Chuva, rain

Well, my holidays, vacaçoes, finish where they started, in (still???) rainy Porto. Going home north tomorrow, where it is warm!!! Porto is beautiful in the rain!

Welcome to the Oriente!

Several train stations in Lisbon, Lisboa, are architectural masterpieces. There is beautiful Rossio station...Well, this where I arrived today, a gare do Oriente, the Oriente train station. Well, you'll find it on many blogs, websites, postcards, and so on.This is my take.
This is a scheduled post, as I am busy for the rest of the day. Sorry, flks, will be back live tomorrow!

Bones aplenty

Faro is the capital of the Algarve region, and also the main airline hub for the area. Most tourist fly into Faro, but don't stay there, preferring their beach resorts.
As for me, having been there countless times, I like Faro! And there are things to see there that you wont see in your beach resorts. Like this chapel made of human bones... Part of the town's very very richly decorated cathedral. Actually really over the top to my taste.
And yes, the skulls are real!

Blue

Well, what can say? Here is where I spent my day.
I could have called this post: red. I look like a cooked lobster, despite of the 50 sun cream...

Futebol!

High time for me to find a desert island, with no internet, no phones, no TV, no radio, no newspapers... And NO FOOTBALL!!! It's starting soon, be warned!
Anyway, a cow on a skateboard??? Might be for something else, who knows...

Out and about, and on a walkabout

Well, this is not Strasbourg...I needed a break, after this dreary winter. A beach break. A portuguese beach break. So, here I am in Olhao, Algarve, southern Portugal, just above Africa, yet another of my old homes. Seville is nearby as well. More about my portuguese adventures tomorrow, when I go (re)discover the Ria Formosa

A Monday Mural

Spanish cutie, all the way from Barcelona!
Click here to see more Monday Murals
BTW, that's me, taking the photo:

A new friend

How much that doggy in the bookshop???
That cutie is really sticking to his stick!

Weekend in b&w

Spotted in front of a old haunt of mine, in a German city nearby...
More b&w for this weekend right...here!

This month's CDP theme day is about...me!

This is me, on my first birthday, a short(ish) while ago. Well, I changed. BTW: not a selfie.
More photos and posts about...me, here! Go on go on go on, just click!

The hidden bookshop

A few meters from the cathedral, away from the tourist hordes... A bookshop, hidden in one of the many inner courtyards in town. Selling rare books.

Calm before the storm

Summer in the city. Wish I could join them, but I was in a hurry.
Violent thunderstorms predicted for later today. We'll see.

La sonnette

I am among the first occupants of a brand new building. Which has many perks: clean, sunny, airy, everything works, etc. But I would gladly swap for a flat in the building which has this doorbell!

Beauty and the beasts

An old photo, taken in Barcelona a few years ago, during Gay Pride.
More Monday Murals right...here!

The museum's garden

One of many hidden gardens or courtyards in Strasbourg. This one is at the cathedral's museum

Harryyyyy!!!

Aren't you forgetting something???

There be (monochrome) dragons

Taken from my old Barcelona blog, for the Weekend in black and white.

Global warming

I love oleander!!! One of the few flowers I can recognize and name. I've seen a awful lot of them in places like Greece, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, places where I feel at home. Imagine my surprise this spring when I noticed them in Strasbourg. They are not growing wild like in the south, but still: what does a middle eastern flower have to do here, so far north??? They are everywhere now. So, global warming deniers, how do you explain this???

A bridge to the Neustadt

Probably the nicest bridge in town! A bridge between the old town, aka the city center, aka la grande ile, big island, and the new town, German: Neustadt, the monumental area built by the German occupiers around the 1870es. Which passes as new hereabouts.

Into the green

What a nice, bucolic, romantic, warm, etc,  day yesterday was, in the Petite France, along the river Ill!