>119

Life 

Weekly Photo Challenge
Themes:
Something borrowed, suggested by Living_embers
Hearts desire, suggested by Stixandstonz

Something borrowed? Life, of course!

From the beginning we fool ourselves by thinking that we are unique...

and for us, life will never end.

But as time passes by, we start to realize that we might be wrong...

Shadows get us slowly and we fade away.

So... my deepest heart desire is to shine until light is gone!

Enjoy Life my Friends!

Its a new year

Weekly Photo Challenge
Theme: Something old and something new, suggested by MattBarber
Theme: Stairs, suggested by Stixandstonz
Theme: Reflections Caught in Plate Glass, suggested by Photographics and Czolya

School started ( or almost as classes really start only next week...). It's a new year that shall be difficult. Why?

Because this old school, the oldest school building of Lisbon that shall celebrate 1 century in 2011 is in total renovation.

So the same 1000 students shall be pack in about a half of the space.

No gym, no gardens for recess, no library, no parking, not enough classrooms in the building.

But once works are done it shall  be one of best!

Just in front of my school there's a convent I wanted to visit for ages, but it's always closed.

It's the Convent an Church of Holly Mary of Jesus.

Its a huge building where nowadays at the right wing is the Science Academy and at  left wing a hospital.

It was rebuilt after the earthquake and tsunami of Lisbon in 1755 in the baroque style.

Just above the main door is this image of Holly Mary with Jesus.

I find it charming.

These are the usual decoration of baroque churches.

The fire, announcing the light of religion.

But along with the traditional decoration, a few things have been added, such as that flower, probably a sun-flower that pop up unexpectedly.

This window crowns the building.

Sky reflects on the colorful glasses.

One of this day I realized that the church was open!

I rushed at that stairs as finally I was going to have the chance of visiting it after more than 3 years of waiting...

The convent existed before the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755. And it's known that 21 persons died inside this church.

During excavations that took place at church and a quarter of the cloisters some years ago remnants of 214 people were found. But also remnants of birds, mainly from domestic fowl, mammals such as mice, rat, rabbit, pigs, sheep, cattle, a dog and a cat and a large Montpellier snake.

It has a rectangular shape as it was used with lateral chapels.

Those windows are beautiful.

One can imagine the effect of the preacher preaching from here... 

The painted ceiling has a central medallion.

It represents the Holly Mary.

At the back of the church is located the chorus.

And a beautiful organ.

And here is the round window that soften the stone church with its colorful glasses.

The church was being prepared for a celebration. this is the main altar, built in a convex shape.

I found both lateral altars more beautiful. They must have been offered by a Portuguese king or else they would not be topped with the Portuguese arms. Paintings surround the altar, but were too dark to proper photograph.

This was the nice lady preparing the church, who didn't bother with me taking pictures...

Baroque altars are carved in wood and then covered with sheets of gold.

On my way out I noticed this funny "sculpture". Beside some really important elements are missing, such as Jesus himself, the donkey doesn't seem happy at all!

It was very nice to finally visit the Church of Holly Mary of Jesus.

I hope you, my Friends, also enjoyed!

>114

Weekend at Comporta

Weekly Photo Challenge

Theme: Open Spaces, hosted by Jaynebug

Some wives get flowers, some candies, some a new kitchen... my daughter got a  iron horse, a Suzuki LC 125 Intruder, as a wedding gift from her husband...

To became familiar with riding, as they where going to their house at Comporta for vacations, my daughter started her training by taking it there.

So... my son-in-law took all the the stuff at his station wagon, I took the kids at the 4W drive, and my daughter the bike!

We leave Lisboa by the Vasco da Gama Bridge.

This is really a beautiful bridge.

I stick behind my daughter leaving enough space for an eventual fall...

The Vasco da Gama bridge is really quite long and we were going rather slowly.

So  I had the chance to take the pictures while driving...

First and only stop at the highway - lunch for all!

Kids adore Mom's bike!

After lunch we took the detour for Comporta. This road goes between pine trees for miles.

And we finally arrived!

It was exhausting to me as I couldn't stop thinking how bold and dangerous it was riding a bike for the first time in such a long trip (I know, I know, she had a driving licence for bikes with a lot of lessons before, but it was at a different bike...).

These are aerial views of Comporta, a very small village. In front there are rice fields and then dunes and an endless beach. 

In fact, as you can see at the map above, the beach is the white coast line that start  at the peninsula of Troia, in front of the city of Setubal, and ends at Sines.

Storks are a kind of trade mark of Comporta. There must be thousands of storks as they nest in every high places, watching all our steps.

Next day we went to the beach!

This one has more people because it "belongs" to  a resort, has parking, restaurants etc..

Not exactly the desert part of Comporta where Princess Haya of Jordan, Caroline of Monaco and Nicolas Sarkozy use to go, according to TV gossips...

This is the south view. If the earth weren't round and there was not any kind of nebulae, we would see Sines.

And this is North. The mountain you see is Arrabida, at Setubal coast.

The children had a great time.

Here is Artur playing.

He is so dressed up not because it was cold or windy, but exactly for the opposite reasons. Being about mid-day it was very hot and this outfit protect small children better from UVA and UVB.

Constanca liked very much the seaweed that that boy gave her.

Also enjoyed playing with sand.

We didn't stay for long as children had to lunch and at that time it was too much sun for them.

I still had time to make some pictures of the dune flora.

European  Marram or Beachgrass (Ammophila arenaria)

This are two of my favorite plants.

One by it's softness as it bends with the breeze...

Sea Holly (Eryngium maritimum)

The other by its color.

Sea Daffodil, Sand Daffodil, Sand Lily or Lily of St. Nicholas (Pancratium maritimum)

This is another beautiful dune flower.

Its wonderful how it survives in such environment. Its delicateness and hidden strength.

The dunes ecosystem is more complex than we realize at the first glance.

As I was having deep thoughts as this, I realized everyone had gone for lunch leaving me behind, so I had to run...

Next day my daughter and I had a tour for the rice fields.

That's the city of Setubal. But my aim was not to see distant cities...

It was to have a close look at storks who come feed at rice fields.

I found a bunch of them near the tree at the end of this road. So we went on foot in silence...

But we didn't reach not even half way. Storks spot us and fly away...

My best picture ended up to be this one, made with zoom.

Because of reverberation caused by high temperature, the picture in full size looks like an aquarelle...

So I turned my attention to the rice plantation... But not even a sole shrimp was on sigh.

This is the rice, still green. Harvest shall be in September/October.

This estate produces 6 500 tons of rice.

After the rice fields, there's the dunes, then the beach. At the other side of the sea the mountain of Arrabida as you saw at the pictures above. 

The water channels seems to go forever. As those roads where we can ride in high speed...

It was getting late, so we had to fly!

Since I'm showing Comporta, let me show you this traditional old house estate. This is the main building.

These are the workers houses located just in front of the main house.

And this church also belongs to it. You know I had to show a church!

Storks have their nests in every places they find.

This is a very humble church.

With nice details and well kept.

And there's the working place: the rice fields. Workers didn't had to go far.

Storks fly at an open sky...

Maybe next time I get closer to them!