GROUP arriving at Newgrange"

"NEWGRANGE - The Megalithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange in County Meath was built about 3200 BC, thus being more than 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, and predating Stonehenge by about 1,000 years. It's the most famous of all Irish prehistoric sites and one of the most famous in the world"

"ENTRANCE STONE - Named «one of the most famous stones in the entire repertory of megalithic art», the entrance stone includes a triple spiral motif found only at Newgrange and repeated along the passage and again inside the chamber"

"ROOFSTONE - According to Wikipedia this motif «is reminiscent of the triskelion motif of the Isle of Man, of ancient Sicily and of several passage tombs on the island of Anglesey in North Wales»"

"WINTER SOLESTICE - The passage and chamber of Newgrange are illuminated for some 17 minutes at sunrise on the Winter Solstice and for a few minutes in the mornings either side of the Winter Solstice. A shaft of sunlight shines through a specially contrived opening, known as a roofbox, which is directly above the main entrance, and penetrates the passage to light up the chamber. Nowadays, the phenomenon occurs four minutes after sunrise, but calculations show that when it was built, the event would have occurred right at sunrise"

"CARROUSSEL - Always loved merry-go-rounds..."

"CHURCHES - Somewhere in Ireland. Maybe some Irish expert will identify the temples..."

"NICE COTTAGES"

***

LONDON STOPOVER

On the way out from Ireland, we made a stopover in London. St. James Park was at its best!

"ST. MARTIN IN THE FIELDS and the wonderful concerts of the Academy conducted by Neville Marriner; try Vivaldi's Four Seasons..."

"ST. JAMES PARK, probably my favourite park in London..."

IRELAND ENCORE - AUGUST 1985

2008-01-19T08:31:00.004Z

As you know, I'm somehow lost on this Irish trip. So the only thing I know is that the pictures shown here were taken when we left Galway and headed northwards, and even so I'm not so sure it applies to all of them. Maybe some Ireland expert would be able to put some information on where we actually were... «Go raibh mile maith agaibh», i.e. «Thank you» in Irish Gaelic (it seems...)!

"POSING for portraits"

"SOMEWHERE, in Ireland"

"SIGNING the Book of Honour"

"RIVERS AND LAKES - We had too much water from the sky on this trip. But the rivers and lakes always looked beautiful, in particular as the weather improved a bit during this section of the trip"

"LIKE HENRY, THE NAVIGATOR, scrutinizing the sea"

"AND THIS IS WHAT HE SAW"

"HOTEL AND GOLF, preferably by the pool"

UNDER THE RAIN - WEST IRELAND 1985

2007-12-31T10:49:00.001Z

FROM KILLARNEY TO GALWAY, WHAT A JOURNEY!

Paraphrasing Mark Twain, the wettest winter I’ve ever experienced was a summer in Ireland!

"ROUGH SEA - The Atlantic is no Admiral's sea, to use the expression Portuguese Navy people apply to identify a calm and quiet ocean..."

"THE CLIFFS OF MOHER are one of the most impressive places to see in Ireland, and are considered to be Ireland's top tourist attraction, with almost one million visitors a year. The Cliffs range for 8 kilometres over the Atlantic Ocean and are 214m high at the highest point. From the Cliffs, on a clear day, one can see the Aran Islands, Galway Bay... We, however, could hardly see the Cliffs themselves..."

"BY THE FIREPLACE - This picture was taken on August 15, 1985, at lunch time. Summer in Ireland? No comments!"

"FLOODED ROAD - This is no river; it's the road we had to take on our way to Galway!"

"LUGGAGE BUS - We had already crossed a flooded road in the morning, and the damage to the luggage was to be seen on arrival at the Hotel in Galway. But this time we took measures to avoid further damages..."

"NO WONDER how green was my valley. With all this rain..."

"GALWAY - Calm after the storm! Galway, located at the mouth of Galway Bay, is a lively city known for its avant-garde culture!"

"GALWAY CATHEDRAL (The Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas) is a one of the largest churches in Ireland. It was built between 1958 and 1965 on the site of the old city jail"

"BUILDING in downtown Galway, «The City of Tribes», they say..."

KILLARNEY - AUGUST 1985

2007-10-13T18:12:00.001+01:00

THE RAINY SAGA CONTINUES

One of the highlights of this trip was supposed to be the Ring of Kerry. However, with the weather we got - foggy and rainy - there was no chance to do the tour. So we remained in Killarney, though some of the pictures I'm not sure where they were taken... It's incredible, but it happened!

"MARKET - I don't know where; maybe some visitor, if any, could help..."

"SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAIN"

"KILLARNEY is located north of the MacGillicuddy Reeks, on the north-eastern shore of the Lough Lein which are part of Killarney National Park. The town is home to some attractions and a nice base for the Ring of Kerry tour; but, due to the fog and rain, it was transformed into a one day destination"

"METHODIST CHURCH"

"KILLARNEY HOUSE & GARDENS? - Maybe"

"COLLEGE STREET

"FERRY AT SEA"

"GLENEAGLE - Entertainment: it seems that Killarney is a popular destination for partygoers. We had an experience at the GlenEagle!"

ON THE WAY TO CORK - AUGUST 1985

2007-08-15T11:46:00.001+01:00

IRISH COUNTRYSIDE

My posts on Ireland are actually somehow weird in relation to the other I use to make. In fact, for some reason - maybe the fact that it was our first week abroad after the birth of our daughter, the terrible weather on the west coast of Ireland or something else... - I forgot to take notes on where the pictures were taken. Thus, twenty two years later, it's quite hard to find out where some of them were shot. Hope some expert on Ireland who sees the post could help...

"ONE FOR THE ROAD - Before departing Dublin, we visited Old Bushmill's whiskey shop"

"COUNTRYSIDE - When we left Dublin we started to be amazed with the beaury of the Irish countryside"

"IRISH SEA, ST. George's Channel. It seems there has been a long discussion on the building of an 80 km tunnel to link Britain and Ireland here, but with the financial results of the Channel Tunnel, people is less receptive to embark on the project. For the time being, the Irish Sea is described as the most radioactively contaminated sea in the world with some «eight million litres of nuclear waste» discharged into it each day from Sellafield reprocessing plants (Wikipedia)"

"COTTAGES - There were some beautiful ones on our way"

"GLENDALOUGH ROUND TOWER - Hopefully this subtitle is correct! The tower is part of an early Christian Monastic site founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century. The monastic remains are located in a glaciated valley with two lakes, and include the superb Round Tower, stone churches and decorated crosses"

"RIVER SCENES - I wonder whether this could be Slaney River. Anyhow, I like the pictures and the scenery"

"BLUR - Someone took this distorted photo, somewhere in Ireland. The blur however resulted into an interesting picture, I think"

"ANOTHER ROUND TOWER somewhere between Dublin and Cork"

"HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, in Ireland..."

"COFFEE BREAK, PONEY WALK"

"BEACH"

"RIVER"

"THE OLD THATCH Pub and Restaurant in Killeagh, Co. Cork. Found the location on a picture from Janice Baxter"

"A CASTLE lost in the landscape"

"BLARNEY CASTLE - The Castle we may see today is the third to have been built on the site, after a wooden structure from the tenth century and a stone structure from circa 1210 A.D. In 1446 a third castle was built by McCarthy, King of Munster"

"BLARNEY STONE - Long line to join the world statesmen, literary giants, legends of the screen and the millions of pilgrims that climbed the steps of the castle to kiss the Blarney Stone and gain the gift of eloquence, or, like Lonely Planet puts it, gain the privilege of telling lies for seven years. Others, however, are more reluctant to do it, as they held the Blarney Stone as the Castle's latrine, which was normally situated over the moat so all the sewage would drop there and discourage any invader from push his way through a virtual excrement basin..."

"CASTLE PICTURE, scanned from paper; the previous was scanned from film"

"BLARNEY CASTLE VIEW towards the surrounding fields"

"BLARNEY BOUTIQUE - Cork is five miles away on your right..."

"CORK is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland, the capital of the province of Munster, and hosts the World's second largest natural harbour, after Sydney, Australia. The river seen on the picture is the Lee, which flows through the city"

JAMES JOYCE'S LAND - AUGUST 1985

2007-07-21T17:11:00.002+01:00

THE WETTEST WINTER I'VE EVER LIVED: A SUMMER IN IRELAND...

After Washington in May, I spent a whole week in The Hague (Den Haag or S'Gravenhage, in Dutch) for a meeting; actually, I was based in Scheveningen. However, not a single photo from the whole week could be found...
So the next trip will take the stage: Ireland. Let's start with Dublin.

DUBLINERS

"DUBLIN - The first surprise we had was the fact that, though our hotel was not that far from downtown, it looked like we were in the countryside..."

"CHURCH - Not surprisingly, we found churches around the corner"

"O'CONNELL BRIDGE (1791-1794) was originally named Carlisle Bridge. In 1880 it was renovated and renamed, and became the only bridge in Europe that is wider than it is long (or, at least, as wide as long...)"

"O'CONNELL STREET, with the statue of Daniel O'Connell, 19th century nationalist leader, by John Henry Foley, is the main thoroughfare in Dublin and one of the widest streets in Europe (49m). By the time there was no Spire there"

"TRINITY COLLEGE, designated as «The Provost, Fellows and Scholars of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin», was founded in 1592 by Elizabeth I, and is the only constituent college of the University of Dublin, Ireland's oldest university"

"CAMPANILE -Trinity College, Parliament Square"

"TRINITY COLLEGE saw many people on its rooms, including Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, and Ernest Walton..."

"CONFERENCE CENTRE, Trinity College"

"BANK OF IRELAND - College Green hosted the Irish Parliament before the Act of Union 1800, and was the headquarters of the Bank until the 1970s, when they moved to a modern building in Baggot Street. Today visitors can still view the Irish House of Lords chamber within the building, which however remains a Bank's branch"

"GREAT GEORGES STREET ARCADE"

"ST.PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL is the largest church in Ireland, and its basis was built between 1191 and 1270, though now only the baptistery remains. The major reconstruction paid for by Benjamin Guinness, in the 1860s, means that much of the current building dates from the Victorian era. Throughout its long history the cathedral has contributed much to Irish life; for example, Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, was Dean of the cathedral from 1713 to 1745"

"RESTAURANT? - Someone will help finding out what building is this..."

Edited: Thanks to Tom Cosgrave and partner I found that «Bartley Dunnes is the name of the pub in the photo you cannot identify. It was a pub on Lower Stephen Street, and it was sold in 1991 to property developers who specialise in developing large drinking emporiums, or "superpubs". It was duly demolished and a large place called Break for the Border was built - it's an American theme pub and caters to parties and tourists». Thanks a lot!

"FUSILIER'S ARCH at St. Stephens Green"

"SHOPPING, after the chilly rain..."

"FAREWELL DUBLIN. You noticed the absence of Molly Malone? It’s a good reason to get back..."

WASHINGTON DC - MAY 1985

2007-07-15T17:01:00.001+01:00

ARBITRATION SEMINAR

After Saudi Arabia I returned to Paris twice (by the end of January and in March), flew to Madrid in February, visited New York in April, and flew back to DC in May, where I spent some time at an International Arbitration Seminar. The only picture left from all these trips was the official Seminar photo. Nothing else...

"GROUP PHOTO"

SAUDI ARABIA - JANUARY 1985

2007-06-24T09:51:00.000+01:00

After Washington DC in the summer of 1984, I visited Saudi Arabia on business. It was quite an experience... I have no pictures from there; just some kind of memorabilia.
The first adventure started in Paris to get the visa; I had not much time and needed it for the next day: InchAllah was the answer...

"BOARDING CARDS: Paris-Dhahran with Air France; Dhahran-Riyadh with Saudi, and Riyadh-Paris again with Air France..."

"MENU - Dinner was excellent!"

"HOTELS: Meridien Al-Khobar (Dhahran) and Intercontinental Riyadh"

"GREETINGS - Riyadh postcard"

Finally, I manage to finish work and left. At the Riyadh airport, by 2:00 a.m., the temperature was around plus twenty seven degrees Celsius; when I got to Paris, early in the morning, it rounded minus seventeen Celsius). Forty four degrees difference...

STOPOVER NYC - AUGUST 1984

2007-06-16T16:36:00.000+01:00

TOP OF THE ROCK!

The Rockefeller Centre features an observation deck atop the GE Building with panoramic views of Central Park and the Empire State Building. The observation deck remained open until 1986, but was then closed following a drop on the number of visitors and the cut off of the elevator access to the roof due to the expansion of the «Rainbow Room restaurant on the 65th floor. It reopened in 2005, and I still think it's the best view in NYC!

"5TH AVENUE -Summer in the city..."

"ST. PATRICK"

"EAST RIVER"

"CHRYSLER and PANAM (it stil existed...)"

"EMPIRE and WTC"

"CENTRAL PARK: Sheep Meadow and Lake"

"CENTRAL PAR: Metropolitan and Reservoir. Also 5th Av. and Tom's apartment"

"FOUR LAWYERS, Three from Brazil, one from Portugal..."

BACK IN DC - AUGUST 1984

2007-06-10T00:41:00.001+01:00

THIRD WEEK IN WASHINGTON, DC

"POTOMAC - The first case on Gerhard Kegel's Internationales Privatrecht book was The Fall in Potomac"

"WATERGATE building as seen from the terrace of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts"

"GEORGETOWN"

"LAWYERS, between Jefferson and Lincoln"

"BRIDGES over the Potomac"

"SOMEWHERE - This photo was mixed with the photos of Washington; I don't know where it was taken, but it remembers me of the Gauguin Museum in Tahiti..., a bit far from DC"

"ZOO - Avoid the crowds"

"LING LING and Hsing-Hsing was the National Zoo’s first pair of giant pandas; they arrived from China in 1972 as a gift to the American people. During twenty years together at the Zoo, the panda pair produced five cubs, none of which survived"

"PARTY - After three weeks conference at the International Law Institute, there was a farewell party"

"LAS MENINAS"

"PRIVATE PARTY - No jackets, no ties, twenty three years ago..."

"THE ILI GROUP PHOTO!"

WILLIAMSBURG - AUGUST 1984

2007-06-02T23:37:00.000+01:00

COLONIAL VIRGINIA

Colonial Williamsburg is the historic district of the independent city of Williamsburg and was the centre of Government, Education and Culture in the colony of Virginia. It consists of many of the buildings that formed the original colonial capital of Williamsburg in James City County from 1699 to 1780, and was built around four main buildings: the Raleigh Tavern, the College of William and Mary, the Governor's Palace, and the Bruton Parish Church. Colonial Williamsburg is a combination of a historical theme park and a living history museum. It has become one of the more popular tourist destinations for families and groups.

"CAPITOL - The reconstructed building, located at the eastern end of the Duke of Gloucester Street, was the seat of Virginia's General Assembly from 1704 through 1780"

"GENERAL COURTROOM was the Capitol's room where the most important Virginia civil and criminal cases were heard"

"PUBLIC GAOL (JAIL) - Virginia's General Assembly ordered a "substanciall Brick Prison" to be built in Williamsburg soon after it decided to make the city the colony's new capital. Known as the Public Gaol, the building's construction was authorized by an act of August 1701"

"RALEIGH TAVERN - Established about 1717, the Tavern was named for Sir Walter Raleigh, who had attempted the first colonization of Virginia in 1585. Balls were held there. Jefferson, a student at the College of William and Mary, attended one with Rebecca Burwell (he called her "Belinda") on October 6, 1763"

"KING'S ARMS TAVERN, «The finest food, beverages, etc. both foreign and domestic». Opposite Raleigh Tavern on Duke of Gloucester Street, the King's Arms was known in colonial times as the restaurant where the elite met and ate"

"COURTHOUSE - Williamsburg's citizens assembled at the Courthouse at 1:00 p.m. Thursday, May 1, 1783, to celebrate the end of the war with England – just as they had gathered seven years earlier to hear lawyer Benjamin Waller proclaim from its steps the Declaration of Independence"

"WILLIAMSBURG COLONIAL HOUSES"

"AMAZON"

"CALECHE"

"DR. McKENZIE'S APOTHECARY, a store by the Governor's Palace, where one can buy items like those sold in the 18th century, such as herbs, spices, and apothecary jars"

"GOVERNOR'S PALACE - Home to seven royal governors, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson drew a floor plan of the Palace in 1779, perhaps with a view to remodelling. The government, however, moved the next year to Richmond, and nothing came of the plans. On December 22, 1781, a fire that may have begun in the basement destroyed the building"

"PALACE ENTRANCE HALL"

"PALACE - Butler"

"PALACE - DINING ROOM. From the 1930s until 1980 the reconstructed Palace was elegantly furnished with fine British and American antiques arranged in what is now recognized as the Colonial Revival style. Subsequent research confirmed that the rooms, though handsome, bore little resemble to their 18th-century counterparts. In 1981, the detailed 1770 estate inventory of Governor Botetourt's furnishings enabled curators to replicate the interior decor of the 18th-century with precision"

"PALACE FORMAL GARDENS"

"THE WILLIAMSBURG THEATRE - The rich history of The Kimball Theatre dates back to January 12,1933 when the doors opened to players from the College of William and Mary performing the play «The Recruiting Officer», which records indicate was the first play staged in the first theater in British North America just a few blocks away on Palace Green"

US NATIONAL PARKS - AUGUST 1984

2007-05-26T17:26:00.000+01:00

MANASSAS AND SHENANDOAH!

MANASSAS BATTLEFIELD PARK

On July 21, 1861, volunteers in uniform, from the North (Union) and from the South (Confederacy), gathered to fight their first major land battle of the American Civil War. Confident that their foes would turn and run, neither side anticipated the death. Nearly one year later, between August 28 and August 30, 1862, both sides met again on the same battlefield with the Confederates winning a victory that brought them to the height of their power. In August 1984 some Portuguese speaking lawyers, attending an conference in International Financial Conference in Washington, DC,

"MANASSAS or BULL RUN? - During the war, the North generally named a battle after the closest river, stream or creek and the South tended to name battles after towns or railroad junctions. Hence the Confederate name Manassas after Manassas Junction and the Union name Bull Run for the stream Bull Run"

"STONEWALL JACKSON - Thomas Jonathan «Stonewall» Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was probably the most revered Confederate commander after Robert E. Lee. He is most famous for his 1862 Valley Campaign and as a commander in the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee. His own troops accidentally shot him at the battle of Chancellorsville and he died of complications from an amputated arm and pneumonia several days later"

***

SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK

"A WILDERNESS OASIS IN THE BUSY EAST... is the way the National Parks site treats Shenandoah National Park. It deservers the label... and actually, looking at the horizon from the peaks of Shenandoah National Park it’s hard to believe that one is just 75 miles from Washington, DC"

"SHENANDOAH CAVERNS - Beautiful odd formations on an easy-going environment..."

BALTIMORE - AUGUST 1984

2007-05-12T19:38:00.000+01:00

A VIBRANT CITY ON THE WATER...

at least is what they say!
While in D.C. we profited from the oportunity to stroll around during the week-ends. The first visit was to Baltimore, Maryland, one of the three independent cities in the US that are not in Virginia. Actually, an independent city in the US is a city that does not belong to any particular county. There are 42 independent cities in the United States, 39 in Virginia and the remaining three are Baltimore, Maryland, St. Louis, Missouri and Carson City, Nevada.
In Baltimore, we didn't go much further than the Inner Harbour, but anyhow it was an interesting experience. The Inner Harbour was basically a light freight commercial port and passenger port until the 1950s, when economic changes ended both freight and passenger use. The area became a grass-covered parkland that was used in 1976 for the bicentennial visit of tall ships, and its transformation into a major cultural and economic area of the city continued under Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer (1971-1987). The main anchor attractions are Harbourplace, the National Aquarium and the Maryland Science Center.

"SHOPPING MALL - Located at the water's edge, Harbourplace & The Gallery is Baltimore’s premiere shopping, dining and entertainment destination. It offered a great variety of stores as well as restaurants. Concerts, street performers, holiday fireworks, and special events to visiting ships there is always something for everyone..."

"THE WATERFRONT PROMENADE, a sidewalk along the water, was often the site of free entertainment. It seems that once completed it will become an important component of the National Historic Seaport of Baltimore and will provide visitors with a way to tour the entire harbour along the one continuous route. In 1984 it was interesting to see it crowded on week-ends..."

"USS CONSTELATION (1854) is the last existing American Civil War-era naval vessel and was one of the last sail-powered warships built by the US Navy"

"THE INNER HARBOUR 1984, with the Baltimore World Trade Center, the world's tallest equilateral five-sided building. Its observation deck, called «Top of the World», is open to the public and some of the photos in this post, including the first one and the next one, were taken from there. The 1977 landmark tower, designed by I.M.Pei, also houses the headquarters of the Maryland Port Administration"

"THE NATIONAL AQUARIUM in Baltimore, constructed during the urban renewal period of the city, was opened in 1981. The aquarium's collection has 10,500 specimens of 560 different species. Particular attractions include the dolphin display and the rooftop rainforest. The 2005 Annex came much later"

"SHADOWS"

"AQUARIUM LANDING - Exit Only"

STROLLING THE MALL - AUGUST 1984

2007-05-05T19:37:00.000+01:00

ARTS IN WASHINGTON, DC

"THE OLD POST HOUSE - Ranked as one of Washington's top eight attractions, The Old Post Office Pavilion offers international cuisine, sophisticated shopping, as well as relaxation with a jazzy piano or a string quartet...

"SMITHSONIAN CASTLE, Smithsonian's first building, was designed by architect James Renwick Jr., whose other works include St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, and was completed in 1855. It houses the Institution’s administrative offices and the Smithsonian Information Centre"

"THE HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN is the Smithsonian's museum of international modern and contemporary art, started in 1966 with the extensive art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn (1899-1981). The Burghers of Calais (Rodin) and Six Dots over a mountain (Calder) are among the sculptures seen here in the Garden"

"THE AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM maintains the largest collection of historic air and spacecraft in the world. It now even includes Air France Concorde «Fox Alpha», the first Concorde to enter service. It is located at the Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Centre, not at the Mall building, however"

"NATIONAL GALLERY - David Smith's «Circle One, Circle Two, Circle Three», Miro's «The Farm», Picasso's «Family of Saltimbanques", and many more can be seen at the Gallery"

"STROLLING THE MALL"

"CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART"

"WATERGATE"

"OUTSIDE KENNEDY CENTRE"

"INSIDE KENNEDY CENTRE"

WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 1984

2007-04-28T23:32:00.001+01:00

THE ROAD OF POWER AND MEMORIALS...

After New England, Canada and Mexico in August/September 1983, Guida got pregnant and Di, our daughter, was born in June 1984. We travelled several times between Lisbon and Faro, and in August 84 I attended an International Conference in Washington, DC. These are some of the pictures taken during the three weeks in the USA.

"UNION STATION - It opened in 1907 and for over 90 years, Union Station has welcomed people to Washington, D.C. With over 32 million people passing through each year, it is the most visited site in all of Washington, D.C. I arrived at National Airport"

"APARTHOTEL - The lodging was not in an interesting neighbourhood (4th Street SW/School St), but was close to Federal Center Metro Station and had a Safeway with good steaks just around the corner..."

"TV SET - It was on this TV that I saw Carlos Lopes win the gold medal of the Los Angeles Olympic Marathon for Portugal"

"SUPREME COURT - In 1984 we were in the Burger Court era. Several important decisions were taken during the Burger Court. In Portugal we have a saying: «Depois de mim virá, quem de mim bom fará...» (After me someone will come who of me good will make...). That was what happened with the Rehnquist Court (see «A Court Divided», by Marc Tushnet) and more recently with the Roberts Court"

"THE LIBRARY OF THE CONGRESS is the US oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with more than 130 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 29 million books and other printed materials, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 58 million manuscripts. The Library of Congress occupies three buildings on Capitol Hill. The Thomas Jefferson Building of 1897 (photos) is the original separate Library of Congress building, and some say it's the most beautiful building in Washington. The John Adams Building was built in 1938 and the James Madison Memorial Building was completed in 1981"

"CAPITOL - Although not in the geographic centre of the District of Columbia, the Capitol is the focus by which the quadrants of the district are divided. The current dome and the House and Senate wings were completed under the supervision of Edward Clark"

"DOME - The building is marked by its central dome above a rotunda and two wings, one for each chamber of Congress: the north wing is the Senate chamber and the south wing is the House of Representatives chamber"

"SENATE - «Parliamentary obstruction - filibustering - is a political sport for which the season is always open» Lindsay Rogers"

"THE MALL seen from the west terrace of Capitol Building"

"PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE is called the «America's Main Street», connecting the Capitol Building with the White House. A National Historic Site, Pennsylvania Avenue has seen marches, parades, promenades, and protests all the way up and down"

"THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT, at the centre of the Mall, is one of the most prominent landmarks in Washington, DC. Authorized by the Congress in 1833, its construction began in 1848, the exterior was completed in 1884, and it was opened to the public in 1888. The Washington Monument is roughly 170 meters tall and is made of marble from two different quarries resulting in the change of color about one-third of the way up"

"FROM THE TOP - An elevator takes visitors on a 70 second trip up to the 150 meter platform for magnificent views of the city. EAST, towards Capitol Hill"

"NORTH - The White House"

"WEST - The Lincoln Memorial"

"SOUTH - Jefferson Memorial and the Potomac River"

"LINCOLN MEMORIAL - With and without ducks..."

"LINCOLN - «In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever». Beneath these words, the marble statue"

"PORTUGUESE SPEAKING LAWYERS - Three Brazilians, One Portuguese"

"THE WALL - Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The stone walls bear the names of the 58,000 servicemen who died in the Vietnam War between 1961 and 1973"

"JEFFERSON MEMORIAL - Honouring the third President of the United States. My favourite..."

AGAIN IN MEXICO CITY - SEPTEMBER 1983

2007-04-23T22:34:00.000+01:00

ON THE WAY TO, AND IN XOCHIMILCO!

"UNIVERSITY - The most important Mexican university was founded in 1551. It is the largest university in Latin America and it is ranked the best in Latin America and also the most important university in the Spanish-speaking world. The building with the mural is the Library"

"OLYMPIC STADIUM"

"XOCHIMILCO lies 28 km south of Mexico City and has been included in the UNESCO's World Heritage List. According to the UNESCO site, «with its network of canals and artificial islands, it testifies the efforts of the Aztec people to build a habitat in the midst of an unfavourable environment. Its characteristic urban and rural structures, built since the 16th century and during the colonial period; have been preserved in an exceptional manner»"

CANCUN - SEPTEMBER 1983

2007-04-16T09:06:00.000+01:00

BEACH BREAK

After visiting the Aztec and Mayan ruins we made a break and went to the beach in Cancun. The weather was not particularly nice, as some hurricane threats were in the air, but finally everything ran smoothly!

CANCUN, originally a small Mayan settlement situated in the Quintana Roo state of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, was chosen in 1970 to become a tourist resort. The main complex lies on a narrow island separated from the mainland by a tropical blue lagoon, with 14 miles of tropical beach and is surrounded by Mujeres Island, the Caribbean Sea, and the Nichupte and Bojorquez lagoons. The mainland - Cancun City - is connected to the island by two bridges. Further to the tourist resort, the existence of a Convention Centre and the organization of some international conferences also helped to foster the development of the site"

"KRYSTAL HOTEL - In 1983 there were much fewer hotels in Cancun than nowadays. The Krystal, which opened exactly in 1983, was one of the best, and its location was superb. The white powder sand of the beach was fabulous. It seems that after hurricane Wilma destroyed the beach in 2005, the new sand that was brought in during the recovery process is much coarser and somewhat darker than the powdery white original. Shame"

"CAMINO REAL - Another great hotel in those days, and probably still today"

"FERRY TRANSFER to Isla Mujeres. Located opposite Cancun coast, Isla Mujeres is 7.5 km long and an average 500 meters wide"

"ISLA MUJERES - The publicity states that «Isla Mujeres is a privileged place with a unique natural and cultural wealth in Mexico. It combines the beauty of the Caribbean, the dense tropical jungle and the wonderful heritage of the Mayan civilization. It stands out as one of Mexico's natural treasures, a truly delightful paradise on earth» Well, there is no need to exaggerate..."

"BEACH - The beach was good, and empty..."

CHICHEN ITZA - SEPTEMBER 1983

2007-04-07T00:34:00.000+01:00

MAYAN ADVENTURE

After Uxmal, we returned to Mérida, just to make a tour to Chichén Itzá, «the city at the mouth of the well of the Itza tribe», one of the most impressive, and the best preserved, of the Mayan sites. Actually, while Europe was still in the Middle Age, the Maya mapped the heavens, created the only writing system native to the American continent, were masters of mathematics and invented the calendar. The Maya also cleared routes through jungles and swamps to foster trade with other peoples. Around 300 B.C., they adopted a system of government ruled by nobles and kings, which started to decline around 900 A.D. when the southern Maya abandoned their cities.

"ON THE WAY from Mérida to Chichén Itzá. Chichén Itzá was included in the UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1988"

"CENOTE is a thirty meter deep and sixty five meter diameter sinkhole formed by water percolating through the soft limestone above. Since the porous soil held little water, these underground bodies were extremely important to the city. It's a bizarre world with red limestone stalactites, a green water pool, and roots of trees hanging around. Once a year, in April, the beam of light touches the tip of the stalactite. The Cenote, however, seems to have been also used for the sacrifice of some young girls, full of jewels and offers, to Tlaloc, the God of Rain"

"BALL COURT - The Mayans were great sportsmen and build huge ball courts to play their games. The Great Ball Court of Chichén Itzá is 166 meter long and 69 meter wide. However, a whisper from one top can be heard clearly at the other and throughout the whole court. This stunning acoustics is a secret still to be explained. The ball game of the Maya was named Pokta-Pok, the name of a famous golf course nowadays in Cancun"

"JAGUARS, SERPENTS..."

"TOURIST CROWD - It's true that the magic of the place is better enjoyed with a few people, but if you're on your own and lucky enough, you'll be able to avoid the crowds"

"EL CASTILLO - The Kukulcán pyramid called «the castle» is at the centre of the huge (300 hectares) site. Its construction was planned in such a way that each March and September Equinox the rising and setting sun would cast a shadow of a serpent - Kukulcán or Quetzalcoatl - twisting the side steps of the pyramid. The four stairs of the pyramid have ninety-one steps each, which, together with the top platform, make a total of 365, the same figure as the days of the Gregorian calendar... The acoustics is also amazing: a person standing on the top step can speak normally and be heard by those at ground level"

"WALL - Climbing the pyramid (it seems it's no longer allowed) was quite a challenge but the spectacular view of the city and the surrounding jungle was fabulous"

"THE BALL COURT AND THE JUNGLE"

"THE TEMPLE OF THE WARRIORS as seen from the top of the Kukulcán. This Temple - forty meters wide and twelve meters high - is one of the most terror instigating ruins on the site: a huge temple, hundreds of columns that continue on into the jungle and lots of carvings depicting warriors..."

"CHAC MOOL - The Chac Mool depicts a human figure in an awkward position: seated on the ground with its upper back raised, the head turned to a right angle, the legs drawn up to the buttocks, elbows rest on the ground, and its hands holding a tray over the stomach, used for offerings or human sacrifices. The current name derives from the name «Chaacmol» which Augustus Le Plongeon gave to a sculpture he and his wife excavated from the Temple of the Eagles and Jaguars in 1875"

"COLUMNS - At the temple of Warriors"

"TEMPLE OF THE JAGUAR"

"EL CARACOL/THE OBSERVATORY is a round building on a large square platform, nicknamed «the snail» for the stone spiral staircase inside. Several of its windows point towards the equinox sunset and the southernmost and northernmost points on the horizon where Venus rises"

"LAS MONJAS/NUNNERY - The Spanish nicknamed this complex Las Monjas, but it seems to have been actually a governmental palace. It contains some of the best preserved structures at Chichén Itzá, as every square meter of wall has carvings and paintings decorating it"

UXMAL - SEPTEMBER 1983

2007-03-30T21:34:00.000+01:00

IN THE LAND OF THE MAYAS!

***

MÉRIDA

After Oaxaca and Villahermosa, we flew Aeromexico to Mérida. Mérida was founded on January 6, 1542, by Francisco de Montejo (a Spanish Conquistador known as «El Adelantado») and is the capital and largest city of the Yucatán state. It was built over the Maya city of T'ho, and is nicknamed «The White City», both for the colour of its buildings and the fact that the residents keep it particularly clean.

"HOLIDAY INN - By that time there was no Hyatt Regency skyscraper yet, so we stayed at the Holiday Inn. The Holiday Inn is located at Paseo de Montejo, one of the most beautiful city's avenues, and has a nice touch of colonial architecture, since it was one of the richest haciendas in 1542, when the city was founded"

"CASA MONTEJO is the building that was originally built for the Adelantado. From such building, only the beautiful front is preserved, but it shows a great example of the civil architecture of Mexico"

"SAN ILDEFONSO CATHEDRAL, built between 1556 and 1599 by Juan Miguel Aguero in the place that once was occupied by the Mayor church, is one of the oldest cathedrals in the American continent. Its foundations were built with the huge stones from the pyramids dismantled by the Spaniards"

"PALACE"

***

UXMAL

The archeological centre of Uxmal is located northwest of the Yucatan peninsula, roughly 50 km south-west from Mérida. Uxmal (the name meant «built three times» in the Mayan language) is one of the most important parts of the late classic period (600-900 AC) of the Mayan culture, and is rated as the finest Mayan archaeological site. It was the greatest metropolitan and religious centre in the Puuc hills.

"THE PYRAMID OF THE MAGICIAN, at 30 m, is the tallest structure in Uxmal. According to an ancient legend, a magician-god named Itzamna was supposed to have constructed the pyramid in one night. From archaeological excavation however, we know that the pyramid was constructed in five phases. The legendary association of the pyramid with a magician may be understood as an indication that the structure had ancient use as a mystery school and ceremonial centre. The entire city is aligned with reference to the position of the planets then known, and the pyramid is oriented so that its stairway on the west faces the setting sun at the time of summer solstice"

"ARCHAEOLOGICAL CAMP"

"GOVERNOUR'S PALACE"

"TOURIST GROUP"

"ANOTHER PYRAMID"

"NUNNERY QUADRANGLE - An incredible decor"

"MISSION INN BREAK between the day visit and the light and sound show"

"LIGHT AND SOUND"

PALENQUE - SEPTEMBER 1983

2007-03-17T13:34:00.000Z

TRAVELLING IN CENTRAL MEXICO

After Oaxaca we flew to Villahermosa, the capital city of the state of Tabasco.
Villahermosa was by that time a city living an oil boom, crowded with workers from the oil platforms, but with no particular interest in it, except for the La Venta Park and for the possibility of driving from there to Palenque. In 1983, there was only one brand-new good hotel (I wonder whether it was the predecessor to the present Hyatt Regency) and we stayed there. But, due to some breakfast eggs, water, ice cubes or anything else, the fact is that I was caught by some sort of Montezuma's revenge. It was not funny, and the photos show...
The main aim of our stay was to visit the Mayan archaeological site of Palenque - some 150 Km south east of the city, a bit more than a hour and a half drive - and that was the first thing we did.

***

PALENQUE, CHIAPAS (MAYAN)

"ROAD Villahermosa-Palenque: I wonder whether this was already the current federal highway 186..."

"ENTRANCE to the city of Palenque, actually no real attraction to speak of..."

"JUNGLE - The site is hidden deeply in the jungle of Chiapas, on a densely forested ridge, and was already long abandoned when the Spanish arrived in Chiapas. The first European to visit the ruins and publish an account was Father Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada in 1567. The ruin's existence, however, was lost and rediscovered several times until 1844 when the American lawyer John L. Stephens and the English drawer Frederic Catherwood introduced this jewel of Mayan architecture to the world publishing the book «Incidents of travelling in Central America». While the ruins have received some of the most extensive excavation and reconstruction efforts of any of the Mayan sites, only 34 structures have been opened of an estimated 500 that are scattered around the area. As one wanders through the ruins, small hills are seen everywhere about the site. These are not hills however, but Mayan structures long overgrown with jungle. The site was included in the UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1987"

"TEMPLE OF INSCRIPTIONS - The ruins of Palenque are considered to be the most beautiful of the Mayan city-states and one of the loveliest archaeological sites in the world. In its cultural apogee Palenque was even more stunning, for then its limestone buildings were covered with white plaster and painted in a rainbow of pastel tones. Most of the buildings were constructed between the 7th and 10th centuries AD, including this fabulous pyramid topped by the Temple of Inscriptions (Temple of Pacal Votan). Then, mysteriously, the city was abandoned and reclaimed by the jungle. Even its Mayan name was lost (some would claim that it was named «Nah Chan»), and the ruins received their current name from the nearby village of Santo Domingo de Palenque. See the guy on the top with a Mexican hat on hand?"

"INSIDE the walls of this remarkable pyramid topped by the Temple of Inscriptions there is an elaborate, 600 hieroglyphs-long text carved in stone detailing the city's ruling dynasty and the exploits of Pacal the Great. One of the major findings took place in 1949, when the archaeologists found a stone slab in the floor that could be lifted up, revealing a passageway to this long interior stairway leading down to ground level and the shrine/tomb of Pacal, the Great, profusely decorated in bass-relieves. Inside this chamber was also found the impressive sarcophagus of Pacal, King of Palenque. The building of this mausoleum is believed to have been ordered by the King itself. Over his crypt there is a sophisticated stone showing him falling into the underworld, and taking the semblance of one of the Maya Hero Twins who defeated the lords of the underworld to achieve immortality"

"THE PALACE is an extensive building complex (100 meters long and 80 meters wide) so named by archaeologists. Its structure is pretty complicated, arranged by galleries, columns, interior yards, corridors, passages, scaled basements, and stone boards with hieroglyphic writings. It seems that at least some portions of the building may have been used as residences for the high priests and the aristocracy, but it is also believed that the complex served as an administrative centre for the city. The four stories tower, originally without a roof, is an astronomical observatory, and its structural type is unique in the Mayan world. From the tower, on the day of the winter solstice, an observer will see the sun set directly over the Temple of the Inscriptions. Archaeologists reconstructing the site, ignoring the Mayan astronomical knowledge, and thus the purpose of a stars-viewing roofless platform, capped it with a roof..."

"THE PALACE seen from the East side"

"INSIDE THE PALACE - Captives Patio"

"STILL THE PALACE"

"BAS-RELIEF - Palenque has many fine bas-relief carvings. This one in the Palace represents the coronation of King Pacal"

"RUINS in the jungle, and tourists..."

"TIRED TOURISTS in front of the Pyramid of the Temple of Inscriptions: the hot and humid weather and Montezuma's revenge were bringing me down..."

"NO MIST - This is what you see when you enter the archaeological site (or when you look back while getting out). Sometimes, in the early morning, is a bit misty, but not by 1:30 p.m."

"LUNCH TIME"

***

LA VENTA, VILLAHERMOSA, TABASCO (OLMEC)

"LA VENTA PARK in Villahermosa - not be confused with the archaeological site of La Venta, which is located about 100 kilometres away on the Gulf Coast - is a wonderful getaway within the city for anyone wishing to see the works of the ancient ancestors of the Maya, the Olmec. There are 28 Olmec carvings at this outdoor museum, transported from the archaeological site. It also has an interesting lake"

"STELE TWO - The Olmec highest civilization dates from 1,200 B.C., although they were at their peak in this area from 800 to 300 B.C. Many believe the Olmec were the cradle civilization for Mesoamerica, even calling the Olmecs «the mother culture of Mesoamerica». There is little doubt that the Olmec reverence for the prime deities represented by the jaguar, serpent and eagle, had a major influence on the Maya, Central Mexican and Zapotec concepts of these deities. The Olmecs probably founded writing in Mexico and left behind a rich culture that has made the later civilizations of the Zapotecs and Maya some of the greatest civilizations in World History"

"FEMALE FIGURE - Some name this Olmec statue «the mother-in-law», others «the Grandmother». Whether right or wrong, the point was that mosquitoes were hideously attacking us nearby..."

"COLOSSAL HEADS - The main attraction of the La Venta Park are the famous ten foot high Olmec heads. Intricately carved and massive in size, these heads are a stunning example of the sophisticated artistry employed by the ancient Olmec. Here we can see the so called Monument One, The first amazing colossal stone head to be found in 1860 in the swamps of the Mexican Gulf Coast"

"MONUMENT FOUR, another colossal Olmec head!"

OAXACAN RUINS - SEPTEMBER 1983

2007-03-11T00:47:00.001Z

OAXACA VALLEY: MONTE ALBAN, TULE AND MITLA!

***

MONTE ALBÁN

Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. From about 500 B.C. through 800 A.D., Monte Alban, located at an altitude of 1941m on the top of an artificially-levelled mount, which rises 400 m above the Oaxaca Valley, flourished as the capital of the Zapotecs. Monte Albán was named Danipaguache in the Zapotec language; what a name...

"THE SITE is located approximately 9 km to the west of the city of Oaxaca City, perched high above the surrounding valley"

"GRAND PLAZA seen from the Northern Platform - The archaeological site is built around the Gran Plaza, approximately 300 meters by 200 meters, with three pyramids occupying the centre of the plaza, along with the enigmatic Building J"

"PYRAMID SYSTEMS AND CENTRAL BUILDINGS"

"DANZANTES - The oldest carved stones at the site are the Dancers, featuring drawings of naked men in contorted and twisted poses. The notion that they depict dancers is now largely discredited, and the present consensus is that they represent those who lived and died in Monte Alban, including captives, warriors, and the sacrificed"

***

TULE

"ARBÓL DE TULE - Santa Maria del Tule, about 13 kilometres east of Oaxaca, is famous for its Tree, a Taxodium mucionatum, which is two thousand years old, about 40 m high and 42 m wide at its bottom. The Tule Tree has a volume of 705 cubic meters and an approximated weight of 509 020 kilograms. In its shade more than 500 people can be sheltered, and it takes about 30 individuals, hand to hand, to hold it at ground-level..."

"TULE CHURCH - Front view of the church with football playground..."

***

MITLA

San Pablo de Mitla is located about 40 km southeast of the city of Oaxaca. While archaeological evidence shows that Mitla was occupied by 500 BC, the earliest construction dates to only about 200 AD. Construction of pre-Columbian style buildings continued up until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in the 1520s. The ruins of Mitla are one of Mexico's most interesting sacred places.

"CACTUS - Mitla's archeological site consists of 5 main groups of construction, the oldest of which is believed to date from between 450 and 700 A.C. High cactus receive the visitors to the site"

"CHURCH OF SAN PABLO - In 1494 the Aztecs conquered Mitla and sacked the city. Once the Spanish took over, they found their efforts to convert locals to Catholicism thwarted by competition from native beliefs, manifesting themselves at ancient buildings such as those at Mitla. To combat the problem, the Spanish built a new church on top of a former temple"

"THE SITE - The archaeological zone of Mitla includes five main groups of structures and by the beginning of the Christian era the town had stretched for more than two thirds of a mile along either side of the Mitla River"

"THE PRE-COLUMBIAN BUILDINGS that survived still retain traces of paintwork"

"INSIDE THE PALACE"

"THE PALACE WALLS are decorated with distinctive geometric mosaics that characterize Mitla's buildings. Each frieze consists of up to 100,000 separate pieces of cut stone. The motif of these intricate geometric mosaics are believed to be a stylized representation of the Sky Serpent and therefore a symbol of the pan-regional deity, Quetzalcoatl"

OAXACA - SEPTEMBER 1983

2007-03-04T21:03:00.001Z

WELCOME TO THE FREE AND SOVEREIGN STATE OF OAXACA!

Our 1983 Mexican trip was entirely planned at my desk (itinerary, flights, hotels, tours...) and then requested to the travel agency (the travel agency started commercially selling the same trip the following year, but paid no copyright royalties...). The idea was to start in Mexico City, see some Aztec, Zapotec, Olmec and Mayan ruins, have some rest in Cancun - then a not yet fully crowded resort - and return to Mexico City to get back to New York and head home, via Madrid. This was a non repeated more than a month-long holiday, which started in New York, went through New England, Quebec, Washington DC and Mexico.

Our second destination in Mexico was The Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca, as it is named, and we flew the 45 minute Aeromexico flight to get its capital city: Oaxaca. Oaxaca is located in the Oaxaca Valley at an altitude of about 1550 m, and is a good example of Spanish colonial town planning, with a rectangular grid of streets surrounding a central square, the zócalo. Oaxaca was included in the World Heritage List of UNESCO in 1987.

That was long before the Oaxaca Protests...

***

HOTEL VICTORIA

"ROOM VIEW - We booked the Hotel Victoria, a very nice hotel in the middle of a huge garden on the top of the Fortin Hill. It was not very far away from city centre and was supposed to have a beautiful view over the city, being a bit out of reach for the possibly unpleasant annoyances of staying at night in the downtown area. We were given a room with a beautiful view towards the garden and the city centre"

"VIEW from the Hotel restaurant. The El Tule restaurant was a very nice one, and had a fabulous view. It was there that I tried the famous mole negro ozaqueno: chicken with a spicy chocolate sauce... I adore trying local food, but didn’t become a huge fan of the Oaxacan black mole"

"LOBBY BAR, a nice place to enjoy the views"

"SWIMMING POOL - The hotel pool was also one of the reasons why I choosed to stay at the Victoria. It was the best hotel pool in Oaxaca, by that time, if not the only..."

"NIGHT VIEW"

***

DOWNTOWN OAXACA

"CATHEDRAL - The Catedral Metropolitana de Oaxaca, originally started in 1535, extensively rebuilt in 1730 after a series of earthquakes and fires, and finally completed in 1752, is an impressive building. The cathedral's Baroque façade includes a fine relief of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary above the central door, and the two solid bell towers. The portal design is in eighteenth century baroque style. It is formed by triple portals with fifteen quadrants with access bays, sculpture niches, and generous relief"

"CALLES - The streets in the downtown area follow a rectangular grid pattern, with lots of interesting two-storey buildings"

"PARKS - Oaxaca has numerous gardens and parks. Some of them provide you with useful shade in the hot sunny days, as well as with some interesting scenes"

MURAL - Oaxaca is also known as Oaxaca de Juarez, since it is the birthplace of Benito Juarez, one of the most important heroes in the Mexican History. This mural by Arturo Garcia Bustos at the Government building depicts important figures in Mexican history. The faces in the top centre are Benito Juarez and his wife, Margarita Maza"

"SANTO DOMINGO DE GUZMÁN was built in the sixteenth century, is the most important of the numerous baroque ecclesiastical buildings in Oaxaca, and is considered the most important colonial building of the city. It is larger than the Cathedral of Oaxaca, also a Dominican construction"

"CLOISTER - The Cloister of Santo Domingo has Renaissance characteristics. The lower floor communicates with upper by a monumental staircase similar to the one at the Escorial in Madrid"

***

MUSEO RUFINO TAMAYO

"MUSEUM - Rufino Tamayo was born in Oaxaca, and decided to leave his collections of pre-Columbian art to the City where he was born. The pieces of the Tamayo collection are from 1600 BC to 1521 AD"

TEOTIHUACÁN - SEPTEMBER 1983

2007-03-03T14:13:00.000Z

ANOTHER UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE

Teotihuacán, place of the road to the gods, it seems, located some 40 km north-east of Mexico City, was once the largest city in the American continent. It was built between the 1st and 7th centuries A.D., and reached its zenith between 150 and 450, when it was the centre of a powerful culture that dominated Central America, with an influence comparable to ancient Rome.

"WELCOME - One morning we took a bus tour and went to Teotihuacán. Along the main road of the site - Avenue of the Dead - there are many ceremonial platforms that used to be topped with temples"

"MURALS - Ancient Jaguar Deity at the Palace of the Jaguars and another Jaguar at a site on the plaza of the Moon Pyramid"

"EAGLE"

"PYRAMID OF THE MOON - The 46 meters high Pyramid of the Moon was associated by the Aztecs with the moon and water goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, and is divided into four tiers surmounted by a monumental stairway"

"THE PYRAMID OF THE SUN, 200 meters square and 66 meters high, is the largest building in Teotihuacan and the second largest in the New World after the Great Pyramid of Cholula. It stands atop the sacred cave of creation, and is aligned with the rising of the sun and the appearance of the Pleiades at the spring equinox. It was designed for astronomical observations, worship, and sacrifice, and its four tiers can be climbed by means of a monumental stairway seen on the photo"

"UP THERE - Views of the Pyramid of the Moon, taken from the Pyramid of the Sun"

"CITADELL - Far distance view towards the southern section of the Teotihuacán site"

"ON THE TOP, can you see the guy with the arms open?"

"COMING DOWN"

"MUSEO NACIONAL DE ANTROPOLOGIA - The Museum is located at the Chapultepec Park, which is famous for the Niños Héroes, six military cadets, aged 14-20, who fought to their deaths against the invading United States Marine Corps during the Mexican-American War in 1847. The Museum, opened in 1964, hosts 600,000 art and other objects relating to the country history, some of them being the most significant anthropological finds of Mexico. It's, from my point of view, probably one of the most fabulous museums in the world. In the early morning of December 25, 1985, thieves broke into the National Museum of Anthropology, and made off with 124 priceless pre-Columbian treasures, but in January 1990 most of the items were recovered"

"TEOTIHUACÁN PIECES"

"COATLICUE, also known as Teteo Inan - The Mother of Gods - is the Aztec goddess who gave birth to the moon, stars, and Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun and war. She is represented as a woman wearing a skirt of snakes and a necklace made of human hearts, hands and skulls"

"LOST MEMORY - I don't know whether this piece was stolen or not. It was attributed to one of the last Aztec emperors, don't know whether Montezuma (who believed that Cortés was Quetzalcoatl) or Cuauhtémoc (the last of the Aztec emperors). I couldn't find any other photo of this..."

"THE AZTEC SUN STONE, a large monolithic sculpture 3.6 meters in diameter, 1.22 meters in thickness and weighing 24 tons, is often mistakenly called the Aztec calendar. It was created by the Mexica people and depicts the four great disasters, which led to the migration of the Mexica to Tenochtitlan, from where it was excavated in the Zócalo, on December 17, 1790. It also contains pictographs depicting the way the Mexica measured time"

"MAYAN STATUE?"

"OUTSIDE PATIO of the Museum"

MEXICO CITY - SEPTEMBER 1983

2007-02-25T16:55:00.000Z

MILLIONS LIVING AT AN ALTITUDE OF 2240 METERS!

Mexico City, located on an enormous dry lake bed in the Valley of Anahuac - a large valley in a high plateau at an altitude of 2,240 meters, surrounded by towering mountains -, is one of the most populous cities on Earth (it was already when we flew there in 1983...). Originally built by the Aztecs in 1325, on an island of Lake Texcoco, it was almost completely destroyed in the siege of 1521, and later rebuilt by the Spanish. According to Article 44 of the Constitution of Mexico, Mexico City is the Federal District, seat of the powers of the Union and capital of the United Mexican States!

After a tour of New England, Quebec, Niagara, DC and a couple of days in New York, we took a flight in a long gone airline - Eastern Airlines (bankrupt in 1991) - and landed on an early Sunday afternoon in Mexico City. I remember that the plane made a large circle before landing (more than twenty minutes in the air) always over urban territory: that's when I realized that Mexico City is actually huge...

"ALAMEDA PARK - The first time we were in Mexico City, we stayed at a nice classic five star Hotel at the Juarez Avenue, just in front of the Alameda Park. As in 1985 some of the buildings of that area collapsed after the two minute earthquake of magnitude 8.1 on the Richter scale that killed thousands of people, and as now I can only find the new Sheraton Centro Historico Hotel, I don't now whether our hotel is definitely gone or not. Anyhow, Alameda is the first park of the City, and goes back to 1592 when the Viceroy Luis de Velasco ordered its creation just in front of the square of the Inquisition. The modern shape of the garden dates from the end of the 18th Century. On a Sunday afternoon, the Park was crowded!"

"BENITO JUAREZ MONUMENT - During the Romanic Era some sculptures where laid among the trees of the Alameda Park, but the most remarkable is the Benito Juárez Monument. Benito Pablo Juárez García (1806-1872) was a Zapotec Amerindian, and the only full-blooded indigenous national to serve as President of Mexico (five terms, actually). He is often regarded as Mexico's greatest leader, namely for having resisted the French occupation, overthrown the Empire, restored the Republic, and tried the difficult task to modernize the country"

"THE FINE ARTS PALACE, ordered by President Porfirio Diaz in the early 1900s, was completed in 1934, and is the premier opera house of Mexico City. It's Italian white marble Art Nouveau exterior and the Art Deco interiors are fantastic. As most of the old important buildings in Mexico City - constructed on a former lake -, the Palace has been sinking a little bit every year since the completion of its construction, due to its massive weight"

"STAGE CURTAIN - One of the Palace's main attractions is a Tiffany stained glass stage curtain portraying a panoramic view of the Valley of Mexico with its two volcanoes; the others are the fabulous murals by Rivera, Siqueiros, Orozco and Tamayo"

"THE BALLET FOLKLORICO was founded in 1952 by the dancer and choreographer Amalia Hernández and is the oldest and most celebrated Mexican ensemble preserving the traditional dances of the country from pre-Columbian days through the Revolutionary years at the early 1910's. The company was asked by the Mexican government to tour internationally as cultural and artistic ambassadors of Mexico in the 1950s and has been the resident company at the Palace of Fine Arts since that time, showing «large-scale dance and music productions that are flashy and magnificent, with extraordinary costumes». In fifty years, the Ballet Folklorico of Mexico of Amalia Hernández has performed more than 12,000 presentations!"

"PASEO DE LA REFORMA, conceived on the orders of Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg in the 1860s as an ample 12-kilometer long boulevard, cutting diagonally across the city, is one of Mexico City's most outstanding avenues. It was modelled after the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and aimed at directly linking the National Palace in the city centre with Chapultepec Castle. Taking advantage of the tree-lined space, we can find some fine examples of architecture, as well as some spectacular monuments, including those dedicated to Cuauhtémoc and Columbus, the statues of the Republic's heroes, and the Independence Monument, with the new symbol for the city - the victorious winged statue that crowns the column of this monument. On this lousy photo we can see one of the then famous «yellow beetle cabs»"

"THE METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL is the largest cathedral in the Western Hemisphere, with five separate naves and several side chapels, and represents a synthesis of art forms, from the baroque façade to the neoclassical 64 meter high towers holding 18 bells. It is located on the city's central square, the Zócalo (officially named Constitution Square), but it is not the same that replaced the Templo Mayor of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, conquered by Cortés. The first church was demolished in 1572, and a new cathedral was built on the same place, which was inaugurated 42 years later and re-dedicated in 1667. Anyhow, the final elements — bell towers and central dome designed by the Spanish architect Manuel Tolsa — were finished only in 1813. The City's soft clay subsoil, subject to continuous movement over the years, has propitiated the gradual sinking of many building in the historic centre including the Cathedral, and sophisticated restoration works, such as underground tunnels to stabilize the uneven inclination of its sinking, have prevented its collapse"

"RIVERA MURAL - Between 1929 and 1945, the muralist Diego Rivera - full name Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez - produced enormous murals in the National Palace celebrating the history of Mexico, which occupy more than 100 square meters of wall space. His «Mexico Through the Centuries», on the main stairwell leading to the first floor, depicts every major event and person of Mexican history, from Cortés’ conquest to the Mexican Revolution. At least here Rivera did not find the troubles he encountered while creating «Man at Crossroads» for the lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Centre..."

"THE ZOCALO is a great square that evokes the centre of the world, which was the heart of the ceremonial nucleus of the Aztec city Tenochtitlan. In present days, it represents a point of reference, of protest, and of national celebration around the giant flag, in particular during the festivities on September 15th, eve of Mexico's Independence Day. Here we see the flag, as well as the Latino Americana Tower, the first Mexican skyscraper"

"THE SANTO DOMINGO CHURCH is located at the Plaza with the same name, near the Zocalo. It was constructed with red tezontle, has a quarry stone façade, and is considered one of the most representative Baroque-style buildings of Mexico"

"PLAZA DE LAS TRES CULTURAS - The Three Cultures Place symbolizes Mexico’s unique cultural heritage. Once the centre of some of the most powerful of the Native American empires (represented by the ruins of an Aztec temple), Mexico became a flourishing Spanish colony in the 16th century (represented by the shell of a Spanish church), and nowadays builds some modern housing (the new buildings in the photo) to lodge Mexican City's inhabitants, mostly persons with mixed European and Native American ancestry..."

"STATUES under the storm!"

"OLD BASILICA at the Our lady of Guadalupe Sanctuary. Officially known as the «Templo Expiatorio a Cristo Rey», the construction of the old basilica began in 1531 and was not finished until 1709. Behind the old basilica there are steps leading to the Capilla del Cerrito, built on the spot where the virgin is deemed to have appeared to a certain Juan Diego. The old basilica, however, was sinking, as it may be seen from the top photo"

"NEW BASILICA - As a consequence of the sinking of the old basilica, a more spacious new basilica was built between 1974 and 1976 by the Mexican architect Pedro Ramírez Vásquez who was also the architect of the Aztec Stadium. It is a circular building constructed, whose structure is supported by 350 pilots that prevent it from sinking. The new Basilica is the most important religious building in Mexico, and it seems to be the second yearly most visited sanctuary of Catholicism, just after the Vatican City. The original image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is now housed in this New Basilica"

"INSIDE - One may enter the Basilica by one of its seven front doors, which are an allusion to the seven gates of Celestial Jerusalem. The Basilica has a circular floor plan so that the image of the Virgin can be seen from any point within the building. An empty crucifix symbolizes Christ's resurrection. It may seat 10,000 people inside the premises, and when needed, temporary seats are placed in the atrium outside allowing up to 40,000 people to participate in the religious ceremonies"

AROUND WASHINGTON - AUGUST 1983

2007-02-20T01:16:00.001Z

FROM WASHINGTON TO NEW YORK, VIA MOUNT VERNON

***

MOUNT VERNON

While in D.C., we profited to see some of its surroundings. A traditional tour includes Mount Vernon and return by boat to see the Potomac River.

"FRONT DOOR - Mount Vernon was the plantation home of George and Martha Washington from the time of their marriage in 1759 until George's death in 1799. During that period the house was extended from six to twenty-one rooms..."

"VERANDA - The back of the Mansion, on the Potomac side, has a lawn that goes down to the river"

"THE LAWN is a nice place to make movies..."

"THE ARCADE connects buildings. There are some trees that are the only living witnesses of the time when Martha and George lived there"

WASHINGTON'S TOMB - George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 (275 years ago this February month of 2007) and died on December 14, 1799, and rests at the estate..."

"SHIP - Preparing to board"

"POTOMAC RIVER CRUISE"

"DISEMBARKING in Washington"

***

PHILADELPHIA

"THE LIBERTY BELL is one of the most familiar symbols of the American Independence, and is also linked to the abolition of slavery. Its most famous ringing occurred on July 8, 1776, to summon citizens of Philadelphia for the reading of the Declaration of Independence. The Liberty Bell was originally known as the "Old State House Bell", but changed its name when, in 1837, it was adopted by the American Anti-Slavery Society as a symbol of the abolitionist movement"

"INDEPENDENCE HALL - The red brick building, built between 1732 and 1753, was the place where the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution were all signed"

"DOWNTOWN"

***

NEW YORK

"VERRAZANO BRIDGE connects the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn at the Narrows. The bridge is named after the first known European navigator to enter New York Harbour and the Hudson River, the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano"

"DOWNTOWN with the WTC"

"BROOKLYN BRIDGE"

"WEIRD"

WASHINGTON D.C. - AUGUST 1983

2007-02-17T02:27:00.001Z

FIRST TIME IN THE CAPITAL CITY OF THE USA

"YORK - On the way from Niagara to D.C., we made a technical stop at York for a smoothie..."

"ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY is home to more than 285,000 dead. Among them is the grave of President John F. Kennedy. Here we see the Arlington House, designed in 1818, and home for Robert E. Lee. The Arlington House was also the third representation of Greek Revival architecture in the United States"

"IWO JIMA MEMORIAL at Arlington - The United States Marine Corps War Memorial, dedicated to all marines who have given their lives in battle, reproduces a photo from Joe Rosenthal taken during the WW II battle for the Pacific Ocean Island of Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest in the war, with more than 6,800 American and 23,000 Japanese casualties"

"LINCOLN MEMORIAL - The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple, and contains a large seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, and inscriptions of two well-known speeches by Lincoln. The murals were painted by Jules Guerin. The present sequence shows the Memorial seen from the side of the Potomac River, from the Mall, and inside"

"THOMAS JEFFERSON MEMORIAL - The Memorial, dedicated to the Founding Father and third president of the United States, is one of my favourites. It's a white open-air neoclassical building with marble steps, a dome and a portico, located in West Potomac Park. The 5.8 m tall bronze statue of Jefferson is quite impressive"

"THE WHITE HOUSE was built after Leinster House in Dublin, the present Irish Parliament, and is made of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian style. The first photo shows the South Lawn and the South Portico; the second shows the North Façade as seen from Pennsylvania Avenue"

"DEMONSTRATIONS - There are always some protesters near the White House..."

"THE MALL seen from the top of Capitol Hill"

"CAPITOL HILL - According to Pierre L'Enfant words, it was «a pedestal waiting for a superstructure»"

"NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM - It maintains the largest collection of aircraft and spacecraft in the world, including the command module of Apollo 11 - the first mission to land astronauts on the moon -, and is the world's most-visited museum"

"THE MALL - Valentine's every day"

"NATIONAL GALLERY with the Calder mobile"

"SUNSET"

NIAGARA FALLS - AUGUST 1983

2007-02-12T21:00:00.000Z

WATER DELIGHTS

"NIAGARA FALLS, on the border between Canada and the United States, includes two main waterfalls: the Horseshoe Falls (on the Canadian side) and the American Falls (on the US side), as well as the smaller Bridal Veil Falls. The Falls are located roughly 120 km away from downtown Toronto and 26 km from Buffalo (NY). In the photo we see the three Falls from left to right: American, Bridal and Horseshoe. Niagara Falls is not as impressive as the waterfall system of Iguaçu in Brazil, but anyhow it is the most powerful waterfall in North America.

"CLOUD - The Horseshoe Falls generate a high cloud of mist up from the bottom of the falls, and that is probably how the Falls got their Indian name «Niagara», supposedly meaning «thundering water». Others would say that the name «Niagara» originated from an Iroquois word «Onguiaahra» meaning «The Strait»"

"MAID OF THE MIST - It seems that in the early 1830s, before the first International Suspension Bridge was completed (1848), small boats were used to transport people across the Niagara River. The Maid of the Mist I was launched on May 27th 1846. After the completion of the Bridge it turned to sightseeing tourism to remain viable. Here we can see the ships bringing the tourists towards the Horseshoe Falls"

"AMERICAN FALLS on the background"

"MAID OF THE MIST - Now, we are the tourists on the ship, seeing the Falls (here the American) and the rainbow. From the trip I remember that the black covers were so stinky that my blue T-Shirt - «I Hiked The Canyon» - from the Grand Canyon had to be sent immediately to the garbage container... No rescue!"

"MAID OF THE MIST facing the Horseshoe Falls"

"AMERICAN AND BRIDAL FALLS"

"BEHIND THE HORSESHOE"

"UNDER THE HORSESHOE"

"NIGHT SHOW - In Summer, the Falls are also a night show. Red and Green!"

TORONTO - AUGUST 1983

2007-02-10T01:47:00.000Z

CANADA'S LARGEST CITY

"ASAS DO ATLÂNTICO CLUB - In the late fifties, early sixties, on Sundays, when I used to hear football (soccer) games broadcast live on Portuguese national radio, I remember that the list of radio stations broadcasting simultaneously included Clube Asas do Atlântico in Toronto, Canada. So, when we got to Toronto, we unpacked at the Hotel, and headed to Alberta Avenue, where a large Portuguese community used to live. The neighbourhood was then changing to a kind of Chinatown; however some Portuguese spots could still be seen there, including the Portuguese Book Store and the Radio. At the bookstore, by 7 p.m., we bought the same day edition of «A Bola», the most sold Portuguese sports paper, and saw the flag of F.C.Porto that would become European Champion in 1987 and would win the Champions League, with José Mourinho (Chelsea F.C.) as coach, in 2004. Then, we found a restaurant named «Leão d'Ouro» (Golden Lion), as the Lisbon downtown restaurant, and had Codfish for dinner. Well, this was the only Portuguese interlude of a month vacation, so I think the «saudade» (nostalgia) is forgivable...

"TORONTO CITY HALL, designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell and opened in 1965, is one of the most distinctive buildings of the city, and was the starting point of our next morning tour of Toronto. In front of the main structure we can find Nathan Phillips Square, a public space containing the fountain seen in the pictures. The square is surrounded by an elevated walkway that connected to the City Hall"

"THE OLD CITY HALL was built in 1899, as the third Toronto city hall. After the opening of Toronto's current City Hall, the Old was threatened with demolition during the planning of the Eaton Centre Shopping Mall, but «Friends of Old City Hall» convinced the city to preserve the building. The Clock Tower is a distinctive landmark of the city"

"TORONTO DOWNTOWN - At the distance, we can see the Canada Life Building, built in 1931. It is located in the heart of downtown Toronto, and it's known locally as the «weather building», as it looks to Torontonians as a giant neon thermometer"

"The five-storey ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE BUILDING, located in the heart of downtown at Queen's Park, was completed in Romanesque style in 1893, and is a popular tourist attraction"

"CASA LOMA, a castle in downtown Toronto was the home of Sir Henry Pellatt, a Canadian financier, industrialist and military"

"EATON CENTRE - The largest shopping mall in Toronto, and one of the first that we visited, was an astonishing experience. No wonder; the Eaton Centre is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Toronto, as millions of tourists enter this shopping centre every year"

"ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM - Not as impressive as the New York Museum of Natural History, the ROM is Canada's largest museum of world cultures and natural history"

"YORKVILLE - The Village of Yorkville was founded in 1830 by Joseph Bloor, and began as a residential suburb with Victorian-style homes, quiet streets, and beautiful gardens. In the 1960s, Yorkville became Toronto's bohemian cultural centre, and was also known as the Canadian capital of the hippie movement"

"VIEWS FROM THE CN TOWER RESTAURANT - The tower is 533 meters high and solved the communication problems in Toronto. Its 360 Restaurant rotates once every 72 minutes allowing you a complete and unobstructed view of the city below"

"INSIDE THE TOWER"

"CN TOWER - Views on departure from Toronto"

THOUSAND ISLANDS - AUGUST 1983

2007-02-07T21:43:00.000Z

ON THE WAY FROM OTTAWA TO TORONTO

The St. Lawrence River, flowing in from the north eastern part of Lake Ontario for about 80 km downstream from Kingston, becomes so wide and so full of islands that it is called the Lake of the Thousand Islands, though its actual number is 1,865. Their size ranges from over 100 square km to simple uninhabited rocks that are above the water level for 365 days per year and support at least one tree or shrub! The Islands are divided between Canada and the USA, the Canadian belonging to Ontario and the American to the State of New York. The Thousand Islands-Frontenac Arch region was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 2002.

"CRUISE - On our way from Ottawa to Toronto we took a cruise and saw the beauties of the Gananoque Region. The sun was hot and shinning and there was no wind, a perfect weather combination for a short cruise through the Islands"

"SHIPS - Our cruise ship was much larger than the small yacht cruising in front of us!

"ISLANDS - From very large to very small!"

"BOLDT CASTLE is the major tourist attraction of the Thousand Islands region. George Boldt, proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, decided, in 1900, to build one of the largest private homes in America. However, in early 1904, shortly after the death of his wife, the construction ceased. For 73 years, the castle was left alone, until 1977, when the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority acquired Heart Island for one dollar, under the agreement that all revenues obtained from the castle operation would be applied towards restoration. When we passed by in 1983 restoration had just started, and it seems that twenty years later, after fifteen million dollars spent, work continues..."

"HEART ISLAND - Yacht House"

"ZAVIKON ISLAND - Border between Canada and USA, the shortest international bridge..."

"KINGSTON, the «Limestone City» due to the many buildings built from limestone, is located at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, where the lake runs into the St. Lawrence River and where the Thousand Islands begin"

OTTAWA - AUGUST 1983

2007-02-05T02:48:00.000Z

VISITING CANADA'S CAPITAL CITY

Ottawa is the capital of Canada. It was made capital of the British colonial Province of Canada in 1857, and in the 20th century, a much larger region was created to serve as Canada’s Capital. In summer, when we visited it, the weather was fine: sunny and hot, which made us complaint of the air conditioning in our room at the Lord Elgin (the name of the British that brought the marbles from the Acropolis to the British Museum) Hotel. It seems however that in winter the temperatures reach to record lows. In 1943, minus 36.1° Celsius were recorded, which is the second lowest temperature recorded in a capital city (after Ulan Bator in Mongolia). In January, Ottawa is the third coldest capital in the world, behind the named Ulan Bator and Astana in Kazakhstan. This last was surely a nice place to visit Borat Sagdiyev, before a certain Sacha Baron Cohen decided to finish with him...

"LORD ELGIN HOTEL is an Ottawa Hotel Landmark, and was our home in Ottawa. It is located in the heart of downtown Ottawa, directly across from Confederation Park and taht can be seen in the photo, and just some meters away from the Parliament Buildings and the Rideau Canal"

"UP THE HILL - When we arrived, we left the luggage at the Lord Elgin Hotel and headed up the Hill to the Parliament Buildings. These started to be built in 1865 and were finished in 1927, and serve as the home of the Parliament of Canada. The East Block, seen on this photo, was built in two stages in 1867 and 1910"

"THE CENTRE BLOCK, which burned in 1916, is the most known building of the three. The building was entirely destroyed by a great fire, except for the Library of Parliament. It seems that a sharp and quick-thinking librarian was able to close the Library's iron doors and thus protect the fantastic treasures inside. The Centre Block was rebuilt in 1920, and the Peace Tower, completed in 1927 to commemorate the end of the First World War, replaced the old Victoria Tower that burned in 1916"

"TATTOO - We got to Ottawa on the last Sunday in August. So this was the closing day for the traditional Changing of the Guard parade. This day we were entitled to a most colourful military Tattoo!"

"THE ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE is unique in the world since it is a national, federal, provincial and municipal policing body. In the mid-fifties, when television was still starting in Portugal, there used to be documentary films before the main movies in the cinema houses. I still remember a typical one called «O Mundo em Noticias» (The World in News), where the voice reading the news, with a peculiar Brazilian accent, would say: «Na densa floresta do Canada, a Real Polícia Montada...» (In the dense forests of Canada, the Royal Mounted Police..."

"RIVERS - Ottawa is situated on the south bank of the Ottawa River, and includes within its limits the mouth of the Rideau River and the Rideau Canal"

"PARLIAMENT HILL seen from the other side of the Ottawa River"

"HAPPY TOURISTS in a beautiful scenario!"

"SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN is already known in this blog as the 17th-century geographer and map-maker who founded the city of Quebec in 1608. In 1613 he explored the Ottawa River and this statue, erected to commemorate the 300th anniversary of his second ascent up the Ottawa River, is supposed to be located exactly where he would have made his solar observation during his voyage in 1615. He's holding the famous astrolabe that the Portuguese navigators of the fourteenth and fifteenth century utilized. These used to turn to the skies to get to know where they were on the water..."

"THE VICTORIA MEMORIAL MUSEUM BUILDING was the home of the National Museum of Natural Sciences since 1912 (Now it seems to have changed name to Canadian Museum of Nature). It's a beautiful building and a national monument"

"CHATEAU LAURIER HOTEL is a magnificent limestone edifice with turrets and masonry that look like a French château, namely some of the Loire Valley. The garden is also a beautiful spot, and a nice place to display the fantastic Adidas sneakers - my Flying Shoes! They run many parts of this planet to finish their lives in an over water Fare in Tahiti, after having been used in water to prevent cuts from coral rests and spines from sea-urchins..."

"THE RIDEAU CANAL is the oldest canal operating continuously in North America. It is 7.8-kilometre long and links the rivers between Ottawa and Kingston. In winter, frozen, it becomes the world's longest skating rink..."

"TOTEM - Of course that we could not leave Canada's capital without a photo from a Totem..."

MONTREAL - AUGUST 1983

2007-01-28T00:53:00.000Z

VIVE LE QUÉBEC LIBRE!

On July 24, 1967, Charles De Gaulle, President of France, was in Canada on an official state visit, presumably to visit Expo 67. When he arrived in Montreal, after an enthusiastic reception in Québec City, he was driven up Chemin du Roy to the Hôtel de Ville. The large crowd was excited. As they chanted for him, De Gaulle stepped out onto the balcony of Montreal city hall and gave a short address. He concluded saying Vive le Québec (Long live Quebec!) and then added, Vive le Québec libre! (Long live free Quebec!). Vive le Québec libre! was a popular slogan for people wishing to show their support for Quebec sovereignty. Huge diplomatic incident...

"SUMMER IN THE CITY - A group of French settlers, men and women both, founded Montréal, initially baptized Ville-Marie, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in May 1642. More than three hundred years later, the Credit Lyonnais also landed there, on the left of the picture"

"MARIE REINE DU MONDE - Montreal's Roman Catholic cathedral, completed in 1894, was designed as a one third-size replica of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome"

"NOTRE-DAME - Montreal's Notre-Dame is a neogothic building, dating from 1829 that has nothing in common with Paris' Basilica except the name. The Basilica in Montreal is noted for its wonderful interior with stained glass windows, gold-tipped carvings, paintings, statues, and especially its fantastic altar"

"HOTEL GARDEN"

"WORLD FILM FESTIVAL - The Portuguese flag can be seen on the first row, the fourth from the left"

"OLYMPIC VILLAGE - This was the home in 1976 for Carlos Lopes, silver medallist on the 10000 meter athletic race. The gold medal was won by a Finn - Lasse Viren - who now is known to have been blood doping when he won his gold medals in 1972 and 1976. Lopes, without any of those transfusions, took the revenge cleanly and clearly winning the 1984 Los Angeles Marathon, the first gold medal in Olympic Games for Portugal. Four years later in Seoul, Rosa Mota won the ladies marathon..."

"DESJARDINS SHOPPING MALL"

"OLD MONTREAL is located along the St. Lawrence River, five minutes’ walk from downtown and just a short walk from the Convention Centre. Around 4,000 people live there, and many more come to work there everyday..."

"PLACE JACQUES CARTIER was built by the city in the first half of the 19th century. It has always been a dynamic centre"

"MOUNT ROYAL reflected in the glass building in front of the Hotel window!"

QUÉBEC - PART TWO - AUGUST 1983

2007-01-20T17:32:00.001Z

BASSE VILLE

"ESCALIER CASSE-COU - Visiting Quebec's lower town is a must. So, if you are at the Chateau Frontenac, you may take the steep and winding street called Côte de la Montagne and the Escalier Casse-Cou (Breakneck Stairs)"

"FUNICALAR - If you are at the Dufferin Terrace, you may use the funicular, whose exit is seen at the right hand-side of the first picture and on the top of the second"

"STREETS - Lower Town was the starting point from which Quebec grew, and is the place where one can get an exciting sense of how New France would have looked like in its earliest days"

"MAISON CHEVALIER and Chateau Frontenac - The tall chimneys and red tiled roofs indicate that one is in front of the stone house, with a typical New France style, built in 1752 for Jean-Baptiste Chevalier, a wealthy merchant"

"PLACE ROYALE was the epicentre of life in Quebec for many years and is the focal point of Lower Town. Laid out in 1688 on the site of the garden of Champlain’s Habitation of 1608, it was used as a market square and public forum. A reconstruction made in the late 1960s was intended to return it to the appearance it had at the time of the conquest"

"NOTRE-DAME-DES-VICTOIRES - Place Royale is dominated by the church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. An inaccurate popular belief holds that the church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires is the oldest in Québec. Anyhow, it is built partly on the foundations on part of Champlain's residence in 1624 and was dedicated in 1690 as Église Notre-Dame-des-Victoires when thirty four British ships withdrew after a five-day siege of the city. So it's old enough to feed the belief. «Victory» turned «victories in 1711 when a British naval attack was disrupted by a violent storm. However, the British came a third time, in 1759, and the church was almost completely destroyed by their bombardment. Like the Portuguese saying: «Não há duas sem três» and «À terceira, é de vez!..."

VIEUX QUÉBEC - AUGUST 1983

2007-01-13T17:59:00.000Z

QUEBÉC HAUTE VILLE

I was wondering whether to post this in English or in French. I decided to combine both: the introduction will be in French, and the sub-titles to the photos will be in English. Anyhow one can always use the automatic translation systems to read it, even if the results are sometimes very, very abnormal...

***

Après la Nouvelle Angleterre, on est entré au Canada par la Province du Québec et le premier arrêt a été à la capitale, la Ville de Québec.
La ville de Québec, la plus vieille ville francophone d'Amérique - «le berceau de l'Amérique française» -, est la seule ville fortifiée du continent au nord du Mexique et a été déclaré site du patrimoine mondial par l'UNESCO en 1985, après notre visite... Il semble qu'elle est la seule a avoir cette distinction en Amérique du Nord.
Le nom Québec dérive du mot algonquin Kébec, qui signifiait «là où le fleuve se rétrécit» et dénommait la faible largeur du fleuve Saint-Laurent entre les lieux où les villes de Québec et de Lévis, sur la rive opposée, ont été crées. La ville de Québec a été officiellement fondée par Samuel de Champlain le 3 juillet 1608 et de 1608 à 1627 et de 1632 à 1763, elle a été la capitale du Canada et de toute la Nouvelle-France. La ville de Québec va donc célébrer ses 400 ans en 2008, ce que la permet d’être surnommée la vieille Capitale. En plus, il semble que cet anniversaire mobilise des millions de dollars pour les événements et les nouvelles infrastructures annoncés. On verra...
La ville de Québec a une topographie particulière, constituée d'une part de la falaise ceinturant le plateau La Cité-Sainte-Foy-Sillery et d'autre part du coteau de Beauport, ce qu’a fortement influencé l'occupation du territoire. Sur le plateau, la succession des quartiers depuis le Vieux-Québec vers l'ouest permet comprendre la constitution progressive de la Haute-Ville, dénomination que trouve toute sa signification par opposition à la Basse-Ville, qui s'est développée au pied de la falaise nord et au contact direct du fleuve Saint-Laurent.

***

"PLAINS OF ABRAHAM - the land that Abraham Martin, named L'Écossais, never owned or even lived on, but used instead to graze his cattle - was the site of the September 13, 1759 final battle for supremacy between the French and British Empires in the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War. Combat lasted only 30 minutes, ending a three-month siege of the fortified town, and open the way to the conquest of New France by Britain. Both the French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis of Montcalm, and the British General James Wolfe were killed in the battle that changed the fate of North America. Today, the Battlefields Park, further to its historical meaning, is the lungs of Quebec City. In the background one can see the Quebec Parliament as well as some other buildings belonging to the local Government"

"DRILL HALL - The building at the National Battlefields Park is beautiful, with the turrets flanking the entrance"

"LAMP - The lamp in the Park looks quite similar to some we use to have in the old quarters of Lisbon"

"CITADELLE - The Citadelle of Québec City (the Gibraltar of America) is a national historical site and the official residence of the Governor General. The first protective wall was built in the 17th century under Louis de Buade, sieur de Frontenac, after a plan of fortifications was approved by Louis XIV's commissary general of fortifications Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban in 1701. The existing star-shaped fortifications were built by the British between 1820 and 1831 and the home of the Royal 22nd Regiment, the French-speaking regiment of Canadian Forces"

"AVENUE ST. DENIS with the Chateau Frontenac Hotel in the background"

"PLACE D'ARMES - Located in front of the Chateau Frontenac hotel, the Place d'Armes was in the past the site for military parades and drills. In the early 1900s, the Place was re-opened as a public park and it's nowadays one of the highlights of the Vieux Québec. The Monument of Faith, a sculpture commemorating the arrival of Recollet Mona from France in 1615, can be seen in the centre of the park. The only problem was that this summer morning was a bit rainy..."

"STATUE OF SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN - CHAMPLAIN (1567 - 1635), a French explorer, who founded Quebec City, and thus earned the nickname «Father of New France», arrived to the banks of the Saint-Laurent and Saint-Charles rivers some seventy years after another French explorer, Jacques Cartier. After a few early visits to North America, Champlain landed at Kébec on July 3, 1608, and constructed three buildings, as well as a 5 meter wide moat to protect the area against attack. This was to become the city of Quebec, and fortifying his «Habitation» became a passion for the rest of his life"

"THE CHATEAU FRONTENAC was built between 1893 and 1924 (a new wing seem to have been added in the 1990s after our visit), and it is named after Louis de Baude, Count of Frontenac, a 17th-century governor of New France. Designed by architect Bruce Price, it was one of the first of a long series of «château» style hotels built for the Canadian Pacific Railway company at the end of the 19th and the start of the 20th century. Perched on top of Cap-Diamant, overlooking the Saint-Laurent like an imposing medieval castle, the Frontenac is the archetype of the château-style hotel, with towers, steeply pitched roofs, and dormer windows, and one of Québec City's most famous landmarks. An unmistakable symbol of the city, the hotel hosted many notable names, including Charles De Gaulle, Alfred Hitchcock, Grace Kelly, Prince Rainier, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In fact, several summit meetings between Churchill and Roosevelt were held nearby. The Quebec Conference of 1943, in which Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt discussed strategy for World War II, was held at the Citadelle while much of the staff stayed nearby at the Château Frontenac. It deservedly is one of the most photographed hotels in the world..."

"THE TERRASSE DUFFERIN is a boardwalk along the edge of the cliff, offering beautiful views of the Saint-Laurent and leading to the stairways of the Promenade des Gouverneurs, clinging to the cliffs beneath the Citadelle. It bears the name of the Governor-general of Canada in the 1870s, Lord Dufferin, when it was created in its present form. Not as much as Portofino or Positano, the Terrasse has a somehow resort character, and was, anyhow, very fashionable... with a nice view to the Lower Town and across the Saint-Laurent to Lévis on the far bank. A bit wet in the morning, it was much better in the afternoon!"

"SAINT-LAWRENCE AND LEVIS - A lousy, grey photo of a cloudy day!"

"ST. ANNE STREET - Beautiful roofs"

"CITY HALL - The sign means that Quebec City was then commemorating its 375th anniversary. Nice tip to get there next year for the four hundredth commemoration..."

"MUSÉE HISTORIQUE at the corner of St. Anne and Trésor streets, a painless history lesson, and also a wax museum, the Musée de Cire housed in a fine 18th-century dwelling"

"UPPER TOWN STREETS: Quite peaceful; anyhow, look at those cars..."

"LA VIEILLE MAISON DU SPAGHETTI at 625 Grand Allée Est was a nice place to have dinner. It seems that the restaurant is still around and has a site. They are open seven days a week, and suggest you call ahead for a reservation at (418) 529-6697. Have a nice time..."

NEW ENGLAND - AUGUST 1983

2007-01-06T18:49:00.000Z

FROM BOSTON TO MAINE

After the long US travel in 1982 that started in New Orleans and finished in Chicago, we returned this time for a visit to the East Coast. We took a bus and started with Boston.

***

BOSTON

"THE MOTHER CHURCH - We took a bus tour of Boston, which started at the Mother Church, part of the Christian Science Complex, and an example of Romanesque architecture"

"FROM CHURCH TO CHURCH - After the Science we went to the Episcopal..."

"BOSTON TEA PARTY - We also visited the Port!"

"OLD STATE HOUSE - This was the centre of Massachusetts government in the 1700's"

"FANEUIL HALL is an old market building, first built in 1742. Town meetings were held here between 1764 and 1774, and there Samuel Adams had the opportunity to protest against the imposition of taxes on the colonies. The building was enlarged in 1806"

"FANEUIL HALL/QUINCY MARKET is crowded in summer"

"THE NEW STATE HOUSE is located next to The Boston Common. It's amazing, in the US, to call something built in 1795 «new». It could only happen in Boston..."

"FROG POND - It seems that after 1997 Boston residents and visitors can skate over the refrigerated surface from November to mid-March! In Summer, there was nothing special to call your attention..."

"KING'S CHAPEL, famous for its architectural beauty, became the first Unitarian Church in the U.S. after the American Revolution. It's located on Boston's Freedom Trail, along with 15 other stops, including also the Faneuil Hall"

***

MAINE

"WATERHOUSE tourist bus stop"

"ANOTHER STOP..."

"US/CANADA BORDER - Fom Maine to Quebec"

NEW YORK - AUGUST 1983

2007-01-01T18:48:00.000Z

TRIP NUMBER FIVE, VIA MADRID

The return from Bangkok was a tricky and long night flight: we continued to fly BA and made Bangkok - New Deli (Very Boring Stop) - Bahrain (with a visit to the fantastic duty-free sometime in the middle of the night) - London (where we changed aircraft) and, finally, Lisbon...
In June, I went back to London and stayed for some days, but took no photos.
In August, we flew once again to New York for what would be the fifth visit. This time we flew Iberia, and that meant that we had one night in Madrid with dinner and accommodation for free... There were no Low Cost Airlines on those days, but competition was also soaring!

***

MADRID - PARQUE DEL RETIRO

We did not have much time in Madrid. Anyhow, we managed to visit the Retiro Park, created as a royal park for the Palace of the Real Sitio del Buen Retiro. The palace was built in 1632 by King Philips IV as a retreat for the Royal family (hence the name Retiro, which means Retreat). By then, the 130ha Park, which is now in midtown, was entirely outside the city walls. It was opened to the public in 1868.

"ESTANQUE DEL RETIRO - Near the northern entrance of the Parque, at Alcalá Gate, is an artificial lake, with a large monument, erected in 1922, including the equestrian statue of King Alfonso XII. One can rent a rowing boat to burn the calories taken at the Tapas bars"

"PALACIO DE CRISTAL is a beautiful glass building, located on a much smaller lake to the south. It was built in 1887 after the Crystal Palace in London, and was initially used to show some exotic plants brought over from the Philippines"

***

NEW YORK

Eight hours flight and we landed once again at JFK!

"5TH AVENUE"

"ROCKFELLER CENTRE - Promenade. There used to be a Teuscher shop with the famous chocolate truffles there. I used to visit the Geneva version of such a wonderful spot..."

"ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL - No wide angle..."

"THE PLAZA nicely mirrored on a 58th Street building!"

"CENTRAL PARK LAKE - Created originally from a large swamp the lake is another place where one can rent rowing boats... No, Thank You!"

"GUGGENHEIM - I adore the Guggenheim New York: building and collection. Actually I adore New York, and I'm definitely missing it a lot. I've already mentioned it on the post of my last - for the time being - visit to New York, actually the Sixtieth . Since 1990, it is the first time I did not visit it for two years in a row...
Anyhow, the Guggenheim is fantastic..."

THAI ENTERTAINMENT - APRIL 1983

2006-12-30T01:04:00.000Z

STROLLING IN BANGKOK

"DANCES at lunch time: The Oriental"

"SOMEHOW LOST, somewhere in Charoen Krung Road - «Where Memories Remain Alive». One should better avoid walking from the Oriental to Wat Phra Kaew; BKK maps were not good enough, road names are unreadable, and the confusion is enormous..."

"PATTAYA - Nothing particularly interesting, and actually looking somehow a huge mega-brothel avant la lettre..."

"CORAL ISLAND - Nice beach and some corals to be seen!"

"RETURN to Pattaya was a bit turbulent, as the wind start blowing and the sea became too rough for the small boat. Anyhow, we managed to get back to Bangkok safe and sound!"

"THAI MUSIC"

"THAI DANCE, Part One! Thai dance - classical or folk - is the main form of dramatic art in Thailand. Thai classical include Khon, Lakhon, and Fawn Thai. Khon is performed by troupes of non-speaking dancers, the story being told by a chorus at the side of the stage"

"THAI DANCE, Part Two! Lakhon includes folk tales and Jataka stories. Dancers are usually female and perform as a group rather than representing individual characters. Fawn Thai dance includes usually five different dances: Candle, Finger nail, Scarf, Butterfly and Happy"

THAI GRAND PALACE - APRIL 1983

2006-12-22T22:53:00.000Z

WAT PHRA KAEW - BANGKOK

"TEMPLE - The buildings inside the walls of the Grand Palace, including the ones of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, are fabulous!"

"GIANTS - Some of the 12 giants, characters from the Thai Ramakien epic, who guard the entrances to Wat Phra Kaeo. The one with a green face and a bamboo shoot on his crown is called Indrajit"

"GOLDEN KINAREES, demons and giants"

"PHRA MONDOP - The Library is situated on a terrace in the middle of Wat Phra Kaeo, and has a large mother-of-pearl bookcase that houses the 84,000 chapters of the Tripitaka"

"PRASAT PHRA DEBIDORN is also called the Pantheon. It houses life-size statues of the first eight kings of the Chakri dynasty and opens its doors only on the Chakri Day - April 6th"

"EMERALD BUDDHA - Difficult to catch from outside and forbidden to photograph inside..."

"BELL TOWER - A beautiful building close to the Emerald Buddha"

"PHRA SRI RATANA CHEDI was built by Rama IV in the mid nineteenth century at the same time as the Royal Pantheon. The chedi recalls the monumental chedi of the old capital in Ayutthaya. The chedi is faced with small gold mirrored tiles and houses a piece of the Buddha's breastbone"

"WAT PHRA KEAW - Several buildings"

GRAND PALACE - It served as the official residence of the king of Thailand from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. After the death of King Ananda Mahidol in the Baromphiman Palace, King Bhumibol moved the official royal residence to Chitralada Palace"

"CHAKRI MAHAPRASAD HALL - The Great Holy Hall of Chakri is the largest triple-winged of the Grand Palace buildings. It was built in 1882 by British architects and each wing is topped by Mondop, a layered and heavily ornamented spire representing a Thai adaptation of the Hindu Mandapa, or shrine"

"BONSAI TREES"

FLOATING MARKET - APRIL 1983

2006-12-12T21:57:00.000Z

BANGKOK: EARLY MORNING TOUR

"ORIENTAL HOTEL - An institution receiving guests for more than one hundred and thirty years, quite close to the Portuguese Embassy (successor of the former feitoria in the Kingdom of Siam)"

"CANALS, BOATS and HOUSES"

"FLOWER MARKET"

"FRUIT and VEGETABLES"

"SNAKE FARM"

"TEMPLES on the way back to the town centre"

BANGKOK WAT(s) - APRIL 1983

2006-12-08T16:51:00.000Z

MYSTICAL TOUR

Krung Thep (City of Angels), like the Thai name it, is full of fabulous temples (Wat). Here are photos from some of them. The Wat Phra Kaeo and Royal Palace deserve a special post...

"WAT TRAIMIT - An otherwise unremarkable temple, hides a 15-foot tall, five and a half tons, solid gold Buddha image - the world's largest. The Golden Buddha was cast in the 13th century and sometime later was covered in plaster, in an attempt to hide it from thieves. The disguise was so good that nobody noticed the gold. King Rama III had the statue moved to Bangkok and installed in a temple that was abandoned around 1931. The Golden Buddha was rediscovered when, preparing to move it to Wat Traimit in 1955, some of the plaster was broken, revealing the gold underneath"

"WAT PO - Just behind the Temple of the Emerald Buddha stands Wat Phra Chetuphon, commonly known as Wat Po (from its original name of Wat Potaram). Founded in the 17th century, it is the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok. King Rama I, enlarged the temple in 1801, installed many statues recovered from Ayuthaya, and renamed it Wat Phra Chetuphon. Rama III made it Thailand's first university"

WAT PO RECLINING BUDDHA - Constructed by order of Rama III and measuring more than 45 meters, it is installed in a Wihan just barely big enough to hold it. Its feet have been inlaid with mother-of-pearl to display the 108 lakshanas, the auspicious signs which distinguish a true Buddha"

"WAT BENCHAMABOPIT, located opposite the Chitlada Palace, «the marble temple» is one of the most beautiful temples in Thailand. Though there has been a temple on the spot since Ayutthaya times, little is known about when it was consecrated. Its modern history begins in 1826"

"WAT ARUN - «Temple of the Dawn» - is probably the better known symbol of Bangkok (more than the Royal Palace). The towering prang was started by Rama II in the beginning of the 19th century, and completed by Rama III. The temple, however, is much older, dating from the Ayuthaya period. The prang has a unique design (a blend of Khmer and Thai styles) and is decorated with thousands of bits of Chinese porcelain and glazed ceramic tiles"

"WAT ARUN - In the middle of each side of the square formed by the smaller prangs are pavilions containing images depicting the four stages of the Buddha's life: birth, meditation, preaching and enlightenment"

MACAU - APRIL 1983

2006-12-02T03:05:00.000Z

UNDER PORTUGUESE RULE!

This was the first time I went to Macau, and the first time Guida actually saw Macau, though she was born there. The point is that she left the "Territory" when she was one year old... So this was definitely a discovery trip!

It's interesting, however, to compare with some photos taken 18 years later and put together at the post "400 YEARS OF PORTUGUESE PRESENCE". In fact, the Portuguese arrived here in 1513 and obtained the right to anchor ships in Macau harbours and carry out trading activities in 1535. After clearing the area at the mouth of the Pearl River of the pirates leaded by Chang Tse Lac, they established a permanent settlement in the peninsula and two islands (Taipa and Coloane) in 1557! The Territory was handed back to China on the 20th of December, 1999.

"THE INNER PORT"

"THE BUS TO TAIPA"

"LOU LIM IEOC - The garden was built in the Suzhou style by Mr. Lou Kau, a wealthy Chinese merchant in the nineteenth century, and was inherited by his son Lou Lim Ieoc in 1906. Ruined together with the bad fortune of the owners, it was later purchased and recovered by the government, and opened to the public in 1974"

"VIEW TO THE ILHA VERDE"

"PORTAS DO CERCO - The border checkpoint with mainland China at Gongbei, Zhuhai. The new Posto Fronteiriço das Portas do Cerco (border gate building) was opened on January 15, 2004, and almost swallowed the Gate..."

"IN CHINA"

"SÃO JANUÁRIO HOSPITAL where Guida was born"

"COLOANE was linked to Taipa by a small isthmus and had the best beach in Macau. Now all the water space between Taipa and Coloane is land-filled. Macau, which had an area of 18 square km in the 50's, has now 28.2 square km!"

"CHINESE RESTAURANT with Luísa, João Francisco and the children"

"AT FRANCISCO'S - Everybody and also Jalles"

"7:00 A.M. TAI CHI at the Guia Hill"

"WATER RESERVOIR"

"LUIS DE CAMOES GARDEN - Camoes Garden is the largest and one of Macau's oldest parks. It was originally the house of a Portuguese merchant who enjoyed raising hundreds pigeons. From afar, the pavilions and buildings in the compound looked like nests. After the death of the merchant, his residence was donated to the government, commemorating the great Portuguese poet Luis de Camoes"

"CAMOES GROTTO is the most famous sight in the garden and houses the bust of the poet Luis de Camoes. Because of disturbing the court officials, he was exiled from Portugal and lived in Macau for two years, where he composed the renowned epic poem Os Lusíadas"

"REST"

"HOME - The house where Guida lived while in Macau"

"TAIPA BRIDGE - The first..."

"HOTEL LISBOA and Casino, the first step of Mr. Stanley Ho's gambling empire"

"OLD FORTRESS - Built on granite foundations in 1616 with bastions at each corner, this fort, as a part of St. Paul's Church, was once used to defend St. Paul's Church against pirates. Four cannons were set at the four corners of the fort with very wide fields of fire, covering the inner and outer harbours and the Chinese border"

"ST. PAUL'S - The structure is the remaining front wall and stairway of St. Paul's Church, one of the grandest of its kind in the Orient. Designed by an Italian Father, the construction of the church began in 1602 and was completed in 1637. Caught by fire several times, it did not resist the last fire in 1853, which destroyed nearly the whole church except the front wall!"

HONG-KONG - APRIL 1983

2006-11-26T18:22:00.000Z

UNDER BRITISH RULE...

"KOWLOON - In front of the Regent and New World Hotels, with a view to Hong-Kong Island. The Peninsula tower, with the world famous views from its toilets at the top floor restaurant and bar, was not there yet. It came to life in 1994 only..."

"STAR FERRY - Crossing Victoria Harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui to Central"

"CENTRAL - Star ferry arrival at Central"

"ABERDEEN JUMBO - Shrimps' dinner and further entertainment..."

"NEW WORLD HOTEL - Inner court"

"THE TIGER BALM GARDENS, created in 1935, are also known as Aw Boon Haw Gardens, from the name of its creator, who made his fortune from the sale of a curative balm. They cover three hectares of land, in the midst of high-rise apartments at the edge of Causeway Bay, with a somehow surrealistic conglomeration of animals, pagodas, and many other objects. Some call it a kind of Chinese Disneyland..."

"VIEWS of the harbour and the city from Victoria Peak"

"REPULSE BAY was by that time basically a well-to-do residential areawith a relaxed resort-like atmosphere"

"ABERDEEN HARBOUR by day. The hundreds of people living on fishing junks make a curious mix with people living in the modern high-rise buildings of the nearby hillsides"

"CONNAUGHT ROAD - Home to the Mandarin Oriental, and many other interesting places..."

JAPAN COUNTRYSIDE - MARCH 1983

2006-11-24T21:52:00.000Z

KAMAKURA, HAKONE...

While I was discussing the first syndicated loan made to a Portuguese public entreprise with the leader Bank - Mitsubishi -, Guida was tourist travelling somewhere around Tokyo. So these are the photos of the places she went to and that I didn't visit...

"DAIBUTSU - The Great Buddha of Kamakura - a bronze statue located on the grounds of the Kotokuin Temple - heights 13.35 meters and is the second largest Buddha statue in Japan (the largest being the one at Todaiji Temple in Nara). Cast in 1252 and originally located inside a temple hall, it became an open air statue when a tsunami in the end of the 15th century washed the temple buildings away"

"ENOSHIMA ISLAND is a small island at the mouth of Katase-gawa River. when the weather is fine, which was not the case, Mount Fuji can be seen to the right hand side of the photo, behind the Enoshima Oashi Bridge"

"LAKE ASHI, HAKONE is perhaps the most famous National Park and resort area in Japan and is situated amid the volcanic mountains and deep green forests of Mt. Fuji’s Five Lakes region. Lake Ashi was formed in the caldera of Mount Hakone after the volcano's last eruption 3000 years ago. It offers the best views of the Mount Fuji , but not when the clouds cover everything"

"LAKE ASHI - A slow and scenic way of approaching Lake Ashi from Odawara is taking the Hakone Tozan Railway to Gora, followed by a cablecar and ropeway ride to Togendai at the northern end of the lake. From Togendai one can continue by sightseeing boat to Hakonemachi"

"TORII AND MOUNT FUJI - The Fuji should be seen just behind the trees, to the left of the Torii. Unfortunately, the clouds covered everything, but it can be seen at the Net

"HAKONE is home to numerous craft shops and a photogenic red Torii"

"OWAKUDANI VALLEY, a volcanic area where sulphurous fumes arise, as one walk around small bubbling pools of mud, is one of the sightseeing highlights of Hakone"