Packing with a Purpose

It's time to pack again, for yet another cross-country trip. This has become commonplace. But there's hope. More trips planned for the following 3 weekends. What then? TBD.

Happy Traveller/ Gets Wishes Coming True

[Intro:] Looking back on the last couple of posts and more specifically their titles, I couldn't help realising the happi-fying hues all over this place; and as well good things come [at least] tripled, here's the final bit of the happy posts.

So what's this one all about?
Well, remember my rants about the last train trip I made, and the disappointment stemming from it? This time, it's all been remedied: the heat's been on throughout the trip, I was in the very inspiring company of a certain friend, and - this is really good! - the views were there and I had a camera ready and loaded!


What more could I possibly ask for? The morale, you say? - Though I did try to think that over, I can't really come up with anything better than "ranting is good" [??]. Any [other] shots?

The Train Trip

As I was awaiting my ride on the frozen platform yesterday morning, I had already started to dream of the upcoming Sea/s of White - and to regret not having a camera along. That, along with the hopes of a nice afternoon's rest made me expect one very picturesque journey.

The facts have however been different. [Aren't they always?..]
My dreamy joy was getting squashed minute by minute as the journey was growing implacably cold.
The first 4,5h have only been bearable thanks to the others: the train was so crowded that we were all warming up on our own and each others' bodily heat. But then the darkness came along. The sun was gone by 5.00 p.m. With 2 more hours to go, we were getting fewer and fewer - and what's worse, without any relevant source around.
1,5 hours left... 1h... 50min... [please, please, don't let there be any delay!] 40min...
Frozen breath, almost hitting the ground upon its creation. And then again. [And again.]
The air seemed thick as a pool of ice and just as sharp.

It doesn't take much to forget all dreaminess in this inconsiderate environment: when the rail company's personnel tell you that the freezing air is hot; when a 7h winter journey turns into a series of complaints. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to come to terms with this. [Why] Should I?

My Name was Judas

This has most likely been the year's book in terms of alternative explanations - and that's the one phrase to describe it. Certainly, the year's book is a bit of an unfortunate reference as it has, in fact, been published a while back - but I've only read it now.

[This] elegant, calm novel is written in the voice of Idas of Sidon, who long ago changed his name, for convenience, from Judas of Keraiyot. An old man now, beloved of family and friends, he recollects a youthful adventure with his childhood friend, Jesus of Galilee. In Stead's version, there was no kiss, no silver, only growing scepticism. Judas does not hang himself or live in an agony of guilt, but becomes a respected citizen in Egypt. Having rid his "consciousness of gods, ghosts and demons" without difficulty, he instead chooses to study the horizon and the heavens with reason alone in an effort to understand the nature of the world. In this bold conceit, a profoundly untroubled empiricist Judas accepts that the world will perceive him incorrectly with a graceful shrug.
Stead writes a cool, reasonable prose; a flat, amiable tone matches precisely the almost uncanny lack of guilt of the man we see as most guilt-ridden. Not biblical, but quiet, sane, occasionally to the point of dullness, it only draws attention to itself when it steps into the modern idiom. It's very odd when Judas worries that "the wheels were falling off our collective enterprise" or the young Jesus yells, during a fight with his friend, "All those who have ruled over Israel, and those who have profited from Israel's shame, shall die - arsehole. Die!" And when Judas tells us that, as a child, Jesus was "intellectually superior, but socially on the back foot", it's a disappointment that Judas's singular escape from the clutches of unreason has not given him fresher phrases to think.
They were tutored together, Judas and Jesus, child of a wealthy merchant and son of a carpenter. Jesus was a star pupil, clever and charismatic, but with a troublingly manic, adoring mother whom he found embarrassing. Judas watches his friend, impressive but not lovable, become increasingly fervent in his religion, while Judas's lukewarm belief in a "vague, flexible, inclusive Heavenly Father" grows ever cooler. Jesus becomes one of the many itinerant preachers wandering that part of the world. They go their own ways until Judas's adored wife dies in childbirth, and in grief he takes up Jesus's invitation to join him on the road.

Should you find this enticing, keep reading The Guardian's review of the book here.
[Book cover from here.]

Sé de Lisboa

Lisbon's cathedral .. stands stolidly on a slope overlooking the Baixa grid. Founded in 1150 to commemorate the city's reconquest from the Moors, it has a suitably fortress-like appearance .. and in fact occupies the site of the principal mosque of Moorish Lishbuna. Like so many of the country's cathedrals, it is Romanesque - and extraordinarily restrained in both size and decoration.

... You can .. access the thirteenth-century cloister. This is currently being heavily excavated, revealing the remains of a sixth-century Roman house and Moorish public buildings.

Such were the brief descriptions and suggestions the ever-reliable Rough Guide gave on visiting the Sé, and its reliability had hence been again proven [despite the lack of such a need]. Indeed, visiting the cloister is the best thing to do at Lisbon's Sé and, in its absence, the cathedral remains solemn and quiet in its solitude.
On the other side however, the cloister's side, there's light coming from above and the arches breed familiarity. Curiosity is as lively as ever and each little detail begs a new question.


[And, by the way, Why is this dead statue reading? Have you seen anything like it before? Any clues?]

Bulgaria: mostly Balchik

It was the first time ever to actually have Bulgaria as an impromptu destination, and it was fast to happen.
I couldn't help it though, and have uploaded a few photos [some, with comments] to tell the experience: here [for Balchik] & here [Kranevo].

993 days, 335 sent & 322 received cards later

I dare make a note on Postcrossing:
Firstly, because it brightens up my days, even more so recently!
Secondly, cause I'm not really certain why, but Postcrossing seems to have become of interest only marginally in Romania [current country of residence :)], with merely 200 users. Now, I'm not really sure why things are so, but I think they can change :)
So here's a briefing:

About Postcrossing
What is Postcrossing?

In short: the objective of Postcrossing is to allow people to exchange postcards via mail (real mail, not email) with random postcrossers from around the world. Oh, and it is absolutely free, meaning, if you send a postcard, you will receive one back from another random user (and sometimes, another one from the person you wrote to).

How does Postcrossing work?

It goes like this:

1. You register yourself on the website. You will need to provide your postal address so that you can receive postcards.
2. You request to send a postcard. An address is displayed along with the member's profile. This address will be accompanied by a Postcard ID - a unique code that identifies your postcard.
3. Choose a postcard, write something nice on it along with the assigned Postcard ID, and mail it to the address you were given.
4. Wait, wait, wait. :-)
5. Hoorray! The card arrives to its destination and is registered by the user! Now you too will receive a postcard!

For more details, please check the About section. If you still have questions, give us a shout!

Need I add that Postcrossing's been keeping me company over almost 1000 days and 3 countries now? ... and that it's been created from scratch by my good Portuguese friend Paulo? :)
So get them postcards rollin'!

I've seen Oradea in May & this is how it looked like

If curious for more, this is the place to take a look.
It's yet-another-flickr account, as the other one is running out of space... [wink-wink] ...
so should you be curious about potential birthday presents, a Flickr Pro account makes up for a good option. :)

[Re-]Tracing the Templars' Passage

Castelo de Almourol: Almourol Castle

Marasesti . April 2009

viewing the Mausoleum from the outside

inside, upstairs

inside, downstairs

More of my Marasesti experience here.

Certain cruise

... This was the Europa of Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, rated best ship in the world with five stars-plus by the Berlitz guide to Ocean Cruising and Cruise Ships. Clearly this is a ship, as Frankie Howerd would have said, worth a trip around the bay.
It was going to be better than that – Europa, gleaming white with orange and blue trim, was going to circle the Black Sea. So were our fellow passengers, some 400 Germans and a handful of Swiss, who arrived, on time or course, in a fleet of buses. Older Germans, like the French, like the convoy system as they don’t do languages very well. [...]
Europa is 28,000 tons, a similar size and exterior design as the Silversea ships (they share the same architect) but while the latter’s ships are showing signs of wear, Europa is immaculate in every respect. Its contemporary design, liberally sprinkled with decent artworks, high quality soft furnishings and superb lighting make this a ship that is incredibly elegant yet warm. ...

Liked it? Keep reading it on The Travel Editor. For all's delight, a few photos are available as well.

Tomar: part ii

The gridded streets of the old town converge on the central Praça da República.

Here stands an elegant seventeenth-century town hall, a ring of houses of the same period and the church of São João Baptista, remarkable for its octagonal belfry, elaborate Manueline doorway and six religious panels attributed to Gregório Lopes, one of the finest artists to emerge from the so-called "Portuguese School" of the sixteenth century.

Nearby is an excellently preserved fifteenth-century synagogue*, now the Museu Luso-Hebraico Abraham Zacuto, named after the Spanish astronomer, Abraham Zacuto, who prepared navigational aids for Vasco da Gama. Its stark interior, with plain vaults supported by four slender columns, houses a collection of thirteenth- to fourteenth-century Hebraic inscriptions, but the interest lies more in its very survival in a town dominated for so long by crusading Christian Defenders of the Faith. In 1496 Dom Manuel followed the example of the Catholic Kings of Spain and ordered the conversion or expulsion of all Portuguese Jews. The synagogue at Tomar was one of the very few to survive so far south

* and the very first I have visited, which makes it much more special.

Lastly, one more town image deserves to be added for the mere reason that it's unvisited, slightly remote and generally a pleasure to the eye: the out-of-the-city-centre church of St. Maria dos Olivais - next to which archaeological works are still in progress.

Out of town, the highlight is the stunning seventeenth-century Aqueduto Pegões, built to supply the convent with water.

Walking to this place was the best choice for a Saturday morning and, oh boy, that was definitely worth! Here's why: the very first aqueduct I got to climb on, and enough to get me feeling the wind's breeze instilling a sense of ... well, take-off!
To sum it up, this was a great place to spend the 50h we've dedicated and possibly a place to return. A reminder is however useful: bring along some extra memory for the photos - it'll be missed!
Once again, guiding lines picked up from here.
And, once again, extra photos are located here.

Tomar: part i

The Convento de Cristo at Tomar, 34km east of Fátima, is an artistic tour de force which entwines the most outstanding military, religious and imperial strands in the history of Portugal. The Order of the Knights Templar* and their successors, the Order of Christ, established their headquarters here and successive Grand Masters employed experts in Romanesque, Manueline and Renaissance architecture to embellish and expand the convent in a manner worthy of their power, prestige and wealth.
In addition, Tomar is a handsome small town in its own right, well worth a couple of days of slow exploration. Built on a simple grid plan, it is split in two by the Rio Nabão, with almost everything of interest on the west bank. Here, Tomar's old quarters preserve much of their traditional charm, with whitewashed, terraced cottages lining narrow cobbled streets that frame the convent above.

* See Dom Gualdim Pais (1118 – 1195), founder of the Castle of Tomar in 1160, here.

This is what my Rough Guide told me, and yes, the tingly sensation of excitement was prompt to arrive whilst embarking the train;
the great wheather, the friendliness of the locals and the affordable prices have all been happiness-inducing factors and, for things to get even better, the city seemed to have a rather small density of tourists per square km, giving the photo-freak in me plenty of space and time to collect them images:
Unfortunately, the Charola of the Knights Templar [the 'sacred heart of the whole complex, also known as the Rotunda or Templars' Apse'] constituted the subject of repairs at the time of our visit, so I couldn't even glance at it, let alone photograph it.
Nonetheless, I could catch the ex libris of the place, the Manueline style window (left, below), as well as the old cloister (right, below), as you may note:

Whilst writing these notes, selecting only a few images seems almost wrong and definitely difficult, as I keep focusing and being absorbed by the Convent and its many thought/admiration-enticing details, despite it not having been my intention;







... that's only because of its grand and overwhelming architecture and level of detail, which doesn't allow the easy passage to other features of the city; here's my only solution: Tomar will have a second dedicated post.

For (a few) more images, take a look here.

The Mellow Extended Weekend in the Algarve

The Atlantic sometimes makes all senseless things sensible; or it just washes them away, wave after wave, carved out again and again..

Retrospectively: Óbidos | Lizzo Day 310

[This long-overdue tale pertains to a trip undertaken back in a November Saturday, to a place known as Óbidos.]
As we were supposed to get the train to meet D.&T., the time to be spent at the station helped the useful purchase of a children's book on the topic; as it turned out, this included an audiobook, which very much speeded up the passage of time in the car, on the way to our destination:Unfortunately, I can't exactly upload the cd's contents, as this might oversimplify the tale's perspective; still, I can share some of the story behind:

Óbidos is known as the "Wedding City" and was the traditional bridal gift of the kings of Portugal to their queens, a custom started in 1282 by Don Dinis and Dona Isabel. It is a very small town, completely enclosed by lofty walls, and although much was rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake, Óbidos retains a medieval feel: cobbled alleys, withewashed houses framed with bright blue and yellow borders, and steep stairecaseswinding up to the exposed ramparts for distant views. 500 years ago, when Peniche was an island, the sea also reached the foot of the ridge on which Óbidos stands and boats were moored below its walls. However, by the 15th century the sea had retreated, leaving a fertile green plain and the distant Lagoa de Óbidos with its narrow, shallow entrance to the sea.

[as put by my Rough Guide to Portugal, p. 185]
Let me demonstrate:
Other than the royal tradition and the views, we've come to learn that this is a place famous for its chocolate Festivals and its ginjinha em copos de chocolate [chocolate-cups-cherry]:

...and such was a perfect late autumn's Saturday (:

P.S. Oh, and Here's the Castle, in case you were wondering about that lil' detail..

Need more reasons to come & visit? | Lizzo Day 304

Top Hostels of 2008 Announced

The red carpet was rolled out in Dublin ... for one of the budget travel industry’s most anticipated events of the year as the HOSCARS (HOStelworld Customer Annual Ratings) took place to recognise the best hostels in the world.
The Portuguese city of Lisbon was the top location for hostels with Travellers House winning the coveted prize of number one hostel in the world while Rossio Hostel and Lisbon Lounge hostel giving the popular backpacking destination an impressive one, two, three. [...]
More than 20,000 properties from across the globe, all featured on Hostelworld.com, were eligible for the awards. The winners were voted for by over 800,000 customers worldwide who booked their accommodation online and rated and reviewed the hostel on six criteria – character, security, location, staff, fun and cleanliness.

If interested in seeing who else is on the lists, keep reading this feat on Hostelworld.com.

How is Everything?

I've already said this by word of mouth and to confirm its validity, here it is again, written down: this is for the first time that I read a book -based on which a film had been made- after having seen the film.
Everything is Illuminated the film appeared as humourously juvenile, culturally ambivalent and somehow innocent because of the imagery; it's only much later, during the reading of the book, that I've learnt that Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz was the one playing the role of Alex, which only added some more colour to the entire enterprise.

Everything is Illuminated the book [excerpts from which you can see here] provided for a much more comprehensive experience; to start with, that's formally because it works with two narrators rather than one: Jonathan [the author] and Alex [the Ukrainian 'translator' & later almost-friend(?)]:

Jonathan Safran Foer, designated by Alex as "the hero of this story" is travelling to Ukraine to look for Augustine, the woman who supposedly saved his grandfather during the second world war. All Jonathan has to help him in his search is a photograph of Augustine. Jonathan does not know Ukrainian, and hires the services of Alex as translator. Alex's skills in this direction are dubious, but he makes up in enthusiasm what he lacks in competence. Accompanying the two in their search is Alex's grandfather, and their bitch, Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior.

This stylistic manner is further emphasized in that

[t]he spectrum between the two voices that construct the novel highlights the remarkable versatility of the English language, whose contours become unpredictable in Alex's use of it. [...] As raconteur, Alex's role is to tell the story of the search, and in the process, the story of his grandfather as well.

On the other hand,

Jonathan .. (re)constructs the (his)story of Trachimbrod. [...] So if Alex's language is the domain of the novel's stylistic creative endeavours, in Jonathan's story, reality and reliability become areas in which to assert the power of the imagination. There is also the fact that Alex occasionally embellishes facts or even lies while translating to Jonathan. All these collude to create a unique world where either language or/and the story resist an unambiguous interpretation.
Everything is Illuminated comes to be assembled together not only by the two voices relating events independently, but also dialoguing with each other. [...]
Foer's experimentation with Alex's style includes malapropisms like "rotated" for "turned", "luxuriated" for "enjoyed", "premium" for "important", or "appeased" for "pleased", used interchangeably in the way of an English language learner whose attention to vocabulary is ignorant of the context in which words make meaning. In general, Foer achieves this effect by having Alex use superlative adjectives and adverbs ("I did not yearn to mention this, but I will" says Alex in a letter to Jonathan on p.52, and "Enough of my miniature talking," he remarks on p.53) where moderate words would do.

[as written here]

Undoubtedly, the power of the writing style together with the magic of the imagined stories work together for the overall captivation of the reader, as the book seems to be interacting and illuminating based on a personalised timeline which leaves one guessing what would be next.
Obviously these were enticing enough to lead to many appreciative critiques, to a film and a book's website, as well as winning the author the Guardian First Book Award of that year.
So what is left not illuminated you ask; the question of a different topic as dealt with by the same author.

Here's the film's trailer, in case you were curious:

Lizzo Day 262

after a sunny Lx day, I now have 7h to be on the airport again;
10h and a bit of travel will ensue.

the return trip to Lizzo

Another trip, the same companion, yet this time with much more echoing, possibly because I have some knowledge of Europe rather than the US..., possibly because it contained more 'colourful' depictions..., possibly because this book was written not only 2 years after the previous one, but also based on a trip that the author had undertaken as a teenage boy/ young adult [always a harsh choice of words...] - thus entailing some funny comparisons as well as unmatched memories.

In any case, the 'Neither Here Nor There. Travels in Europe' does not lack in irony, fresh notes, and that certain sense of complicity induced by a tone of personalised confessions - I, for one, had great fun reading it! [... and an enhanced desire to travel a bit more in the near future, should the opportunity arise...]

Here's a taste of the book's outline:

Bryson doesn't mince words. Of Norwegian television, he says:
"It gives you the sensation of a coma without the worry and inconvenience."
After traveling from Brig to Geneva by train, he observes:
"Everywhere there were pylons. ... The Swiss are great ones for stringing wires. They thread them across the mountainsides for electricity and suspend them from endless rows of gibbets along every railway track and hang them like washing lines on all the city streets for the benefit of trams. It seems not to have occurred to them that there might be a more attractive way of arranging things."

revisiting BB

It's not Bed & Breakfast that I'm referring to, of course, but Bill Bryson, on whose firstly read book I was posting more or less one year ago, from the same location where I find myself at the time: folks' place; and again, this is not a tale of melancholically reminiscing scattered bits of one's childhood [mine, Mum's, BB's, etc..] but about funnily putting travel writing's beginnings into perspective:

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America is a book by travel writer Bill Bryson, chronicling his 13,978 mile trip around the United States in the autumn of 1987 and spring 1988. This is the first of Bryson's travel books. [...]
Bryson's goal in this trip was generally to avoid tourist destinations, instead choosing to experience the real every-day America, stopping at small towns and forgotten points of interest. This book is an overview of the United States from Bryson's point of view. [...]

[as briefly put here; image credits go here]

It's worth confessing that this was not equally funny as last year's reading, as the writing seems to extend a tad too much at times; yet it has a certain degree of non-intrusive personal touch which made it worthwhile & agreeable: a funny companion for long plane/ train trips, thus meeting its purpose!