Thursday, May 22, 2008

Sintra, Portugal

An official from Portugal...first official from there

PT-48661

Sintra is both a town and municipality, located in the district of Lisbon. It is a Unesco World Heritage Site on account of its 19th century Romantic architecture.

The card shows the Pena National Palace from the 19th century.
The Palace of Pena is entered through an impressive stretch of gardens with lakes and follies; a great place for a picnic or a stroll. At the top of the Park is fabulous Palace of Pena, a Disney-esque Palace within its pink, yellow, grey and red silhouette and with monsters guarding doorways. Built in 1840s by German architect Baron Eschwege to the specifications of Dom Fernidand of Saxe- Coburg- Gotha, this fabulous Palace served as a love nest for him and his wife Queen Maria II.
The interior of Palace is no less surprising. The rooms are full of imaginative ornate and in some cases suffocatingly detailed.
The terraces of Pena Palace have a spectacular view over Atlantic and Lisbon

Sintra's charms have long been celebrated. One of the people who did that is Lord Byron, in his "A Glorious Eden".
In the top right corner, there is a small verse added from the writing.
The verse here says: "...Lo! Cintra's Glorious Eden intervenes in variegated maze of mount and glen..."

The bird you can see, is actually glued to the card, which i found both odd and interesting....I wouldnt have thought of doing something like this, but it does fit in with the picture, and looks natural and not as if the sweet bird is an intruder :) It says it's a Greenfinch, a bird widespread throughout Europe, North Africa and South West Asia.

4 comments:

Martinha said...

This one is great too.
The bird glued to the card is kinda odd but when i first saw the bird i thought it belonged to the card. Like you sad, it looks natural... but i would never stick or glue something on the front of the card.
I've been to this palce once and it's great, it looks like a fairy tale palace :P

Ana said...

regarding the bird, i didnt even realize it was glued until i actually accidentally touched that part of the card and saw something was different :)) it really looked natural and there was nothing in it to give it away that its an 'intruder' :))
the verse in the top corner is also hand-written :)

Gabby Girl said...

I went to Lisbon with my father several years ago, and the name Sintra rings a bell, but I can't remember if I was there or not. Hrm, I'm going to have to go back through my pictures.

Gabby Girl said...

Yeah, I really think I've been there. I was reading about Sintra Palace on Wikipedia, and a story I read confirmed that I walked through it on a tour. Something about one brother keeping the other trapped in the palace made me remember. Plus, the weird bottle shaped things - I think on goes to the kitchen - are pretty memorable. You don't see those every day.

I remember the palace being very drafty.

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