Hellurei, rakas jengi!
Greetings from Portugal again!
We slipped fastly again into the Portuguese style and rhythm of life.
The climate here reminds me of my birth home in California, and me and sis Zoe don´t have any troubles adjusting, but the others are mentioning snow, frost and ice in a longing way.
Well, no snow this year even in Finland, it seems. Just mud. Good riddance.
Anyway, I´m going to share with you some pictures from a trip we made into a small town called Castelo Branco.
We took a train from Lisbon to Entroncamento, where we had to take another train to Castelo Branco.
We had half an hour time to spend in Entroncamento, and we marched to the other side of the railyards where we could see a row of old steam engines.
Oo I love steam engines!
The tracks were following the river Tejo, and the lanscapes became less tamed.
In Castelo Branco, we saw the Sé, the main cathedral Igreja de São Miguel.
And Cruzeiro de São João stone cross, which was erected in the early 16th century.
Then we went to see the Jardim do Paço Episcopal garden. It is a barock style garden, originally the private garden of bishop D. Joăo de Mendonça, turned a public space in the 19th century.
The garden in best known because of its statues. These stairs are occupied by the Portuguese kings, but there are also statues representing the virtues, the seasons, the zodiacal signs, the continents and what not elsewhere in the garden.
I think this king wasn´t very popular, because he was nicknamed "o gordo" = the fatty, while the other kings are named "victorious" or "magnificent" etc.
Here you can see the area of the geometrical garden. Looks rather unnatural, but I guess that´s what people wanted at those times.
There were also various pools and fountains, in which I could see some fat carps swimming in them, but they kept too deep to be catched.
It was a nice little garden. I could have one like that myself in the backyard.
Here I´m sitting on the lap of Temperance. Do you think some stick to me?
After the garden we climbed the hill to see the ruins of the castle after which the whole town has got its name.
There wasn´t much left, though, just some walls. But the view was worth of seeing!
We walked forwards and backwards on the piece of wall standing, and then we climbed down to the city and went into a small local bar to have a bowlful of soup.
That´s what we saw of Castelo Branco. We don´t know what Henna saw - she shut herself into some museums for the whole day! Or that´s what she said! I have my doubts!
Later in the night we saw a beautiful, lighted fountain. It looked a bit like fireworks.
See you soon again!
Hugs from Crawfish!