Óbidos, Portugal

8 really lovely castle surrounded in a beautiful atmosphere...well, the fact that the atmosphere is so appropriate makes it beautiful...

One thing i wonder about Portugal is WHY oh WHY my mail sent to there takes at LEAST one month to arrive...my last thing sent there still hasnt arrived and i mailed it the 10th of November..I mean, its withing Europe! My cards outside Europe arrive much faster...there's really something wrong with the Macedonian-Portuguese postal relation (its not the other way around, coz the cards sent to me from there take the normal time to arrive...no such nonsense delays) I really dont know where does that mail oversleep for so long....but it certainly makes it really unreliable  :(

Anyway, on the card you can see Óbidos, or more precisely, A Partial easterly view of the village at dawn (as the back of the card says)

The town of Óbidos is located on a hill and is still encircled by a fortified wall. The well-preserved mediaeval look of its streets, squares, walls and its massive castle have turned the picturesque village into a preferred tourist attraction in Portugal.
The name "Óbidos" probably derives from the Latin term 'oppidum' meaning "citadel", or "fortified city".

Algarve, Portugal

I got this one back in the year 2000 from my penpal Leen Frenssen....just now this reminded me of a Pulp song, called Disco 2000....it goes something like this...

I said let's all meet up in the year 2000 Won't it be strange when we're all fully grown.....

again, a line which in some sense deals with the inevitable passing of life and how things just change all along the way...and there is nothing you can do about it, nothing can freeze us in time and have the moments last forever and ever... 

 

Algarve is a place in the south of Portugal and Marta says it doesnt attract her that much but that there are beautiful beaches there...what you can see on the card is Alvor.
Alvor is an ancient port and fishing village on the mouth of the River Alvor in the western Algarve. In the village we can visit the remains of a 13th century castle, a 16th century church and an attractive jumble of narrow cobbled lanes with the original low traditional fisherman’s cottages.

"The Alvor Beach has the particularity of marking the division between the Ocean and the Alvor River. Therefore, besides the very extensive sandy area, one can also find an interior lagoon with channels of calm waters. The huge sandy barrier as far as the eye can reach, allows the visitor to choose the place that better suits his interests. In this beach there is also a great fauna and flora diversity. The Alvor Beach is one of the most famous and looked for Beaches in the Algarve".

well, since Marta has the exactly same card  I copied this whole post from her blog....plus she is Portuguese...is there a better source to get information for a Portuguese card?   I just hope Marta wont mind :)  Marta ?!

Sintra, Portugal (03)

A very shiny card showing Sintra...well, it is shiny and happy to me...just transmits some positive energy :)

You know, when i look at the castle from this aspect, for some reason it reminds me of the Sleeping Beauty.
I dont know, from where it is situated and how the windows seem small and closed and is time had stood still and they hide some story behind their walls....plus, its overall appearance, does seem like one from a fairytale..
This is my third Sintra card, and this one definitely made me decide that one day i would love to visit this place...just, who was the one who said it was drafty? Gaby? :)

Sintra, Portugal

A tag card by a Portuguese, which was supposed to be entirely written in Macedonian...as i had written one i Ducth, which i must say was a hilarious experience :P
But, I know Macedonian is way more complicated due to its different alphabet in the first place....which reminds me I owe Ksenia some messages about this :S


well, this is my second card from Sintra actually...with the difference that last time it was single view, now its multiview...so here you can see some more things from the place itself.

Now apart from the Pena Palace, about which we talked last time, there are some other tourist attractions worth visiting in Sintra like Castelo dos Mouros, with a breath-taking view of the Sintra Cascais Natural Park and the summer residence of the kings of Portugal, Palacio Nacional de Sintra. The Sintra Mountain range is one of the largest parks in the Lisbon area

Portugal

Here comes the other map of Portugal.



And yes, it has been confirmed...I have personally asked for BOTH of the maps...so i have definitely gone astray at a certain point or totally infatuated by maps since i asked for two without being aware of it.Not that I mind...I mind my forgetfulness :)

The card shows the towns in Portugal, and important sites in some of them...i like it how they are linked, and how the sites are put aside, so they dont make much crowd on the map itself.
One thing about Portugal is, that when i was little, i was convinced they spoke Spanish as well....not only they didnt speak Spanish, but the first time i actually heard real Portuguese, i was like 'what???!!!'. I didnt understand a single thing, and it sounded sooooo totally different from Spanish....in some sense, and dont laugh, but it more resemled to Turkish to me, than Spanish.....i dont know if it was in the way they spoke or the accent or what....

hey, now i spotted where Marta lives!! :)

Portugal

And the map of Portugal arrived :)))


There is just one funny thing regarding this...i open my mailbox on Friday, and a nice pile of cards there....i start going through them and I see this map and I cheer widely....i go to the next card and there.....another map of Portugal!!!
Im somewhat confused and i turn the back and...nope, it aint an official card...its a swap...which makes things interesting, since I CANT at all recall i have asked for two map cards...I KNOW i was supposed to get one map card, coz i had written it down....but shoot me dead, i had no idea i had asked for the other one as well...Im thinking that maybe i hadnt requested it, but the sender herself sent it to me since i like map cards, but on the other hand, the more i think about it, the more im convinced i saw the other map card in some album and chose it....though i may be wrong...im totally utterly absolutely lost and confused about it....

well, both of them are different, and i dont mind one bit i have two Pourtuguese maps....i can have 10 as well, as long as they are different.....but i start to worry about myself and my forgetfulness and how i cant at all recall if i had asked for the card or left it up to the sender...and she is on a vacation, so i cant get an answer :)

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.

Guarda, Portugal

This one's a private swap with Marta, who kindly wanted to help me with my scarce collection on Portugal cards :)


The card shows the Old Square with the cathedral in Guarda, which is 40km from Spain. Its name is an indication of its ‘guarding’ role. It served its purpose well under the Duke of Wellington against the French in the Peninsular War of the 1800s. The highest town in Portugal, at over 1000 metres above sea level, its defending walls were put in place by the 12th century King Sancho I (the statue on the picture) and much still remains to be seen today, including three original portals. Its location has also earned it the reputation of being one of the coldest towns in the country, its most famous son, the poet Augusto Gil, famously describing the arrival of snow in his poem 'Luar de Janeiro'.

Lisbon, Portugal