This is the first of several posts about new friends we are making here in Lisbon. On Saturday, Zeke and Rafi went over to play with David and Estevão, two boys who live around the corner from us. David and his sister Marianna go to the same school as Zeke and Rafi, and they have been friendly to us in the pick-up room ever since we arrived at the school. Last week, we learned that David (age 8) loves Legos, and his big brother, who is a young teen, loves Magic the Gathering, and we arranged a playdate.
Our guys have not had a real playdate for about a month, and so they were really excited about this one. Zeke prepared by going to Dentinho, the toy store at the nearest mall, to buy a Portuguese-language Magic deck. We also got a brand-new English-language booster pack to bring as a small present for the boys. We went to their apartment, a very modern, sleek building on Rua Tenente Ferreira Durão. When we arrived, the cards were a big hit, and they boys started playing immediately. Carlos, the dad, gave me a jar of jam he made last summer from blackberries picked near his parents' town in the Beiras region up north. The boys stayed and played for three hours. Zeke and Estevão communicated mostly in English, and Rafi and David played Legos and Play Station, so they did not need a lot of language skills to have a great time. When I picked them up, I chatted with Helena, the mom, and she said that the boys did really well and that Zeke and Rafi spoke politely in Portuguese to her. We both agreed that it was nice for our guys to get together and that we would do it again soon! Nice folks.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Birthday Party in the Park
Today Rafi went to the birthday party for Ricardo, a classmate at Escola de Pedro Nunes. The party was at Adventure Park in the Jamor Sports Complex on the outskirts of Lisbon. Here is Rafi in action,
and here is the group,
Ricardo's cousin Rui and some of his friends, Gonzalo and ?? live in Almada.
and here is the group,
Ricardo's cousin Rui and some of his friends, Gonzalo and ?? live in Almada.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Quinta da Regaleira (annotated map)
Two weeks ago we went to Sintra and visited the fabulous Quinta da Regaleira, the stately pleasure dome of a late nineteenth century coffee magnate and Brazilian immigrant. The most impressive part for the boys was the enormous tunnel system under the estate, which played an important role in the magnate's Masonic rituals. We traveled underground the entire length of the marked area. The nitre covered walls made for many Cask of Amontillado jokes.
Parque das Nacoes
We visited Parque das Nações a couple of weeks ago but it took me a while to scan the tickets from the funicular (or telepherique).
I think that the tickets have a nice retro quality (1939 World's Fair in Queens--see the city of tomorrow, etc.).
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Sintra, part 3: Pastry face-off
In addition to having many famous palaces, castles, and gardens, Sintra has two different famous pastries. There are queijadas (cheesecakes), which are made of queijo fresco, cinnamon, and sugar in a very thin, pasta-like crust:
And then there is the travesseiro de Sintra, basically a puff-pastry pillow filled with marzipan cream:
We tried both, and our verdict: queijadas win, especially when served hot out of the oven! The "pillows" were good, especially the filling, but the pastry was simply not as tasty as puff pastry we have had at other bakeries.
The grown-ups also enjoyed sampling ginja (cherry liqueur) in a dark chocolate shot glass.
Basically, this is a brilliant combination of chocolate, booze, and cherry cough drops. And as Miracle Max says in The Princess Bride, "True love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. Everybody knows that."
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| At the Antiga Fabrica das Queijadas de Sapa |
We tried both, and our verdict: queijadas win, especially when served hot out of the oven! The "pillows" were good, especially the filling, but the pastry was simply not as tasty as puff pastry we have had at other bakeries.
The grown-ups also enjoyed sampling ginja (cherry liqueur) in a dark chocolate shot glass.
Basically, this is a brilliant combination of chocolate, booze, and cherry cough drops. And as Miracle Max says in The Princess Bride, "True love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. Everybody knows that."
Sintra, part 2: Castelo dos Mouros
After visiting the Quinta da Regaleira, we refueled with a quick lunch and headed up to the Castelo dos Mouros. The hike was only a bit more than a mile, but it was steep! The castle was built by the Muslim Al-Moravids sometime in the 700s. The castle, and most of what is now Portugal as far north as Lisbon, were ruled by the Moors until 1147, when King Afonso Henriques from the northern part of Portugal convinced some English and Flemish Crusaders passing through to help him take Lisbon and its hinterlands.
After the Moorish period, the Portuguese used the castle for hundreds of years.
You can see the Atlantic from the towers, so if anyone should be coming to attack, you'd definitely know it!
What a glorious day!
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You can see the Atlantic from the towers, so if anyone should be coming to attack, you'd definitely know it!
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| Castelo dos Mouros with the National Palace below and the Atlantic in the distance. |
Sintra, Part 1: Quinta da Regaleira
This Saturday we visited Sintra, a town where Portuguese royalty, noblemen, and later Gilded Age bourgeoisie built summer palaces to escape Lisbon's heat. Sintra is in a shady valley in the hills northwest of Lisbon, and from the tops of the hills, you can see the Atlantic spreading out from the coast below.
We also admired the "neo-Manueline" architectural flourishes throughout the garden and palace. Here are a few of the ornate arches and doorways:
The palace had bright mosaic floors in one room, coffered oak ceilings, and intricate designs everywhere. I especially liked the red velvet-upholstered doors with silver trim.
Monteiro dos Milhões (Monteiro the Millionaire) liked to have trippy stuff around the house.
In fact, we almost tripped off the edge of the floor in the library!
Once we had explored this small palace, we walked around the huge gardens sprawling up the hill. And came to the mouth of a cave...
A few feet into the mouth of the cave, we saw lights leading further into the hill...
We followed the lights to the end, and saw sunlight around the corner.
We had reached a grotto! We all had fun crossing the lake on stepping stones and looking back at it from a narrow rock bridge.
Then we returned to the dark caverns and followed more fairy lights to a place where a shaft of light shone down from high over our heads.
We were at the damp, misty bottom of the "Initiation Well," where Monteiro would take his buddies to introduce them to the secrets of freemasonry.
After emerging from the well's long, winding staircase, there was still more of the garden to see, with baroque belvederes and fountains tucked into every corner.
There was even a tree that seemed to be growing books. Zeke wondered if we could get one of these to plant in our yard back home.
Another little turret with views of the Moorish Castle up the hill and other wonders of Sintra...
After several hours of walking around the palace and gardens, we were starting to get hungry, but when we saw a sign pointing to the "Grotto of the Labyrinth," we couldn't resist. We followed a path into a pitch-dark cave (so dark, we have no photos of it!), keeping a hand on the dank wall to make our way forward. We reached a place where sunlight seeped dimly through the green mossy cavern and reflected on a lake. We continued around in the dark and reached a second opening in the rocks where we could see the light glimmering on the pool of water in the cave. Finally, we emerged at the side of a pond with rivulets dripping through ferns. A magical finish to our afternoon at the Quinta da Regaleira.
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| Rafi and Zeke with the National Palace of Sintra behind |
The town has far too much to see in one day, and it will actually take us about three posts to tell you about what we saw and what pastries we encountered on our daytrip this Saturday. But the place that really knocked our socks off was the Quinta da Regaleira, a palace built only about 100 years ago when an eccentric Brazilian coffee magnate, António Monteiro Carvalho, commissioned an Italian opera set designer to remodel the existing palace and to landscape the gardens for his private Xanadu.
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| Krista and the boys, Quinta da Regaleira |
We entered through the gardens, but on the way to the palace, we got distracted by an intriguing door leading into a spiral staircase inside the hill. When we emerged from the staircase, we found ourselves inside the estate's chapel, which was decorated with both Christian and Masonic symbols.
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| The chapel |
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| Masonic symbols in chapel décor |
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| Rafi, clearly impressed. |
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| Zeke enjoying a little corner |
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| The guys at the entrance to the palace itself |
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| Now that's a door! |
In fact, we almost tripped off the edge of the floor in the library!
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| Actually, it's all done with mirrors. Whew. |
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| Ready to explore! |
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We had reached a grotto! We all had fun crossing the lake on stepping stones and looking back at it from a narrow rock bridge.
Then we returned to the dark caverns and followed more fairy lights to a place where a shaft of light shone down from high over our heads.
We were at the damp, misty bottom of the "Initiation Well," where Monteiro would take his buddies to introduce them to the secrets of freemasonry.
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| Looking down the Initiation Well |
There was even a tree that seemed to be growing books. Zeke wondered if we could get one of these to plant in our yard back home.
Another little turret with views of the Moorish Castle up the hill and other wonders of Sintra...
After several hours of walking around the palace and gardens, we were starting to get hungry, but when we saw a sign pointing to the "Grotto of the Labyrinth," we couldn't resist. We followed a path into a pitch-dark cave (so dark, we have no photos of it!), keeping a hand on the dank wall to make our way forward. We reached a place where sunlight seeped dimly through the green mossy cavern and reflected on a lake. We continued around in the dark and reached a second opening in the rocks where we could see the light glimmering on the pool of water in the cave. Finally, we emerged at the side of a pond with rivulets dripping through ferns. A magical finish to our afternoon at the Quinta da Regaleira.
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