Bairro Alto in Lisbon

6 June 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

© flickr.com - Manuel Menal/cc-by-sa-2.0

© flickr.com – Manuel Menal/cc-by-sa-2.0

Bairro Alto (Upper District) is a central district of the city of Lisbon, the Portuguese capital. Unlike many of the civil parishes of Lisbon, this region can be commonly explained as a loose association of neighbourhoods, with no formal local political authority but social and historical significance to the urban community of Lisbon. The bairro or “neighbourhood” resulted from urban expansion in the 16th century, forming outside the walls of the historical city, and is characterized by an almost orthogonal tract (developing from two phases of distinct urbanization).   read more…

Chiado in Lisbon

28 March 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Camoens Square © Luca Galuzzi/cc-by-sa-2.5

Camoens Square © Luca Galuzzi/cc-by-sa-2.5

Chiado is the name of a square and its surrounding area in the city of Lisbon. The Chiado is located between the neighbourhoods of Bairro Alto and Baixa Pombalina. It is a traditional shopping area that mixes old and modern commercial establishments, mostly located at the Carmo and Garrett streets. The most well-known café of Chiado is “A Brasileira“, famous for having had poet Fernando Pessoa among its customers, and today it is very popular among tourists. The Chiado is also an important cultural area, with several museums and theatres.   read more…

The sail training ship Sagres III

1 November 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  < 1 minute

N.R.P. Sagres on Tejo<br>© Lopo Pizarro - www.lopo.pt/cc-by-2.5

N.R.P. Sagres on Tejo
© Lopo Pizarro – www.lopo.pt/cc-by-2.5

The NRP Sagres is a tall ship and sail training ship of the Portuguese Navy since 1961. As the third ship with this name of the historical important city of Sagres in the Portuguese Navy, she is sometimes referred to as Sagres III. The ship is a steel-built three masted barque, with square sails on the fore and main masts and gaff rigging on the mizzen mast. Her main mast rises 42 m above the deck. She carries 22 sails totaling about 2,000 m² (21,000 ft²) and can reach a top speed of 17 knots (31 km/h) under sail. She has a sparred length of 89 m (295 ft), a width of 12 m (40 ft), a draught of 5.2 m (17 ft), and a displacement at full load of 1,755 tons.   read more…

Almancil on the Algarve

11 September 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  4 minutes

São-Lourenço church © Area78

São-Lourenço church © Area78

Almancil is a civil parish in the municipality of Loulé, in Faro District of the Algarve region‘s Golden Triangle in the south of Portugal. The population is at 11,000. There is a large selection of restaurants offering different forms of cuisine. There are also real estate offices, supermarkets, flowershops, garden centers, interior decorators and furnishing shops based in Almancil. Almancil is a small town on the southern shoreline of Portugal enjoying a warm climate around the year. It has become an important hub for service providers catering for the needs of two well-established holiday and residential developments nearby. These are the golf and holiday resorts Quinta do Lago and Vale do Lobo with first class golf courses.   read more…

Ponta Delgada, the capital of the Azores

9 September 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Marina de Ponta Delgada © flickr.com - Feliciano Guimarães/cc-by-2.0

Marina de Ponta Delgada © flickr.com – Feliciano Guimarães/cc-by-2.0

Ponta Delgada is a city and municipality on the island of São Miguel in the archipelago of the Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal. It includes 44,403 residents in the urban area, and approximately 20,113 inhabitants in the three central parishes that comprise the historical city: São Pedro, São Sebastião, São José.   read more…

Porto, capital of the north

30 August 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, European Union, European Capital of Culture, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  8 minutes

Ribeira © Georges Jansoone

Ribeira © Georges Jansoone

Porto, also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits includes a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes. The urbanized area of Porto, which extends beyond the administrative limits of the city, has a population of 1.2 million in an area of 389 km2 (150 sq mi), making it the second-largest urban area in Portugal. The Porto Metropolitan Area includes approximately 1.3 million people, and is recognized as a Gamma-level global city by the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Study Group, being one of the four cities in the peninsula with global city status (the others being Madrid, Lisbon and Barcelona).   read more…

NASA and ESA

12 August 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

NASA

© nasa.gov

© nasa.gov

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.   read more…

Braga in northwestern Portugal

2 July 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Town hall © Joseolgon/cc-by-sa-4.0

Town hall © Joseolgon/cc-by-sa-4.0

Braga is a city and a municipality in the district of Braga, in the historical and cultural Minho Province. The municipality, which includes 37 civil parishes had a resident population of 182,000 inhabitants, representing the seventh largest municipality in Portugal (by population). Its area is 183.40 km². Its agglomerated urban area extends from the Cávado River to the Este River. The city was the European Youth Capital in 2012.   read more…

Estoril, retreat of the elite of Lisbon

27 June 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Sport Reading Time:  7 minutes

Hotel Palacio © Carcharoth

Hotel Palacio © Carcharoth

Estoril is a seaside resort and civil parish of the Portuguese municipality of Cascais, Lisboa District. The Estoril coast is close to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. It starts in Carcavelos, 15 kilometres from Lisbon, and stretches as far as Guincho, often known as Costa de Estoril-Sintra or Lisbon Coast (Costa de Lisboa). Historically Estoril was composed of several boroughs along the coastline, namely – from East to West – those of São Pedro do Estoril, São João do Estoril, Santo António do Estoril (this is the area today known simply as Estoril) and Monte Estoril, among others further inland. The two main resort towns along what is known as the Estoril coast are Estoril and Cascais. Estoril has a famous casino, Estoril Casino. Estoril was the residence of Juan de Borbón, pretender to the Spanish throne during the last part of the 20th century. The population of Estoril parish/village is 24,000, its density is 2,702/km² and the area is 8.79 km². There are remains of Roman mansions dating back around 2,000 years.   read more…

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