Almada, Portugal - 18th February 2015
By: Eohippus
Greetings from Almada again!
Laranjeiro, where my sister Zoe lives in Portugal, is nowadays part of the town of Almada, where we were walking around in my last update.
Sorry, but the sightseeing continues still, and the text is going to be dry.
That's mainly because it took some days before we managed to nurse Henna back to health enough to be more enthusiastic in dragging us along.
Here I am in the modern Almada central square.
The houses around the square look very similar than the house in which we live here.
I have not managed to take a photo of our house yet, because we are never anywhere near it during daytime.
The modern "overground metro" as it is called was built in beginning of the 21th century.
Almada is at the moment going through a very profound change.
The old houses from 18th and 19th centuries are in danger to disappear totally to make room for modern, tall blocks of flats, or big villas of the wealthy people.
We continued our sightseeing first to Casa da Cerca. It was originally a private palace, but the town bought it 1988 and turned it into a public place with art exhibitions and happenings.
It has a nice garden.
There isn't many interesting plants, though, but it is a nice place to be sitting and reading in peace, in those days when it is too hot to be walking around, says Henna.
(That is, by the way, what they're mainly DOING when they are here in Portugal, Zoe and Henna - walking around, nothing else much.)
This plant I found interesting!
Do you recognice it?
Well, I can tell it is Cyperus papyrus, of which the ancient Egyptians were making paper!
There was a beautiful view over the river Tejo from the garden.
We were trying to imagine the delicate donzellas of the 18th century with their parasolls and pelisses and silk slippers sitting here, enjoying refresments and watching the same view over the river (although the Lisbon city on the opposite shore was much smaller and surrounded by farms and fields).
Zoe and I agreed that it would be great to have a time machine to be able to see the place back in Jane Austen's times, but that would not be great to have to behave according to the social rules of those times!
Can you imagine me or Zoe as shy maidens, just waiting to be proposed to by some suitable and acceptable suitors, and blushing when someone mentions "panties"?
Watching the great house, I thought it is good it has been saved by the town from decay, but that it is a shame that the towns, wanting to save historical buildings, are usually wanting to save only these big palaces.
Why not small, common houses?
Is it more important for people to see how a privileged upper class lived in former times, than how the rest 98 % of people lived at the same time?
We decided to leave the palaces for tourists and try to see something of the other history.
We walked past some houses, which are already doomed to be demolished.
The municipality has blocked the windows and sold the area for a construction company.
We could still see a swing hanging on a big pine on the backyard.
Remember the empty houses i spotted last time when we were walking in Almada?
Well, we decided to go to see them a bit closer.
They're part of the history of the common people.
There is an old staircase leading twards those houses the tourists usually don't find, because its both ends are well hidden - they start behind thick bushes and end onto a shabby backyard stinking of pee.
The yongsters of Almada hang here though, as is easy to read from the walls.
"Let us pray!" says this graffiti.
I don't quite get what the maker wants to say.
We reached the first empty house in bottom of the stairs.
It had been a normal home of a family, probably a fisherman and his wife, since this area was originally occupied mainly by them.
A graffiti on its wall announces "We are Almada".
We walked through many other grumbling buildings.
Some of them were still partly inhabited, which is good.
There is pretty many homeless people in the Lisbon area nowadays, and I think it is good if at least some of them are able to find a roof over their heads. No one else needs these buildings, anyway. Why should they stay empty?
After the old living blocks we reached the old industrial buildings.
"Caldeiraria" on the wall means "boiler".
Some people are still keeping their boats here, and some old guys come here to fish, but this is not a place where any woman would be strolling alone.
So the fishing men were staring at us and almost dropping their eyes.
One of the guys announced his opinion that Henna is "a puta", to which Henna answered "Tu é que és!" (You are!) and made his day.
The town has made some plans for this area, and I don't think I like any of them very much.
maybe the most acceptable possibility is the plan in which these old buildings would be saved and turned into hotels, restaurants, discos and whatnot.
In the other plans the whole area would be demolished and built full of houses. The worst plan would turn the area into a shopping center.
Like there wasn't enough already! And they all have exactly the same big chain shops. Blaah.
I saw once again the Ponte 25 de Abril, but from a very different perspective this time.
These doors are now closed, but they lead into a big empty property, which was a home and a storage of a big wine merchant hundred years ago.
The buildings are still partly standing, and inside them are hides of certain nowadays merchants, Henna told me.
She had once been rummaging there and accidentally found something she shouldn't, and then she had to flee, scared for her life, an enraged man running after her.
She says it's better not to go there after that.
Some of the buildings seem to be serving as some kind of refuse dumps.
There was a little sandy beach in front of the houses.
It must have been full of little fishing boats on its time..
No boats now.
But we found beautiful seashells.
And little bits of bottle glass the sea had polished smooth and wonderfull to hold in our hands.
Sadly we didn't see any dead fish anywhere else but on a wall..
I liked the area just as it was, although I think it would be even nicer if more women were coming here, to stroll or to fish like the men do, so we girls wouldn't be such exceptions!
But this is still a bit oldmodish culture when it comes to the roles of the sexes, and what is suitable or unsuitable to do, hah.
Keeping in min that the revolution was only 40 years ago, it is of course no wonder.
Before it the mental development was forced to stop somewhere in the 1930's.
We decided it was time to climb back to the more "suitable" region before our audience would grow too big.
So me and Zoe kicked the nearest pairs of legs, shouting "Geronimo!" and we run, giggling, away.
Here I am posing in front of a restaurant from which we could peep downwards and see those stupidos standing there, staring.
Can you see the two little ferries?
One is coming from Lisbon and the other one is going there.
We're going to driwe those every time we go to Lisbon.
They leave next to the Cacilhas lighthouse.
Back at home we ate first Caldo verde - green soup, it was delicious!
And then salad and potato noisettes.
I'm sure you would have liked them too!
See you soon again!
Crawfish
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Posted Feb 18, 2015, 5:14 pm
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Cabo da Roca, Portugal - 3rd March 2015
By: Eohippus
Greetings again from Portugal!
Geeh, we have been doing so many things!
Or better saying, we have not been DOING much anything, but we have been doing the same thing in so many places! Don't get me wrong - I mean hiking, walking, climbing from morning to evening!
I wanted to see every aspect of my sister Zoe's life, but the truth is that when she is here in Portugal, they don't do anything else but loiter around the region!
Henna says in Finland our life is going to be more normal. Hmm, hah, let's see!
So, every morning we get up at seven, Henna packs us into her backbag (we're still half asleep), and drags us somewhere in a bus or train or ferry, and the rest of the day we walk, walk and walk, until it is seven o clock in the evening and we go back home.
On one day last week, after spending couple of hours in the backbag, singing entertaining songs, Henna pulled us out and told us to watch around and pay attention to the fact that we were in Cabo da Roca, where "the land ends and the sea begins". (I don't mean Henna spent couple of hours in the backbag singing entertaining songs, but that we toyvoyagers did.)
This is the land's end, the most western point of the Eurasian landmass (yeah, we don't count the little islands, like UK..)
Behind me there is the Cabo da Roca lighthouse.
This is a memorial stone, in front of which every seriously taken tourist wants to be photographed. It is telling them, if they have not noticed, that they really are now in Cabo da Roca.
It is also possible to buy a paper in the small tourist office, giving proof that you really have been there.
Why should I have a paper prooving I have been in Cabo da Roca any more than I have a paper prooving I have been in the toilet in the morning?
We started to develop this idea with Zoe - how we could have a small office too selling people all sorts of papers prooving that they had been, for example, eating herring ice cream, or "in a filatelist meeting from 10.00 to 14.15 instead of being somewhere else, like in any odd cactus parties. (we have heard some rumours of our friend mr Shaun).
The landscapes were really fantastic!
The cliffs were rising almost vertically from the sea 150 m below.
There's some rumours about human sacrifices made here in prehistoric times, to make the sea friendlier before a sea voyage.
At this point Zoe and I exchanged certain signs with our own secret language from our childhood, and continued the conversation about sacrifices:
"I've heard that all the people sacrified were young boys" said Zoe, and all our male companions took couple of steps away from the edge of the cliff, looking pale.
"And they had to be untouched", I added, and all our male companions but brother Casanova took couple of steps more.
Tihih! What do you think this signifies?
We were following little paths on the green hills, winding left and right, up and down, and soon I started to sing, and Zoe joined me.
"Air full of silvery scales
oh herring rain, oh herring rain!
Smell of fish in rising gales!
There's no pain! There's no pain!
(the others were covering their ears)
"Saucers gliding through the clouds
Oh folio hats! Fast, folio hats!
Panic attacking the crowds
They are bats! Gee what bats!"
We saw the others fleeing behind a hill, and decided to sing the rest of the 38 verses some other time.
Here I'm posing with a succulent plant, called Carpobrotus edulis, also known as Hottentot-fig. It is originally from South Africa, but it is now spreading everywhere along the Portuguese coast.
I would send one home to my stepmom, but Henna told me they are very difficult things to be moved - they die very easily.
So better let them bloom here.
I saw a nice looking, stony beach on the root of the cliffs, and wanted to go there.
"Oh no! Not again!" said brother Casanova.
"Sure we go there!" said Zoe.
For the rest of the gang this was a new experience too, like it was for me, and they didn't say anything much, but they looked a bit worried, seeing how deep down the beach was.
Boys are such sissies!
We roamed onto the edge to peek down (Henna was holding our tails) and there really seemed to be a long, vertical distance between us and the beach.
But that just made it more interesting!
We were following some more paths to find a certain spot Henna knew from which the climbing down would be easier.
She was telling us about the prehistory of the place - how it had been considered a holy place for thousands of years, and how the archaeologists had found from there limestone and bone idols from the Neolithic and Calcolithic Periods, representing the Moon.
She also told us that before the lighthouse was built, it was a very dangerous coast for sailors, because it is full of under-surface rocks, and there was many wrecked ships on the bottom of the sea, and rumours of restless souls of the seamen wandering on the rocks at moonlit nights..
We found some Parasoll mushrooms (Macrolepiota procera), but sadly they were already a bit too old to be eaten, and smelled funny.
We came to the "certain spot" from which the path started to descend towards the beach.
It was a slow climbing down.
Well, it would not have been, but I and Zoe had to escort the clumsier boys down. They were about as elegant as a ton of bricks.
They're a bit slow, but we like them, anyway.
Here we are already quite near the bottom!
The last 20 meters were so steep we climbed with the help of a rope.
Then we reached the beach!
It was a very peculiar place, with oddly shaped stone formations standing in the sea in front of it.
The stones on the beach were warm and polished smooth by the sea, so that they felt almost soft under our paws.
We sat down on the stones and were soon lulled into a half-sleep by the sounds of the waves and the sun, but there was something pushing it's way into my sleepy consciousness.. a distinctive smell of fish!
It had wakened Zoe up too from her slumber, and together we went to search for the source of the smell, and soon we found a wonderful, half-rottening little herring between the stones!
We ate it fastly and then we went to drink from a small stream running down the cliff.
Then we went back to the others, who were pushing their noses up into the air and asking "what is this horrible stink?" while I and Zoe were looking ah so innocent.
There was all sort of interesting debris on the shore, brought by the sea who knows how far from.
I was going trough some old fishing nets in case there could have been something more to eat, but no..
I noticed suddenly that the weather was changing. The sky was getting greyer, and so was the sea.
The sea wasn't singing lullabies anymore, it was now licking the stones hungrily and hissing to us!
"Maybe it wants a sacrify!" I suggested and made My sister Zoe grin horribly.
"Maybe we we should better climb back up!" said Batyr the mouse hurriedly, and Henna told us we were being too horrid, Zoe and I. How come? Girls will be girls etc.
Umh, maybe she was right, though.
So we promised to be good girls (some crossing of fingers there) and patted everybody's backs, and climbed up again, helping each other.
Back up again we rested a bit, lying over the tender succulents.
Then we walked a bit more on the wonderful green hills.
Soon we were singing again, but we tried to chose songs with not-so-brain-exploding lyrics this time, and soon everyone was singing joyfully a Swedish song "Vi går över daggstänka berg" =we walk over the dewy mountains.
We saw many wonderful flowers in bloom.
And many more wonderfull views.
I started to feel a bit dizzy with it all - you know - everything there was in such a big scale, and the sun was so bright and the wind so brisk. I think we all felt a bit ding dong.
Even the shy boys were dancing and jumping happily around.
Guess what? It is good to get drunk by the beauty of nature.
I found a wild narcissus!
I gave it to Mr Casanova, and he blushed!
After a very happy afternoon and many more drunken songs it was time to head back towards home.
So we walked back to the bus stop near the lighthouse, roamed into Henna's backbag and fall asleep!
Kisses from Crawfish! Zoe sends some too! Although we smell still a bit funny!
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Posted Mar 3, 2015, 3:44 pm
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Lisbon, Portugal - 23rd March 2015
By: Eohippus
Hello home, siblings, halfsiblings and friends round the globe and outer space!
It is a very sunny day here in Portugal - so my host Henna decided to stay hiding in today, and so I've a possibility to write an update after a long time!
We have not as much as stopped for a ten minutes since I arrived here.
No, we're running round forests and bushes all the time.
My sister Zoe's life here is really totally crazy!
So, one morning we took again the little ferry over the river Tejo, but this time we didn't head our way to forest, nor a bush, ditch, park or rocks, but to the city of Lisbon!
"How did this miracle happen?!" I hear you asking, utterly puzzled, "how on earth did you get Henna to move her ass into the TOWN?" That's a good and well-based question indeed!
But the answer is simple: by blackmailing.
We simply told her we would otherwise not let her sleep for two weeks. We would just be singing the Ufo Attack In A Herring Rain song with Zoe. Hihih!
The words are stronger than swords, and songs are even better.
So, we hopped happily round the city, watching the main touristical sights, dragging our vilting host with us.
Every now and then we gave her a bit of liquorice to freshen her up a bit.
This is the Lisbon town hall. It is an important place because it was there the first Portuguese Rebublic was reclamated in 1910 after the October revolution. Portugal get rid of the royal family and their expences, which was great, although the young republic only existed for 16 years - 1926 Portugal became a dictatorship, and although the new revolution 1974 tried to equalize the society, Portugal is still the country in Europe with strongest class structures and biggest income differences.
As you see, I'm always interested into the local politics, besides fish. And sweets. Don't forget icecream.
We walked about 100 meters more to a square, which is called either Praça do Comércio or Terreiro do Paço depending on the viewpoint - Commerce square or palace square.
It was the most important center of, umm, commerce.. headquarters of those companies, who sailed overseas to clean the countries from valuables, were situated here. And so was the royal palace (well, one of them), because the royals of course wanted their share of the goodies.
Did the country get rich? Nope. Only the upper class.
The poor stayed poor. The upper class used the riches to build more palaces.
Well, at least the palaces are nowadays bringing money into the country through the tourism.
Brother Casanova took a picture of me and Zoe in front of the Arco da Rua Augusta with Zoe's new camera she bought with the money given her by people for not to sing on the street .
Here it is. The picture, I mean.
Then we moved to the riverside end of the square, where there is a 30 meter wide section of the rivershore in somehow natural state - i.e. - it is not paved with stone, asphalt not concrete.
This was not a wise move, because it was now even harder to get our host to move forward from this minuscule strip of nature.
We had to be nasty and recite one verse of The Song.
The poor sods without folio hats
flee from the saucers like catbitten rats
The rain gets harder, just like if it
was collaborating with
the heavenly abducators, who
with landing nets are trapping you!
Ha ha, that sure made her to move!
And everyone else near us too.
This spot on the shore of the Praça do Comercio is called Ribeira das Naus (Riverside of ships).
The two poles are erected as a memoral for all the ships whitch left and arrived from this shore.
It is also a very good spot to be touristwatching.
The tourists were watching us too.
I guess it was because we were the most stylish thing they´d seen for a decade or so.
We returned to the square, since we wanted to make a little ride with one of the cute trams.
We took this one.
It was very full, but I wanted to sit!
Zoe suggested we could sing again, but the others rised such a larm against it, that instead we sat on the back window sill.
There was another tram coming after us, and we were making faces for the driwer.
He was making some juicy ones back to us too!
The Lisbon bus and tram driwers are cool!
And skilled! It is not an easy job to driwe on the narrow streets and deal with the lunatic car owners who park their vehicles in middle of the roads or over the tram tracks!
We stepped out from the tram in a part of the town called Alfama, and went for a walk (more liquorice for our host).
We ambled onto a viewpoint to stare at the view over the city.
There was a panel made of azulejos (tiles) pointing some points on the landscape we could see from there.
I added there my own lines showing the River Tejo, and the Cristo Rei on the other shore of it, where we visited some time ago.
There was madonna called Nossa Senhora da Graça living inside an aquarium.
I asked her if she was a mermaid or why was she there.
She answered that she was living there so that naughty people would not draw whiskers on her.
I would rather take the whiskers!
This lady in the park Parque Eduardo de VII shared my opinion!
I gave her tweezers.
This is the huge lawn of the aforementioned park.
Can you see the river in bottom of the pic?
We stopped on the lawn for a little snack.
And for a little snore.
Then we continued to the narrow alleys of Alfama.
Here are the most Fado-cafés in Lisbon, and many tourists have found their way into them.
But in the upper floors are still living old grannies.
There was also some interesting shops.
Just watch at all of these different fish cans!
Some walls of the houses are decorated with folk poetry.
This one reads about: Saint Anthony, Oh Saint Anthony, how beautiful you are! I go to collect basil to place upon your feet!
Saint Anthony is one of the guardian saints of Lisbon, and basil is given as love token near the day of Saint Anthony.
It is here a common habit to decorate the streets with flowerpots, which are placed near the stares.
Without them the stony town would look much less joyfull.
In Alfama area it also typical to see these colorfull string decorations hung over the streets.
Sadly there are also many empty houses.
They are often in very bad condition, and it is sad to see them because they have been very beautiful one day.
I'm afraid many of them are going to be demolished, and those cold, unpersonal, modern, steely-glassy houses with sharp edged are going to be built instead.
These old buildings look so much more human! Although I doubt if they're very comfy to live in, especially if you are old and ill..
We then left the Alfama area and sat down to have some coffee and strawberry truffels.
Behind our backs is the National Pantheon, in which many of the important politicians, presidents etc. have been buried.
I wasn't very interested. I don't care about corpses, unless they happen to be fish.
I have to continue updating our Lisbon sightseeing next time!
Now our host wants to go out! There is some clouds, she says!
Kisses from Crawfish!
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Posted Mar 23, 2015, 7:54 pm Last edited Mar 23, 2015, 8:05 pm by Eohippus
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Laranjeiro, saving a toy bunny, Portugal - 3rd April 2015
By: Eohippus
Hello again all my dear family and friends!
This is just a short update, in which I´m telling how I saved a fellow toy from the street!
So, on the saturday morning we woke up early, fresh and chirpy as always (ha ha haa), and ate a very satisfying breakfast of strawberries.
It was my turn to do the shopping (Henna is too lazy, so she has externalized the shopping for us tv:s!).
Anyway, I like to do it. I also got an opportunity to take a pic of our house here.
I added a line showing which one is our balcony.
I walked to the Mercado do Feijó, a farmer's market about half a kilometer away.
There we can buy locally grown, fresh fruit and vegetables (and fish, bread, eggs, cheese and meat if we feel like it).
I bought apples, tomatoes, lettuce, coriander, cabbage, watercress, oranges, tangerines and olives!
I was happy I had taken the shopping trolley with me!
Here I´m on my way back home with my cargo. It was a bit heavy, and I stopped to breath a bit, and then I suddenly saw a miserable looking toy bunny up in a tree!
"Hullo, little bunny! What are you doing up in that tree?" I asked.
"Hi! I´m lost! My owner dropped me from his pram, and then I was chased by a dog, and I had to climb up here!" she answered.
Poor bunny!
I clearly have to teach her some karate later on!
I climbed the tree too to see if I could help her somehow, and saw that she was very dirty, covered in mud, one ear hanging in an unnatural angle and nose missing!
"Would you like to come home with me? You´ll get a bath and something to eat, at least!" I asked.
"You bet!" she answered. and so I offered her a lift on the shopping trolley.
Back at home, we fed the poor brat, and then we put her into a warm bath.
Here she is getting dry after her bath.
When she had dried, she looked already better!
We made her to drink some carrot vodka, and soon she was asleep, and ready to go through some plastic surgery.
Henna modelled her a new nose..
Here she is with her new nose.
After seeing herself in the mirror, she found her smile too!
We asked if she would like to have some clothing too (everyone is not so happy to go around naked as I am!)
She said she would like to have a skirt, since she had never had any, and so we pushed Henna to make her one, and soon she turned a very pretty little bunny indeed!
Zoe said seh is our easter bunny, and so we named her Ostara (the original name of the spring celebration).
She has turned out to be a very joyfull, easygoing bunny, and after listening to our stories she is starting to be enthusiastic to become a toyvoyager too.
Vamos ver! Let's see!
In the evening we watched an Easter procession from the balcony.
Happy easter to all of you!
We are very happy with our easter-bunny-gift!
Hug from Crawfish!
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Posted Apr 3, 2015, 2:21 pm
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Trafaria, Portugal - 8th April 2015
By: Eohippus
Hello again, all my dear friends and family wide and far!
I wish you´re all well and jumping!
I´ll show you photos of our little walking trip from Almada to Trafaria, which is a small fishing town, about eight kilometers away.
We walked, singing, through green fields, along a small road. (No, we weren´t singing about herrings nor ufo:s, I knew you were going to ask! ).
The road took us past some small villages, in which most of the houses are empty or in ruins.
There are mainly old grannies living in the remaining buildings, and since they´re not used to tourists nor any other outsiders, and certainly not crawfishes and kiwi birds (dogs, cows and donkeys they know!) they were very curious about us!
It is amazing - to have such isolated villages so near the urban area!
Soon after tha last little village, we were able to see the town of Trafaria between the pines and behind the fields.
A bit before reaching the town, we saw a shrine on the roadside.
Henna told us, that before the christian shrine dedicated to a saint, it has been a spot in which a female water spirit was showing herself to people (there is a small brook near the road), and to whom people were bringing bread and flowers.
We came to the town. It is a very small town, spread along the rivershore.
Most of its occupants are still fishermen or -women, and the shore is full of their boats.
The boats were very colorful, and it was noce to walk amongst them, reading their names.
In earlier times the local boats often had eyes painted on both sides of their bows, to scare away any evil sea spirits, but we didn´t spot any eyes now.
The river was also full of boats popping up and down.
It looked very cheerfull.
There was also a distinctive smell of fish hovering over the shore, and I started to feel this rather hollow spot on my stomach!
Luckily I saw a dead fish laying in the shore!
I shared my prey with my sis Zoe. It was delicious!
The others were keeping a certain distance after that.
The wind was blewing from the West, and they were trying to always position themselves on the Western side of me and Zoe..
We continued our walk along the shore, out from the town, which didn´t take long - it is a very small town.
We walked past an industrial harbour and some big harvest silos and came to an empty beach.
In the 1920´s and 1930´s here was a popular swimming and sunbathing beach, but then the bigger beaches in Caparica became more trendy and this beach was forgotten, which is great.
A bit forward on the beach there is an illegal village.
It was started in the 1970´s, after the revolution, when people were able to leave their slavery in countryside and move freely.
Thousands of people came to Lisbon to search for work and better life, but there simply wasn´t enough apartments for all of them.
So people started to build little huts and cottages here on the beach, and throughout the years it grew bigger.
The Almada commun has made plans lately to demolish it, and force the people to move elsewhere (the land is valuable), but people don´t want to leave. It is their home.
We went there, but we didn´t took any photos there. People of the village don´t like to be photographed, understandably.
I was taking some photos with Zoe´s camera.
No bad, huh?
Zoe took a photo of me.
Ain´t I beautiful?
The future generations are going to be fighting over this photo, mark my words!
We found many interesting seashells on the beach.
Bro Casanova wanted to have his photo taken too.
He arranged the flowers round his ears, because "girls like that", and asked me to take a good photo to be send signed to his admirers.
"400 copies is about enough."
In the first photo sis Zoe sneaked behind him and made horns.
Bro Casanova chased her some rounds around the shore with lots of shrieking and giggling until Zoe suggested we could take another photo.
Wuffe (bro Casanova) liked the second pic more!
Then we were laying on the soft sand.
The sun wasn´t shining, but the sand was warm and nice under our backs, and the waves were lulling us to sleep.
When we woke up again, the sky was getting more and more overcasted with dark clouds, and we knew we would soon be totally soaked.
So we said good byes to the nice, peacefull beach, and started our walk back home.
I wish you liked our picks!
See you soon again!
Yours, Crawfish
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Posted Apr 14, 2015, 7:51 pm Last edited Apr 22, 2015, 9:01 pm by Eohippus
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Santuário da Peninha, Portugal - 13th April 2015
By: Eohippus
Hello, all my dear friends and family!
It was a bit hard to decide what update to make, since I don't honestly even remember the right order in which we have been seeing things.
But I decided to write about our hiking trip to Peninha, because I like the photos a lot.
So, we took a bus onto the border of the Sintra-Cascais Nature Conservation Area, and after we had got rid of the last urban zone, we were hiking trough a wonderful, green woodland.
The tall trees in the photo are eucalyptuses, and they made the whole forest smell lovely!
We were climbing upwards, and the forest was making way for smaller flora - bushes of mimosa and laurels.
The blooming mimosas had invited thousands of busy bees to buzz upon the flowers!
We had to pass very carefully under the branches not to disturb the bees. They would not have liked it!
After passing the buzzing bushes we suddenly popped into more open landscape!
When watching towards east, we saw beautiful green hills.
When watching towards west, we saw a small village behind the hills, and the Atlantic ocean behind the village.
It was hard to see where the horizon was - where the sea ended and the sky started - they were of such a similar colour.
Our path took us still upwards.
I started to realize the peace and silence of the hills.
It was wonderful! Just us, the hills and the sky!
Walking here can be like a meditation.
Maybe that's what the holy cows of India do?
Some hills were covered with flowers and looked almost golden under the sun.
When we watched closer, we saw that the flowers were Picris echioides or Bristly ox-tongue.
Every now and then we saw another small village in the horizon.
Henna was telling me their names - there were Azoia, Quincho, Almogaçeme, but I don´t remember which was which.
Seen from the hills they all looked just the same - little white houses hunching together, forming a sort of termite hill.
We climbed still upwards, and here started to feel the wind on our fur/feathers/scales/skin.
The upper we climbed the stronger the wind get, and soon it started to be a hard work to walk against it, but it was fun and made us giggle, and then it and the beauty of the landscape made us to sing too!
Zoe was teaching us a Finnish children's song, often sung while hiking, and as a linguistically talented crustacean I learned it fast:
"Terve metsä! Terve vuori!
Terve metsän ruhtinas!
Täs on poikas uljas, nuori
esiin käy hän voimaa täys
kuin tuima tunturin tuuli.
Viherjäisel laattialla
jos ei seinät hämmennä
tähtitaivaan korkeen alla
käyskelen ja katselen
ja maailma unholaan jääköön!"
about:
"Hail, forest! Hail, mountain!
Hail, Lord of the Forest!
Here is your child, valiant and young,
stepping forward, ready to serve,
powerful like the stern wind on the fjälls.
Upon the green floor
without any walls mixing my head,
under the high starlit sky
I wander and wonder.
The world can be erased from my memory."
Isn't that something?
As I told you - nowadays it is a children´s song, but originally it was a greeting to the forest.
The singing was carrying us forward, and soon we got a first glimpse of Santuário da Peninha, towards which we were hiking.
It was a refuge of some hermite monks in the mediaeval times, but it was considered a holy place long before that, probably because it is one of the highest points of the serra - a place in which the heaven and earth touch each other, and in which you are closer to the moon and the sun.
In this photo you can see the Peninha behind us, but we are sitting around a sacrifice bowl carved on the rock on some prehistoric period.People were putting into it offerings. I don't know exactly to whom. Maybe to the serra itself.
Here is the holy fountain of Peninha.
Here a shepherd girl, who was unable to talk, met a radiant woman in white clothes, while searching for a lost sheep.
The woman was taking care of the sheep, giving it water from the fountain.
After meeting her the girl suddenly could talk.
The water looked clear and tasted good!
The big boulders, over which the sanctuary is built, were carried here by the selfsame radiant lady.
She is called "Virgem da Peninha", but actually she is a much older pagan goddess worshipped here in Iberia.. she has been carrying big stones a bit here and there round the peninsula, building the dolmens, for example.
The sanctuary itself wasn't very interesting. And it was also closed. It is open only during summertime.
But the hike here was super!
The wind started to be a bit too refreshing (brrr!), and so we started to hike downwards again, and trough new forests.
See you soon again!
I hope you enjoyed our hike!
Your Crawfish
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Posted Apr 22, 2015, 8:58 pm Last edited Apr 22, 2015, 9:01 pm by Eohippus
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Jardim Zoológico Zoo of Lisbon, Portugal - 16th April 2015
By: Eohippus
Titityy!
Your favorite crustacean is here again, ready to entertain you
with an update from Portugal!
Now it is time to handle the photos from the Jardim Zoológico, or the Lisbon Zoo.
Usually it is not a habit to show here photos without ourselves - i.e. photos without
the voyager writing the update, but today I´m going to break the rule!
On most visits in zoos, we only see the animals far away, because most of them hate to be photographed and turn their asses towards the camera as soon as they see it.
So, to get a good photo in which there are both the toyvoyager, and the animal, looking bigger than a fly poop, is very difficult.
So, with some animals I´m going to show you first a photo of myself watching the animal in question, and next a photo taken with the zoom, so that it is possible to see the animal a bit t´better!
I wish I´m not pissing you off by it!
Lisbon zoo is a rather big complex.
Besides the zoo itself, it has a small amusement pakr with some rides, a pet hotel and a pet cemetary.
Here I´m just entering its gates.
We can enter the gates without paying a ticket, and visit an area where there are gardens, restaurants, pools and some animals too.
Many people come to spend summer days into this free area.
Students are reading in the shady benches and older people are dozing off on them.
We were circulating first on this area, watching the garden and the black swans swimming in the pools.
The black swans did their best to avoid the camera, but we fooled them!
My sis Zoe was taking a photo of them on one end of the pool, so that they swam like crazies away from her, and while doing so, they came to the other end of the pool where I waited with Henna and her camera, hah!
So we managed to get a photo of them! Muhahaha!
It is a shame we cant´t use the same trick with some other animals..
After a nice little bridge there was the gate to the zoological area, to which we had to buy tickets.
We were hiding in Henna´s backbag while she was entering, so we only need to take one ticket, though!
We started our circle from the "petting zoo" with farm animals.
They animals there were so cute, we almost accidentally spent the whole day with them..
But, it was a time of the year when half of the animals had small babies and the other half were in heat!
These cute ponies certainly were in the later state..
They were a bit nervous and behaving in interesting ways.
The rabbits, instead, were not behaving according to their reputation.
They were in deep sleep!
The sheep were having babies, and they were so cute it became almost unendurable!
I had to stay on my head to be able to stand it, and even so it made me a bit giddy.
The wise sheep mothers were keeping their babies far away from our cameras, though, so I´m going to put here some photos we took using the zoom, because I want you to see their cuteness too!
There!
Do you understand now why I came totally "Eeeeeeeeeeeep" and "Awwwwwwwwwwww"?
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
There were ducks who all had an odd bump over their beaks.
Zoe told us to watch them and spot the similarity with the dinosaurs.
See was right! There certainly were many similarities, like the pea -sized brain. *Aaargh, Zoe is pouring cold water over me! Pfff!*
We left the petting zoo before all turning into babytalking piles of drool, and went to see the wilder animals.
We saw a pack of flamingoes.
Their caretaker was just cleaning their area, and they were rather excited, because they knew that after cleaning they were going to get food. Birds!
We went to see the big cats next.
They lions were, surprise surprise, in deep sleep!
What else? Cats and warm sun patches!
But there was some movement in midst of them!
Ooooh, there were lion brats!
I just have to show them to you!
Just look at the little ones!
They were behaving just like any kittens - a little playfight going on all the time, even while having a nap!
The cheetah wasn´t sleepy at all!
She was in heat!
She had a big area to run and climb, and she didn´t stay for longer than ten seconds in one spot.
Here you can see her a bit better.
She came to stare at us, but found soon out we weren't suitable as partners.
The other big cats we didn´t see at all.
Oh, now I´m lying! We saw the hind paw of a lynx, who was snoring inside a hut.
So, we moved on to see the antelopes.
They were not sleeping nor in heat, as far as i understood.
I was chatting with one of them. She was telling about the life in the zoo.
According to her story, it is not too bad nowadays. Things are happily becoming better, and zoos are not anymore just animal exhibitions, but making their own important part in fighting against species extinction and such.
We saw some rhinoceroses, munching on hay.
We were trying to call on him, but he didn´t want to be distracted from his meal.
There are little cable cars circulating over the zoo, and we took a ride in one of them.
It was quite nice, and we got a clearer pic of the area too - which animals were in which part of the zoo.
Ha haa, we saw the same rhinoceros from the air! It was still munching.
The animals were clearly very used to the cable cars driwing over their heads - they didn´t as much as move an ear.
Some parts of the zoo looked quite beautiful seen from the level of treetops.
We continued then our walk, and went to see the bisonts.
They were spending a pleasant afternoon in the shades of pine trees.
"Hello, you hairy cows!" I shouted, "how is it going?"
"Muuh, who left the aquarium lid open?" they answered, and grinned.
We were watching a big family of baboons eating fruit.
Watching them, and watching people watching them, I started to wonder why was the one species of apes inside the cage and one species out.
I asked Henna, ans she answered that some people has learned to believe themselves to be above all the other species.
Isn´t that odd? Isn´t it clear it should be the crawfishes that.. just joking.
Next we went to see the giraffees.
What gracious creatures they are! Looking us meekly with their beautiful, long lashed eyes, and moving their ears towards all sounds.
The two bears were waiting for the day to cool down too.
One of them had put a sack over his head. Maybe he was tired of all the people staring at him all the time.
I would be!
Don´t get worried, though. In the photo we can see only one small corner of their big area, which is actually very nice.
It has a pool and a river and even a waterfall for the bears to play in.
Of course no zoo can be as good as the wild nature would be to live in, but the animals in most zooz (at least in Europe) are not anymore enprisoned from the nature - they are born in them, or sometimes rescued from animal trackers but unable to survive in nature anymore.
We went to the aquarium house (oh yes, suitable place for me, you bisonts) and saw different beautiful (and delicious looking) fish species.
There were also two young crocodiles. Or maybe alligators.
They were looking very cunning, but so they always do, like they were thinking some cunning plans all the time. Maybe they are.
We went to see still some big birds.
These nice girls are nandus (Rhea americana), some sort of ostrichs.
I remembered the horror story of a toyvoyager eaten by an ostrich and kept my distance, although they looked friendly enough!
These are royal pelicans.
Their foreparents moved here from the king´s palace in the beginning of the 20th century.
They still remembered their royal origins.
Sis Zoe was telling them that she certainly is more royal than them, royal palace or no, since her foreparents were called Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The pelicans commented that she certainly had forgotten her court behaviour rules.
Of course they were right.
It was time to leave the place.
We walked again through the gardens.
The we went hope and ate ourselves into beachballs.
See you soon again!
Hug from Crawfish!
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Posted Apr 24, 2015, 5:44 pm Last edited Apr 29, 2015, 7:06 pm by Eohippus
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Sinta-Cascais Nature Conservation , Portugal - 20th April 2015
By: Eohippus
Hello, hello, all my dear people and toyvoyagers!
I´ve already made one update about our hiking trips - last time we were hiking to see Santuário da Peninha.
This time we´re going to hike a lot more in the Sintra-Cascais Nature conservation area, since that is where we spend most of our time while we are in Portugal.
This time we started our hike from the small town of Sintra, which is about 30 kilometers from Lisbon.
We took a train there.
Behind my back the white funnily shaped chimneys belong to the Palácio da Vila.
It is fun to see these places, which I´ve seen so many times in photos taken by bros Casanova and Squab.
We walked through the town until we reached the edge of the forest.
We walked along a path towards the Sintra palace area.
It tooks kilometers to go round it, so we are usually just walking through it, although it is forbidden.
Besides, I wanted to have a glimpse of the palace.
Usually we don´t meet anybody on this path.
Only one time, I think, we saw a young couple who had come to kiss there.
They looked insulted and moved rapidly away when we approached them.
"Sorry, we don´t want to interrupt anything" we said, and the young couple looked even more insulted.
We saw the walls of the Moorish Castle on the top of a hill.
After some more walking we came to an old wall and climbed over it and came to the Pena palace gardens.
There are some old fortifications scattered on the landscape.
These hills have been fortificated during the year thousands for many times.
We walked past artificial lakes.
The tower standing in the lake is a very fancy house for the ducks who live in the lakes.
We saw fantastical fern trees, which formed little jungles in some parts of the gardens.
We were discussing the prehistory of the planet earth itself - how it looked when there weren´t yet other trees than fern trees, and not yet any seed producing plants, just spore producing ferns and horsetails and mushrooms.
These gardens were forgotten for many decades and let to take care of themselves.
Only about five years ago the gardens started to be tamed again and turned into a tourist attraction.
I wish they don´t destroy their charm with too much taming!
In this house lived a remarkable woman, Countess d´Edla, the second wife of the last king of Portugal.
She was the one who actually planned the gardens of the Pena palace - ordered the fern trees and sequoias and various other trees to be planted and took actively part into the works.
While we walked through the gardens Henna told us more about the countess.
Her marriage with the king was a big scandal. She was an actress and a singer, and had a daughter outside marriage when she met the king.
The aristocratic circles were horrified, and many of the numerous children of the king refused from talking to their father and his new wife.
The couple lived, anyway, happily, spending lots of time in the small house around which they planted the gardens.
We walked past "rhinoceros trees".
I´m not sure to which species they actually belong.
We had come near the Pena palace, and I walked round it and took some photos.
The palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal.
In the Middle Ages there was a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Pena on the hill where the palace stands nowadays.
According to tradition, its construction occurred after an apparition of the Virgin Mary. That lady must be responsible of 90% of construction works in Portugal!
After the sanctuary there was a small convent on this site.
King Manuel I ordered the construction of the monastery, which was donated to the Order of Saint Jerome. For centuries Pena was a small, quiet place for meditation, housing a maximum of eighteen monks.
Considering the history of the place, I find the pretty pagan symbolism of the latest construction quite enthralling.
Of course it depends on the viewpoint whom we consider pagan.
The christianity was for a long time too an odd, exotic sect from Near East.
The monastery was ruined first by a lightning and then by the big earthquake in 1755. People were telling stories about the sinful life of the monks, which caused this destruction. Numerous stories tell about underground tunnel leading to nunneries and such.
For many decades the ruins remained untouched, until 1838, when king consort Ferdinand II decided to acquire the old monastery, all of the surrounding lands, the nearby Castle of the Moors and a few other estates in the area. King Ferdinand then set out to transform the remains of the monastery into a palace that would serve as a summer residence for the Portuguese royal family.
These landscapes I saw up from the palace walls.
In them we see part of the area king Ferdinand bought.
Just think about it! "I went shopping yesterday and bought couple of palaces, and old castle and some hundred hectares of forest."
After the Republican Revolution of 1910 the palace was classified as a national monument and transformed into a museum. The last queen of Portugal, Queen Amélia, spent her last night at the palace before leaving the country in exile.
Nowadays it is also used for state occasions by the President of the Portuguese Republic and other government officials.
I wonder if they would rent it for a toyvoyager ball.
We left palace and rested for awhile in front of some kind of royal gazebo, before heading towards the Western wall of the park to be able to continue our hike.
I was really enchanted bu the wonderful magnolias which looked like soft, pink clouds.
There was a pool, in which the magnolia petals were sailing with the wind like delicious pink and white sailing boats.
Actually I saw an ant sailing in one of the boats!
It seemed to me that her navigation skills were not very good, so I helped her back onto dry earth with a stick.
We saw another "gazebo", built in the Moorish style, which was very popular here in the Romantical period.
We left the Pena Palace behind our backs and walked onwards.
We saw a statue called The Giant.
Actually it is the King Fernando II (countess d´Edla´s husband who built the palace).
He didn´t look so gigantic up there.
Actually he looked pretty much like the ant I saved.
We came to the Cruz Alta (High Cross) which stands on the border of the Pena area, and on one of the highest spots of the serra, 529 meters from the sea level.
No doubt some apparition has been the reason for rising this cross too.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of mushrooms the Portuguese people were eating in the past times..
We could still see the Pena palace, but it was already somehow far away.
We left the Pena area by climbing another wall.
It is great to be in a real forest!
It is not so easy in Portugal! There is very little forest left, and people have drifted so far from nature that they are actually afraid of it. It is very sad!
I think it would be a really great idea to organize kind of "back to the nature" camps or courses for too urbanized people.
They could live a month in a tent in the Finnish forests and drink from brooks and pick mushrooms. They would be much halthier and happier people after the month, I believe!
We saw a cave in which a hermit was living in the 17th century.
I guess he wanted to get back to nature too.
Think about this forest in the 17th century!
Half a kilometer to the East there was the Jeromete convent. About three kilometers to the West there was the Capuchos convent.
Besides the hermit living in this cave here there were at least three others living in different caves and holes.
What kind of hermiting is that?
Of course it is nice they could always pop into the neighbour cave to loan some dry bread.
We saw an astounding row of tall sequoias - all that is left from a house which was here hundreds of years ago.
Of course the sequoia isn´t a natural species here, but how can we but love them?
We have learned to use a GPS to find our way in the dense forest.
We don´t watch it actually very often, because it is better to use the compasses inside our heads, but it is nice to know it is in Henna´s backpack in case we happen to need it.
We crossed a small bridge over a little brook.
We were practising to use Zoe´s new camera in turns.
Zoe took a photo of me, Racko and Mr Woffe.
Here it is!
We were all saying "Queijo!" (cheese).
We came to the shore of a lake called Lagoa da Mula.
It was my turn to use the camera and I took a picture of a beautiful yellow flower which grew on the shore.
Here! What do you think?
Not bad for a beginner.
We built a raft from twigs and reeds and put big plumes on the stern for sails, and then we made a round ("one, hah!" says Henna) on the lake.
Our ship sailed quite well!
After sailing five times round the lake clockwise we had to sail other five time anticlockwise to stop our heads spinning too much.
Then we continued our hiking through the backwoods.
We climbed a wonderful giant cork tree. She told us she remembered well people coming to build the town of Sintra.
I took a photo of Racko and the lunatic siblings walking on the forest.
We had come high up on a hill again and saw some villages spreading towards the forest.
I hope they don´t cut more forest to make room for houses anymore! There is almost nothing left!
We stopped for awhile in front of a memorial stone erected on top of a hill for 22 firefighters who died here, fighting against a forest fire.
These are true "war heroes" to me.
We came to the shore of another lake, Lagoa Azul (Blue lake).
The shores were full of wonderfull mimosas.
Zoe wanted to take a photo of me standing in front of the beautiful lake.
We run through an old farm, which is nowadays part of the Sintra-Cascais nature conservation area.
I don´t know what these odd looking buildings have been.
If you wander why we´re running, it was because there was this rarely juicy centipede I and Zoe dropped onto bro Casanova´s neck, and he was then running after us swinging a bag full of rabbit droppings.
It´s good he has such short legs.
They kept some beautiful horses on the meadow.
We walked the last ten kilometers to the town of Cascais, where we took the train home again.
At home we ate lots of delicious things!
I wish you liked our hike! I did!
See you soon!
Kisses and just some tiny centipedes from Crawfish
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Posted Apr 29, 2015, 7:01 pm Last edited Apr 29, 2015, 7:06 pm by Eohippus
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Jardim Botanico Botanical garden, Lisbon, Portugal - 23rd April 2015
By: Eohippus
Hip hei again from Lisbon!
One day we visited Jardim Botanico Botanical Garden and natural scientific museum.
It is situated quite near the centrum of Lisbon, but it is impossible to notice if you don´t know where to search.
There is actually two other botanical gardens in Lisbon too, but this is the best of them, says Henna.
This garden was opened 1878.
In the upper part of the garden there are plant species which originate from Portugal, and in the lower part are species from the various former Portuguese colonies.
I felt so much like diving into this beautiful big fountain, but then I saw it was full of giant sized carps!
My sis Zoe pulled me back fast! They could have eaten my antennas or worse!
We were going first round in the upper part and admiring the plants.
There was also an exhibition about the plants of the age of dinosauruses inside a greenhouse.
Then we moved to the lower part of the garden to watch the more exotic species.
First we saw many different palm trees and big araucarias.
There is sadly some fungal disease which has attacked the palms in Portugal. We saw many sick palms in the gardens too. They had lost their hair.
Then we walked inside a beautiful thicket of young bamboos.
We saw another beautiful pond.
Henna says it is because besides being interesting this place is also beautiful and usually peaceful she prefers this to the other botanical gardens.
Next we went to see the section of cacti and succulents.
First thing we saw there was this big dragon tree, Dracaena draco.
Here it is seen from another perspective.
Next to the dragon trees we saw Opuntia Robusta.
It is from Mexico and it is formed with a bit rounder "plates" than the Opuntia ficus indica from India we usually see here.
I don´t know the names of all of these plants. I should have written them down.
But I think mom Sanny knows what species they are anyway.
This is a Golden barrel cactus, Echinocactus grusonii.
Henna told me in Finnish they say Mother in law´s stool.
Here we have Euphorbia resinifera (Resin spurge), which is a species of spurge native to Morocco.
They´re full of toxic chemicals.
Nice place this, huh, Sanny?
We left the cactuses baking in the sun and went to see the other parts of the garden.
We saw so many wonderful things!
Here are banana plants. No bananas, though.
The back wall of the garden was totally grown over by Monstera deliciosa, fruit salad plant.
It seems their fruit are edible too.
During winter this is like a forest refuge inside the city, a good place to come and read for an exam, for example.
In summertime there are too many tourists.
I´m sure you would love to spend time in here too.
Usually there are water channels running here and there, from pool to pool, but they were now been fixed and dry.
We spent almost whole day in the gardens, and then we went to see the museum of natural history too.
We saw many fossils.
This must be the foremother of some delicious species of fish.
Look at this fellow!
He was the size of a washbasin!
There! Can you see!?
My own foreparents!
I´m sure they were very smart.
We met some foreparents of Zoe too.
She went quite wild.
She was foaming like a little steam boat around and babbling about the theories of dino extinction because of a meteorite and how only her foreparents were smart enough to turn into birds and continue living.
Well, so did mine, as we just saw! And they didn´t even need to turn into birds! They were just growing some more legs to run faster.
Well, I´m sad these animals disappeared!
It would be really something if they were still here.
Maybe they could have prevented human overpopulation a bit too.
These are allosauruses, who are those who probably turned into birds.
They had bigger brains compared to the body size than the other dinos.
Zoe told this fact to us about hundred times until we told her that compared to a maggot a slug is a genius.
Actually, it was quite an interesting collection and I was enjoying myself watching those huge sculls and bones, and we all had imagining them trampling in a city, muhahahah!
Bro Casanova had been drooling for sometime between all those giant bones, and he started to gnaw a rib of a raptor without realizing it was fossilized!
So, we had to get him out from there and feed him (and us) before the guardians would get angry.
See you soon again!
Kisses and hugs from Crawfish!
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Posted May 2, 2015, 11:52 pm Last edited May 4, 2015, 8:32 pm by Eohippus
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Quinta da Regaleira, Sintra, Portugal - 26th April 2015
By: Eohippus
Olá, meu queridos amigos, irmãos e outros relativos!
Today I´ll show you photos from an interesting place called Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra.
I remember my bros Squab and Woffe and sis Josie showing photos of this place and always wanting to see it - so I was rather excited!
Quinta da regaleira is classified as World Heritage by UNESCO.
It is a very impressive collection of imaginative buildings, chapels, caves, underground passages, pools and statues set in a beautiful garden.
Behind my back is the main building.
The Regaleira family were rich merchants who purchased the land in the late nineteenth century.
Building of Quinta da Regaleira started 1892. The owner of the land, Carvalho Monteiro, was eager to build a bewildering place where he could collect symbols that reflected his interests and ideologies - symbols related to alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians.
With the assistance of the Italian architect Luigi Manini, he recreated the 4-hectare estate. The architecture Manini designed evoked Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, and Manueline styles. The construction of the current estate was completed by 1910.
Here I am standing on Passage of gods. Suits me, somehow.
I went to mix a bit with my own kind - they recognized me immediately as a water nymph.
What intelligent gods!
(Did you hear, Squab? I´m a water nymph!)
It was a rather bewildering place, but also exciting!
There were tiny paths and wider ways crisscrossing the gardens, and every now and then we saw an odd construction peeping through the thickets.
The buildings themselves were in very mixed styles, and they were decorated with gods and goddesses and scenarios from various mythologies.
There were many pools and fountains, caves and underground passages hiding in the gardens!
Henna told me there are some new age and pagan people sneaking here in some nights.
No wonder!
)
When we bought our tickets we were given a map showing the main attractions of the place.
But they have not put quite everything in the map!
This is one of the caves most tourists don´t find at all, because it doesn´t enter their heads to go and see a certain statue from behind too.
We wanted to see if it was wearing a leaf only in front or in behind too, and so we found the mouth of a small tunnel which led us here. (it didn´t have a leaf behind)
Carvalho Monteiro and his friends formed a secret sect, which hold its rituals on the Quinta Regaleira.
The magical quinta was actually created as a secret hideaway for the sect - so many of the edifices have been constructed to serve in the rituals.
Nowadays the place is full of tourists and their shrieking, but it is easy to imagine how impressive stage it has been hundred years ago for secret rituals.
Just imagine yourself here alone in the shades of an evening, without electrical lights, in silence, walking through these passageways and encountering white statues in surprising places looming over you!
That would be great!
Maybe we have to sneak here on some night too with Zoe.
This is one of the underground buildings called Unfinished Well.
There is two underground wells spiraling deep within the earth. The wells were never used, nor intended for water collection. Instead, these mysterious underground towers were used for secretive initiation rites.
The reason why Carvalho Monteiro choose Sintra as the place to create a secret meeting point for the sect was it´s old fame as a mysterious, holy place.
The archaeological finds tell that there really has been popular cult places in the Sintra area since the Neolithic period.
The cult activity continued through the prehistoric times, and emerged again in historical period - many hermits were living in the Sintra caves, and there was a monastery deep in the forest, surrounded by odd rumours..
We continued our expedition through the park and its symbolism, peeping into every cave and building we saw.
There were wonderful azaleas in bloom.
The turrets of the main building, rising from the foliage, looked very beautiful! Like some ancient temples rising from a jungle.
We rested a bit in the little café, strengthening ourselves with croissants.
Then we headed towards the upper parts of the park which seemed to be more in natural state.
Soon we were amongst huge trees and lushy green ferns.
For my own behalf I can say, that how ever beautiful a human-made construction can be, it never can be as gorgeous as the creations of nature!
There were even huge sequoias! People started to plant them here some hundred years ago, and now they are spreading by themselves.
Oh, what a paradise!
I wouldn´t mind having this as my hideaway!
Never know when there is a romance in horizon, for example.
The Portuguese nature is so beautiful, I think it is a big shame there is so little left!
There were primulas growing under the trees!
In midst of the trees we found this "Leda´s cave"
Behind the statue we found again a passage, which led us deep underground!
We followed the passage - it led us onto the bottom of the other, bigger initiation well.
There were stairs circling the well, and we started to climb upwards. The winding stair architecture carries symbolic meanings including the death/rebirth allegory common to many hermetic traditions says Henna.
The stairs have nine platforms, which are said to be “reminiscent of the Divine Comedy by Dante and the nine circles of Hell, the nine sections of Purgatory and the nine skies which constitute Paradise."
Walking through all of those we reached the end of the long stairs and watched down into the well.
We rested our paws a bit over a wall.
Then were walking back downwards, through different paths.
We walked still past some nice buildings.
This is the small chapel of the quinta.
We hopped into the main building, but inside it was so dark that I took only two photos in the front hall.
It was a shame, because the rooms were really beautiful too!
I wish you enjoyed our little trip too!
See you very soon again!
Yours, Water nymph!
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Posted May 11, 2015, 11:46 am Last edited May 13, 2015, 12:01 pm by Eohippus
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Capuchos Cork Convent, Colares, Portugal - 27th April 2015
By: Eohippus
Muito bom dia para voces, meus amados!
How you doing, dear bimbos? Has bro Squab learned to bind his shoelaces already?
One day we want to see the famous Capuchos Cork Convent in Colares hills in middle of the Sintra forests.
We walked along many forbidden paths, showing out tongues to the "private" - announcements.
We hiked and hopped some kilometers trough the forest,
climbing some fences every now and then, until we reached these
stairs and a plaque which told us we had come to the Capuchos
Cork Convent.
The nature as the best expression of divinity - I can totally agree with this ideology, if I leave myself out from the list of phenomenons expressing it.
We followed the stairs, admiring the cork oaks
along our path.
There was little cross signalling us that we
were now entering an area dedicated to the worship of god.
We reached the small front yard of the convent,
where there was couple of stone tables where the monks could
sit near to the nature eating their meals.
This is the main entrance into the convent.
First thing we saw after entering was a big shrine, decorated with seashells and bits of broken porcelain.
The convent was built because of a dream.
The former fourth Viceroy of India, D. João de Castro (1500 - 1548)
was hunting in the mountains of Sintra, and chasing a deer, the bimbo found himself lost (right for him!)
Tired he fell asleep against a rock, and in a dream a saint told him to erect a Christian temple on the site.
i would have preferred the saint to tell him to leave the deer alone, but I guess it was a wrong kind of saint.
There was originally eight monks living here.
One of them became a real celebrity of his own time - Friar Honório, who, according to the book "Mirror of Penitents", lived to be 100 years old, although he lived his last three decades in a small cave next to the convent.
We entered the monks humble recidings,
which consisted of tiny cells in which they lived, and a bit bigger
common areas for worshipping and eating and such.
As you can see, many surfaces - walls, ceilings,
doors and benches are coated with cork to make the space
at least a BIT warmer. That´s why it is called "Cork Convent".
The convent didn´t have any kind of heating system besides the
hearth in the kitchen.
It must have been freezing cold in the wintertime inside the stone
walls!
Of course the winters here are not so very cold, but at winter nights
the temperature can drop under zero.
The doors inside the convent were so small that even Henna, who is not a big woman, had to bend almost double to get trough them.
Either the friars were very tiny, or the doors were planned so that they had to almost roam trough them to grow their humility.
The monks were living in very small cells, where they just and just had room to lay down on their hard, narrow beds.
Only the oldest monks or those who were sick, had windows in their rooms to be able to see the nature, when they were too weak to go out.
It was too dark to get photos inside the tiniest cells, sadly.
Here we are sitting on the window sill of one of the biggest cells.
And then we climbed to the roof.
I wonder if the monks ever did that.
While we were sitting on the roof Henna told us more about friar Honório.
So, when he was 70 years old, he was once walking to the convent from the town of Sintra, when a naughty young village girl, carrying a basquet of apples, wanted to have some fun at his expense. She teased
the poor monk, asking "Do you want to taste my apples?",
smiling seductively for the old guy, who
undoubtedly almost got a heart attack.
Horrified, the monk decided to retreat into a cave for the rest of his life, to avoid further encounters with seductive maidens.
(Should we recommend this to bro Casanova?)
Anyway, he became a real superstar of his age - even the king
was once visiting his cave.
So, not much peace, after all.
It was nice on the roof.
The convent really is built on a beautiful spot!
Then we went to investigate the yards
and side buildings of the convent.
This is the inner yard of the convent,
round which the buildings are organized.
It had a small fountain and a shrine.
Well, living in the convent building doesn´t
much appeal to me, but living in these surroundings does!
Add, let´s say, some light and heating and carpets and nice beds
to the cells, and it would be all right!
I entered a small side building, and guess
what it was!
The monks´s toilet!
There could be five of them at the same time.
How.. ..fraternal.
Then I entered another side building, and
there was the monks´s kitchen!
I wonder what they ate. Probably not much.
Next to the kitchen was a small chapel.
We returned to our yard-investigations,
and started to follow a path up to nearby rocks.
We passed the owen in which the monks
baked their bread.
The path led us on a small platform on top of
the rocks, where the monks climbed to admire the landscape.
On those times all they saw was forest and sea, but sadly the overpopulation is now too easy to see.
This is the cave in which our friend Honório
lived 30 years.
In very cold nights, they say, he covered himself with dry leafs.
I´m not sure if I would like to meet the guy..
Near Honorio´s cave was another cave, in which was living Jesus.
Nice they had some company. Maybe they were shouting from cave to cave if they got bored.
We returned to the convent yard and started
our walk back trough the forest.
It was an interesting visit, don´t you think?
Muitos beijinhos from Crawfish! See you soon!
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Posted May 13, 2015, 12:00 pm Last edited May 19, 2015, 7:36 pm by Eohippus
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A day in Lisbon area, Portugal - 28th April 2015
By: Eohippus
Pip pip, dear voyagers, humans and other critters!
I´m almost reaching the end of the Portugal - updates. The next one will be the last, and then I´ll move into Finland.
This time I´m telling you about a day we spend lazying around in the Lisbon area.
We get up unnaturally early, well, just because the evening before we had eaten a kilo of salmiakki (salty liquorice) sent for us from Finland, and after that went onto bed noticeably early and without appetite for dinner.
Anyway, as you can see the sun is only rising behind river Tejo.
We admired the little boats rocking on the morning light, and then we walked through the still sleeping Almada.
The streets were silent, and we were enjoying the rare peace.
As always, our advancing through the streets brought the grannies (still in their night caps) to take a peek behind the curtains. ("Yeah, goodbye to the rare peace when you´re around!" says Henna)
The town was waking up, when we reached Cacilhas.
We took the ferry over the river, and on the other side we enjoyed a refreshing mug of tea.
We already started to feel kind of cavity in the place where the salmiakki had been.
We walked to see the biggest flee market of Lisbon, Feira da ladra = thieve's market.
It happens on open air, on the streets around the National Pantheon, every Tuesday and Saturday.
Everyone can come there freely and sell there whatever (almost). The police is circulating between the tables to make sure there is no unlegal stuff to be sold, although we certainly saw some dubious items, like archaeological finds and medieval church statues.
A market of this type is thought to have been in place in Lisbon since the 12th Century and the name Feira da Ladra was first mentioned in the 17th Century.
The name has two possible origins. It either comes from the times when some poor women, who often were widows, tried to keep their children alive, and as a last resort started to steal clothing spread to dry on clothes lines, and to sell it in the flee market, or it can also come from he word "ladro", which is a furniture beetle.
We were watching old clothes and shoes, books, pots and pans, decorations and toys, until on one table, a kid get hold on me, and asked the sales woman "What´s the price of this plush?"
What a moment of horror! I bit the brat´s nose and at the same time Zoe kicked his ass, so that he loosened his grip, and the we run!
Henna then ushered us all into her bag not to be mixed up with any old toys!
She also promised me a good lunch to get over the shock!
We went into this nice little restaurant, which is specialized into mushroom dishes!
Cogumelos means mushrooms in Portuguese.
We had two courses.
First a delicious risotto with black trumpet mushrooms. It was wonderful!
Only I was a bit doubtfull first, because in Portuguese the name of the mushrooms is Trompetos de Morte - trumpets of death.
The second course was shiitake with herbs in delicious sauce.
Ah, I was enjoying myself, and soon overcame my shocking experience on the flee market.
After leaving the restaurant we were stretching along the streets and watching wonderful things in the shop windows.
We popped into one of the little bakeries and bought some pasties "to have in the evening with some tea" said Henna.
Hah, we were having them five minutes later, sitting on a bus.
We took the bus to visit the central park of Lisbon, called Parque Florestal de Monsanto.
In the nineteenth century Serra de Monsanto was an agricultural area, with wheat fields, several wind mills and pasture lands for sheep.
The reforestation of the area started in the 1930´s, the main idea being to create a forest area to clean the horribly polluted air in Lisbon.
The growing population also needed a green area where to escape the suffocating, dirty town.
The area covers about 1000 hectares, but is has been diminishing during the past years.
A highway was built through the park in the 1990´s, and peaces of the park have been sold to built private houses for the friends of the policy makers. High bribes have certainly been moving from pocket to pocket.
It is still a beautiful place, which still offers possibilities from getting away from the hubbub of the town, without the need to go very far.
There is very different areas in the park. This valley has been originally a quarry from where they got lime stone to make the Lisbon pavement stones, but now it grows different cacti and succulents.
There are also areas of pine forest, meadows and parks with grass and flowerbeds.
Besides this there are activity areas, sport areas, play parks and restaurants. Roads crisscross it. Too many roads.
We were admiring the blooming aloes.
And greeting the nice opuntias.
The wonderful almond trees were in bloom!
Both me and the bees went crazy and started buzzing drowsily.
It is also possible to find wild asparagus in Monsanto.
Its time was already over - it is in its best in December-January, but I wanted to find one to learn to recognize it!
Sis Zoe was helping me to search for the asparagus.
Here and there we saw more signs of the guarry working in old times.
There were also some ruins in the park.
This has been some kind of small water deposit in the network of old water channels.
Then we came onto some older ruins and went to investigate.
I thought it must have been once some building of those farm houses which stand here before the area was reforested.
When I was climbing on the ruins, I noticed something very interesting on one of the old walls!
There was a roll of paper stuffed onto a crack in the wall!
I opened the roll and found a very peculiar message, which was written in some ancient form of English!
It said:
"Hark, thou fair maidens! Geteth rideth of those stupid boys following thou, and goeth to the Fountain of Maidens, around which the asparagus grows, and dropeth a coin into the wat'rs, and thy wisheth will be fullfilled!"
Wasn´t that rather peculiar?
Anyway, I and sis Zoe told the boys to go and wash the cats, for example, since we had some serious girl-stuff to do.
So, the two of us were walking through the park, excited, searching now for both the asparagus and the aforementioned fountain.
We saw some wonderful bushes of hydrangeas!
And beautiful lilies of some sort.
We were walking paw in paw, and started to sing our chilhood songs.
It was odd, but when we were just in middle of a song:
"Boys are very simple.
Like an aching pimple
they are full of slime,
and it is no crime
to squeeze them! " we thought we heard someone snarling behind us!
But we didn´t see anyone!
We found many more interesting plants.
And at last we found some asparagus!
Now I´m going to recognize it if ever I happen to encounter it.
We knew the Fountain of Maidens had to be pretty near, and soon we found it!
We approached the fountain, and we didn´t need to say anything - we both new exactly what we wanted to wish for!A kilo of various sweets, of course!
So I dropped 20 cents into the the fountain and we made the wish.
A kilo of various sweets appeared from nowhere onto our feet!
And bro Casanova appeared from behind the bushes and said: "Hey, you dorks, why didn´t you wish for two kilos?"
Of course we shared the sweets with the boys.
Later Henna told us that there was a custom in bygone days for girls to go in midnight at middsummer to the Fountain of Maidens and wash their faces with the waters to become beautiful as water spirits.
(Bro Casanova said that "it would be something, and that our next visit to the fountain could be in midsummer", but we told him to shut up if he wanted more sweets.
That was all for today!
See you very soon!
Hug from Crawfish!
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Posted May 19, 2015, 7:35 pm Last edited May 19, 2015, 7:37 pm by Eohippus
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Our last day in, Portugal - 29th April 2015
By: Eohippus
Hello, Sanny and my other dears!
Our last day in Portugal had arrived!
The UV radiation levels were creeping over five, and Henna had to flee from it back to Finland not to get ill.
I´m very happy the toyvoyagers can´t get the UV allergy!
We started our day with a nice breakfast!
Funny word that, by the way! How can I break a fast if I have been secretly eating sweets throughout the night?
Anyway, I was doing my best!
We were debating how to spend our last day in Portugal.
There were three of us who wanted t visit the famous Belém area in Lisbon, I, Racko and Momo.
Zoe, who has seen Belém hundred times wanted to show me the place in which our sis Tuli plunged into river orgy of frogs, and Mr Casanova, who has visited Belém too, wanted to make still one stroll in Lisbon.
After somewhat long discussions we decided to do all of that.
So, we took again the metro and ferry to reach Lisbon, and then we were strolling around a bit.
This is Avenída de Liberdade (The avenue of Liberty), which one of the main avenues.
All the demonstration processions are marching along it.
Brother Casanova was soon surrounded by girls, like a big rosebush by bees. We could only see his ears now and then.
I guess it was his way to say good bye to Portugal.
The rest of us were amusing ourselves by watching beautiful houses and trees and such.
This house was originally a small hospital, but nowadays it is a hotel.
In Principe Real we encountered this fantastical cedar tree, which was spreading itself over the park like a giant parasol.
Its branches had become so heavy, that at some point the Lisbon town had organized a supporting scaffolding under the tree.
People love to come and sit under its branches.
Every now and then we found ourselves in some higher part of the town (Bairro Alto they call them) from where we could see a view over the river or over the town.
We passed a shop window, which brought Sanny back at home to my mind, for some reason.
We went to see Ascensor da Bica, a funicular, kinda lift, which is helping people up to the highest parts of the town without the need to climb.
The Bica funicular was opened in 1892. It climbs the street Rua da Bica de Duarte Belo for 245 metres from the street Rua S. Paulo.
In 2002 it was designated a National Monument.
As you can see, the funicular looks just the same as the old trams, but it is build specially for the steep hills.
There is nowadays three funicular routes left in Lisbon, but originally there were more.
In the beginning they were working with "water power". I don´t quite know what they mean by it!
Then they were turned into steam power and then electrified.
Especially on hot summer days these funiculars must be a blessing for the people living here!
I cannot even imagine how the grannies could survive without them.
We followed the furnicular route admiring it, and then we walked towards Rossio square.
Here we are! It is a beautiful square, don´t you think?
I like the "wawing" pavement a lot.
We took a train to visit Tuli´s orgastic river.
We strengthened ourselves in the train with a little snack.
Here it is, the beginning of the river Ribeira do Vinho, although it looks more like a ditch or something. ;-)
Zoe was explaining that it is very dry this spring, and there is not much water, but last year, when Tuli jumped in, it had been raining for weeks and the little river was full and powerfull.
Sure there were frogs!
We could hear their lustful croaking everywhere.
We walked along the river shore.
We met a big frog guy and Zoe asked if he remembered meeting a frog called Tuli.
"If I remember!" sighed the guy, "I´ll never forget that hot little girl!"
But he didn´t know where we could search for her, "From somewhere you hear the hottest croaking, I bet", he said. Oh dear.
This is the exact place in which Tuli decided to hop to the river after some siren call.
Zoe told me how she and Henna, bro Casanova and Mr Shaun had tried to catch her, but she had just swam forward and shouted "See you some day, dear bimbos!"
Well, I guess she is having lots of fun, where ever she is.
We returned to Lisbon and took a tram to Belém. We reached the area from East, and walked through the gardens towards the Belém monastery.
These gardens are very popular places to spend summer days.
The youngsters are sitting on the lawns, chatting and kissing, the older people are sitting on the benches, deprecating the morals of the youngsters, and the kids are running around, kicking balls or each other.
I think the youngsters are having the best time.
We reached the monastery garden, which lies between the river Tejo and the monastery itself.
In middle of the garden, there is a big fountain, which spits a very high column of water towards the sky quite suddenly.
On windy days all people inside a radius of 200 meters get a free shower.
It was nice to watch innocent tourists run screaming away, their clothes dripping water.
Can you see the little rainbow in the water?!
After laughing enough on the account of the screaming people, we walked to see the monastery itself.
Jerónimos monastery is an UNESCO world heritage site.
Its building started 1501, and an older church, built by Henry the Navigator, was demolished from the site.
The old church had been a place for the sailors, on the time of the sea expeditions, to spend the last night in prayers, before setting sail towards the unknown parts of the world.
The new monastery was built to celebrate the fact that Vasco da Gama had found the sea route to India.
The custom continued in the new monastery, and for example Christopher Columbus and his men spent here their last night, before they went and accidentally found America.
The construction of the monastery and church began on 6 January 1501, and was completed 100 years later.
Its building was funded by a tax given to the crown from all the spice trade.
So, as you see, this is a very historical spot indeed. Big (and maybe not so positive) events have started on these very stones we were hopping over.
We saw a tourist drop a chewing gum on the yard, and went and bit him on the leg.
While he was hopping on one leg and whining, we told him that
a) It is an insult to litter such a historical spot and
b) The birds who think the chewing gum is something eat, often die because the gum is stuck into their beak and they starve to death and
c) There seem to be an empty space inside his scull where other people have some porridge.
He was watching us horrified, his eyes bulging from his head.
I wish he corrected his behaviour after that.
The monastery was designed in a manner that later became known as Manueline: a richly ornate architectural style with complex sculptural themes incorporating maritime elements and objects discovered during naval expeditions, carved in limestone.
This is the so called Axial portal, which is the most important door to the Jerónimos: in terms of its localization in front the main altar and because of its ornamentation.
Henna was reading from the tourist guide:
"In the tympanum there are scenes from the birth of Christ: from the left to right: the Annunciation (of the angel indicating to Maria that she would give birth); the Nativity (the birth of the Christ child); and the Epiphany (the adoration of the magi). Two angels, hold the arms of Portugal, close to the archivolt. The splays on each side of the portal are filled with statues, among them are statues of King Manuel I and Queen Maria of Aragón kneeling in a niche under a lavishly decorated baldachin, flanked by their patrons: Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist, respectively. The supporting corbels are decorated with little angels holding the coat-of-arms and, at the side of the king, an armillary sphere and, at the side of the queen, three blooming twigs. This doorway, completed by Nicolau Chanterene, introduces Renaissance elements: angels in Roman garb, cherubs, the detail and realism of the Kings and nude study of Saint Jerome. Blaa blaa.
If you would like to know (which I doubt) what are the tympanum, archivolt, splays and baldachin, you better check from a dictionary!
I have no idea!
If you also find out why Saint Jerome has to be nude, tell me too!
We stepped inside the huge monastery church, trying to listen to the swishing of the wings of history ("Herstory"! I said, but then I had to admit, that this place was reeking only-masculine-history of power and imperialism.)
Half of the building was under restauration - the delicate slimestone ornaments need washing, and they had been removed from the walls and pillars.
The other half was still waiting its turn, and I met some interesting creatures there.
"Do you feel like having a bath, then?" I asked from this cherub.
"Weeell.." it answered, "it was just only five hundred years ago since I last took one, so I´m not in such a hurry!"
After that I kept a distance to the creatures living there.
There were two huge sarcophaguses.
In one rests Vasco da Gama, and in the other Luís de Camões, who lived in the 16th century and is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet.
His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante.
I stand there, full of awe, and asked from Vasco if he was sleeping well.
"Yeah, I can still feel the rocking of the ship", he answered.
We were staring the amazing columns holding the roof up.
I´ve heard that the monastery was very badly damaged in the 1755 earthquake.
To be honest, I don´t even want to imagine how it had been when this building has been shaking and tumbling down!
If I ever come here a second time, I will take binoculars with me to see all the carvings, which continue up to the ceiling!
We left the building and went back outside, to the sun.
We walked a short distance to see another UNESCO site - the Belém Tower.
It is a fortified tower, whic was built simultaneously with the monastery, to guard the mouth of river Tejo.
The tower was interesting enough, but we couldn´t quite concentrate to it, because there was an ice cream booth very near, calling us with a magnetic power!
"All right, all right, go and get your ice creams then!" said Henna, seeing us turning towards it like sunflowers towards the sun.
So, we were devouring our ice creams, and a second and third and fourth ice creams, and Henna was telling us exciting things about the tower - how it had cannons and how it had been firing enemy ships and how it had been serving as a prison etc.
But the ice cream was the main thing!
After some more ice cream we were ready to be rolled home.
"Why rolled?" I hear you asking.
It is simple, our feet didn´t reach the ground.
In the evening we were cooking dinner - I was frying french fries, and little soya steaks,
Zoe and Mr Casanova boiled cabbage to go with it.
Ach, I hear you asking about the ice cream and us being unable to walk.. but it was at least an hour since!
We were hungry again!
The smaller animal, the faster metabolism!
This is a very useful answer to all toyvoyagers if ever your hosts are wondering about your appetite (for sweets).
It was good!
What do you mean, we eat a lot?
Next morning we were early as hell on the airport. I was so very sleepy!
It´s not a time for little crabs to be dragged into airports!
But.. it was nice to watch the planes come and go.
Our plane is the one behind our backs. We were waiting for it to take its morning shower and get refreshed before the long flight to Finland.
On the plane I was watching the towns and rivers and lakes running under the plane´s belly.
I´m sure I spotted my home when we flew over Germany!
I was wawing to you, Sanny and Alex, did you see me?
A straight flight from Lisbon to Helsinki takes four and half hours.
Can you imagine that throughout those hours we couldn´t spot even one UFO, although the skies should be full of them!
We were served quite a good meal!
It was a very nice interlude, but I´m sure that all the ufo:s flew past our window while we were targeting our attention to eating.
I asked a stewardess if she had ever spotted one, but she said that if she had, she would not remember it because of all those men in black coming to her door once a month.
After the meal we slept.
Henna only woke me up when we were already inside the little cottage, which is our home here in Finland.
Crying out loud, where have I come into?
Zoe, Racko and Mr Casanova had warned me about the exotic residence, but still I was surprised!
The cottage is really small, but looks cosy and.. free of many rules!
I´m sure it´s going to be fun to live here.
See you soon again! Kisses from Crawfish!
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Posted May 23, 2015, 3:59 pm
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Nuuksio, Finland - 5th May 2015
By: Eohippus
Hyvää päivää! (Good day) to all of you, and many greetings from Finland!
When we arrived here, it took some days for us to adaptate ourselves to the Finnish spring temperatures, which were about twenty degrees lower than in Portugal!
There was still snow in shady places and ditches and on shores, where the waves had been piling ice and snow into thick layers!
There were also some other odd remnants of winter.
The snow (and the other remnants) disappeared away in couple of days, and soon the first spring flowers were rising their heads everywhere!
We were welcoming the plants and the migrating birds, who returned to Finland.
"Hello, little coltsfoot! You look like little sun!"
At the same time with the crocuses, we got a big surprise!
Sis Zoe became mom! Which makes me an aunt!
The kiwi baby had appeared into our home in Germany, who knows from where, and started to wobble after bro Squab, who get all nervous because the baby was constantly calling him daddy.
Brother Squab got enough of the brat following him everywhere and sent him here.
The mysterious appearance of the baby has caused lots of discussion here.
Do storks bring kiwi babies too? And if so, why did they bring him to Squab? There are some theories.
Zoe taught me an old Finnish verse, which follows the advancing of the year by the different bird species appearing:
"Kuu kiurusta kesään A month to summer from a skylark,
puoli kuuta peipposesta, half a month from a chaffinch,
västäräkistä vähäsen, Just a bit from a wagtail,
pääskysestä ei päivääkään." Not a day from a swallow."
No mention of kiwi babies!
I think we should ad a verse in the end: "Suuri onni kiwi-lapsesta!" = Big happiness from a baby kiwi!
We followed the rhubarbs starting to open on the cottage yard. (Nom nom, we´re going to make wonderful soup from the later on!)
In Finnish they are called Raparperi. Gee I learn some odd words here, and so does the baby! I have no idea from whom he can have picked all those curse words in Finnish, German and English.
The bergenias were rising their heads too. Later in the summer they will surround the cottage like a green carpet, says Zoe.
Oh, we just heard that some people make home remedies from the old, fermented leaves of bergenia, to fight overweight and skin troubles. Maybe we should send some to Squab..
We made a trip to the sea shore.
Here we are standing on top of a Bronze Age grave mound.
There has been a wooden chamber, where they have put the body and and some stuff, and then they have piled the stone mound over the chamber.
There is of course nothing left of the wooden constructions any more, and the tombs look like whatever stone heaps.
It was a beautiful, windless day (yeah, the windy days can be very beautiful too!) and we had taken two boats with us!
Zoe was teaching me to row!
It was so fun, but Zoe get a bit scary after I had dropped the oars to the water couple of times.
I learned fast, but it was difficult to row straight!I think I have stronger muscles on my right arm!
I was rowing the Portuguese boat we brought with us.
Actually we bought it in Lisbon's Feira da Ladra fleemarket!
Momo, Racko, bro Casanova and Orkku Orava joined us with a Finnish boat. (Henna was taking care of the baby kiwi. She said he had to first learn to sit on one place, before he could get into any boats).
"Hey, don´t go too far!" Henna shouted from the shore, "the water is still ice cold, and I´m not going to swim and get you!"
So we returned towards the shore, and saw that Henna was litting a fire, and then I was rowing much faster, because I knew what that meant!
Coffee and karjalanpiirakkas! (Carelian pastries)
I could hardly wait the pastries to get hot enough! I had heard about them from Zoe, bros Casanova and Squab and sis Josie!
It was so good!
They have a crisp, thin rye crust and inside there can be either rice, barley, potato or carrot.
In this case they had rise filling. We put a bit of butter, which melted over them, om nom!
After rather many pastries, we walked along the shore and came onto a small sandy beach.
This must be a great place later in summer, to swim and enjoy the sun. Not too many people, I imagine.
We let the boats to dry in the sun, and our digestions to work for some time, and then we left back home.
I think I like Zoe´s life here in Finland!
She says she likes it too, which is great.
See you soon again! Kisses to all from Crawfish!
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Posted May 29, 2015, 5:50 pm Last edited May 29, 2015, 5:56 pm by Eohippus
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Nuuksio, Finland - 10th May 2015
By: Eohippus
Hello, Sanny, Alex and my other dearies far and wide!
My adventures here in Finland continue with gardening.
When there wasn´t anymore danger of nightly frost, it was time to start the works in Zoe´s kitchen garden.
First we were raking all the branches and twigs away from the area.
Were mixing fertilizer to the ground. Not any chemicals, but very biological fertilizer.
I´m sure you have heard how good a fertilizer the bird poop is.
It is called "guano" and sold for gardeners.
We, on the other hand, have two birds in our gang and an outhouse where they go.
So, no need to buy anything. (Yeh, it was composted before using! Don´t worry!)
More precious guano coming!
"At last you realize my value!" said Zoe.
Then we were turning the earth over to make it spongy and nice for plants to grow.
We were all working hard, although the maggots we encountered were leading Zoe and Horatio a bit astray very now and then.
It was nice work! We were forming benches for the plants, and debating (what else!) what plants we wanted to grow.
"Carrots!" said Racko the donkey.
"Lettuce!" said Momo the cow.
"I want herbs!" said Zoe.
"Let´s grow beans - they make us fart!" said Horatio, and then he was giggling so that he couldn´t stand.
"Some flowers would be nice.." announced brother Casanova. I guess he plans to give them to girls.
"But I want to grow a pumpkin! Want to!" said I.
"A pumpkin!" shouted the others. "A pumpkin doesn´t even fit onto our kitchen garden!"
Well, that was quite true.
But Henna promised I could grow a pumpkin next to her tomatoes! Jiihaa!
So we continued working in good spirits, and soon it was time to put the seeds to the earth.
We put all the other seeds to the earth, but the pumpkin seeds.
Those we had to first grow inside the cottage for some weeks, because it was still quite too cold for them outside to survive.
Our little garden looked so great!
I can hardly wait the seeds sprouting and starting to grow!
When the work was done, we put the tools away, and admired the outcome of it.
But there was still one task to do!
To clean the old greenhouse for a new season!
I was brooming the walkway, and Zoe and the brat were taking care of the pots.
I think they were mainly taking care of the spiders and beetles inside them.
After the exertion we were all dying for hunger!So we made a fast fire place dish by wrapping all sort of things into metal folio and putting that over the hot embers (Henna had been warming water on the fire to wash dishes).
It didn´t take long!
About 15 minutes and a wonderfull smell started spread around us!
And then we ate!
The funny looking white lumps are "vegan cheese" Henna is learning to make.
The food was really good, even the lumps!
See you soon again!
Many kisses to you all!
Crawfish
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Posted Jun 9, 2015, 12:01 am
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