Lisbon, Portugal - 12th December 2013
By: Eohippus
Bom dia, mamã! (Good day, mom!)
How are you?
It is your little monkey again writing from Portugal!
The first morning here in Portugal I ate a very
portuguese pequeno almoço (breakfast) of orange juice, grapes
and pear slices.
There was also a banana who asked to be eaten,
and of course I had to help it.
So we kinda emptied the larder, and Henna
told us to go and buy more stuff unles we wanted to starve on the
becoming mornings..
We went to the local farmers market where they
sell delicious fruit and vegetables grown locally, fresh baked bread and fish from the river Tejo, and in cheap prices
too!
The glossy chestnuts wanted to be bought.
And so wanted many tomatoes, apples, oranges,
peaches and onions.
We were happy to do them a favor.
The pumpkins were hinting something like
that too, but we had no means of transporting them home,
sadly.
The other customers were slightly unused
to see a monkey, a sheep, a dog, a frog and a kiwi bird buying
vegetables, and we soon became the center of their attention,
which is very natural for toyvoyagers, of course.
After dragging all the happy flora home we went for a walk to the city of Lisbon, to do sorts of first main-
attraction roundabout.
Here is where we started our round: The Lisbon Town Hall and Square.
The portuguese flag flying on the roof aroused Zoe to sing the
national anthem, but since the only line of lyrics she could remember was
"Às armas! Às armas!" it happily ended shortly.
We walked along and came onto a special
spot on the Tejo riverfront, where two old pillars are left to remind
people of Portugals great past as a seafaring nation.
This spot is the place where the ships arrived from overseas,
laden with treasures, gold and spices and valuable raw materials.
We sat there for sometime and had a somewhat
fierce debate about the seafaring past, because Zoe said that it
would have been better if the europeans had stayed in Europe and left the other continents alone,
so the kiwi birds and many other
animals would not be in the edge of extinction,
and of course that
is true, but what about bananas then, asked I.
"What do you mean - what about bananas, huh?" asked Zoe.
"Well, there would not be any bananas in Europe without the
Europeans bringing them here!" said I, and that is true too!
"Usch, you bimbos!", said Mr Casanova, "Don´t you realise that
without european seatravel there would be no kiwi birds nor monkeys
in Europe either!?"
And that made us a bit silent.
For some seconds.
We turned round 180 degrees and watched over Praça do Comércio.
It is a square with long history - the royal palace was once situated there, and it worked as the place for public hangings.
Later it was the commercial center center of Lisbon.
The guy in the top of the statue is King José I.
"The King on his horse is symbolically crushing snakes on his path"
says Wikipedia.
Certainly not a nice thing to do! I´ve met many friendly snakes!
This is Arco da Rua Augusta - the triumphal
arch of Rua Augusta, which was built to commemorate the city's reconstruction after the 1755 earthquake.
Pretty pompous thing.
We walked trough the pompous arch and soon
we came to the Elevador da Santa Justa, which is this huge lift
connecting one of the hills with the lower regions of the city.
(Lisbon was built over seven hills.)
The elevator was inaugurated 1902, and at first it was powered by
steam,
and by electricity since 1907.
Gee, it must have been quite an experience for the people over
hundred years ago!
We took the ride up in it, and then we started
serious
landscape watching.
This is the view towards the river Tejo.
And here I´m watching to the other direction,
towards the Castelo São Jorge ruins up there.
(We have to go there too some day!)
We walked along the bridge which leads from the elevator to the town part called Carmo, and hopped in to see
the ruins of the Carmo monastery.
The monastery was totally ruined in the 1775
earthquake,
and because it was the first of November, The All Saints Day, the
monastery church was full of people, and almost all of them died.
Nowadays the ruins serve as an archaeological museum.
We saw there some interesting items
saved from the earthquake, like this money-collecting box, into which
you should put a coin, if you want to shorten the time in purgatory
for the people buried under the church, like the custom was.
Then we met a sailing ship, who had been waiting
for a crew to arrive for five hundred years.
We felt pity on her, and so we climbed in and sailed with her up and down the River Tejo until she was content.
Then we met a medieval gargoyle, who was
so amazed to see us, that I think he has not shut his mouth since then.
We left the ruins and dived back to the streets
and modern times.
We walked to a nice viewpoint, where there
is a small garden and a pergola.
The pergola was decorated with blue and white tiles,
which is very typical for portuguese architecture.
Sadly many of the tiles were broken and the
whole
place was in need of some reparation works.
But I think it was beautiful even in its decadence.
Next we arrived onto a third important square.
This is called Rossio. No idea what it means.
The square has been one of the main squares since the Middle Ages. It has been the setting of popular revolts and celebrations, bullfights and executions, and is now a preferred meeting place.
Here we met another king of Portugal, Pedro IV.
He, at least, wasn´t crushing any animals.
This is one of the beautiful fountains in Rossio.
Very popular swimming pool in summer nights, I was told.
Well, why not, although it seems to me to be a bit populated even
as it is, with all the naked ladies and such.
We realised there was so many things to
see in Lisbon, that we had to leave rest of them for the next
walking trips.
So we spent rest of the daylight time watching the view over the
city and planning the next trips, about which I´m soon going to
write about!
Many kisses from 3*Euro!
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Posted Dec 12, 2013, 2:57 pm
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Laranjeiro, Portugal - 27th December 2013
By: Eohippus
Hello, dear mom!
Feliz Natal para ti!
We´ve been pretty busy here and I´ve many updates to write,
but this time I just want to show you some pics of our Christmas eve.
It didn´t start in so promising way, I must say!
Henna made us to sweep the floors for Christmas!
Christmas cleaning, said Henna, is important, and told us to sweep
the floors carefully! Hmph!
But she promised us gifts when the whole house would be clean..
and so we cleaned!
We were even cleaning one carpet.
The others we hid behind a bookcase..
After sweeping the floors we lit some candles
and brought in the hyasints from the balcony.
What a wonderful smell!
It started to feel like Christmas right away!
Henna gave us our promised gifts - a pile
of Portuguese christmas chocolates! Njam njam!
We took (what was left after 10 seconds) our chocolates
and went to the livingroom, where Henna was calling us to go.
She had been decorating the Christmas tree!
That also explained the cursing we heard - the horrible every-year
tangle of the christmastree lights! Hah!
We sneaked under the tree and started to
climb!
Soon we were all up there, adventuring on the
branches, watching all the decorations, balls, elves, snowmen and
the lights of different colours!
Ha haa! We all went a bit wild with it all!
It was like a giant Christmas disco for us, and we were all soon
singing and dancing and chasing each other trough the tree and
hanging from it on our knees.
And then we were hiding and giggling near
the trunk when Henna came ask "What´s happening here?" after
some balls had dropped onto the floor..
"Must be the cats!" she said, and we were making faces under the branches.
Then we went to rob the table!
There was a fantastic portuguese christmas cake called Bolo Rei
(King Cake), and also a Christmas log with chocolate topping,
and almonds and nuts and cookies..
We ate so much that we couldn´t move for
some hours.
We had to lay down on the table and guess what! Henna was tickling us!
So we had a very enjoyable Christmas eve!
Feliz Natal! Hyvää Joulua! Merry Christmas to all of you!
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Posted Dec 27, 2013, 12:12 pm
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Cabo da Roca, Portugal - 3rd January 2014
By: Eohippus
Bom dia, querida mãe!
Bom Novo Ano para ti!
I´m here to tell you about our trip to a place called Cabo da Roca.
Cabo da Roca is the westernmost spot of the
European mainland (yes, just forgot the islands exist. Sorry, British Isles! Ha haa! )
We loitered to see the lighthouse of Cabo da Roca.
It is haunted! Huu!
It is hard to believe, watching it in such a gorgeous day, but when
the night comes and the moon is veiled by heavy clouds and the
wind is rising and making the sea turn restless, the ghost of the lighthouse
gets restless too, and he can be seen running over the rocks,
trying to warn a ghostship about the rocks near the shore..
..or at least that is what Zoe was telling us!
We went to the official viewpoint and whatched
the nice landscape for a minute.
Then we left the official path and diwed into the landscape.
We walked downwards along the edge of the ridge,
and watching towards east and inlands we saw this beautiful, green
valley.
There was growing many interesting plants, but even Zoe didn´t recognice most of them.
The spiky bush with yellow flowers is called "maias" by the locals.
Watching towards the west there was the Atlantic ocean.
I didn´t see any traces of the ghost ship, phew!
I found an empty shell of a snail and tryid if
it would work the same way as I had heard the seashells to work -
to bring the sound of the ocean into our ears.
I put in on my ear and oh yes, it worked!
But then my fellow toyvoyager mates gently reminded me that it´s
not a big deal to hear the sound of the ocean, sitting some meters
away from the shore.
The seashore down there looked so interesting
that we decided to go down - easier said than done!
It was almost a straight wall to climb down, but we helped each other.
When we got lower down we found a rope other
climbers had friendly left there and it was a great help!
Soon we were on the shore.
It was full of wonderful, smooth rocks, polished round by the sea.
Henna told us Cabo da Roca was a holy place
both in the Roman period and much earlier in the Neolithic age.
There has been interesting items found here related to the lunar
cult.
No wonder, the place is so beautiful, and certainly it must feel like
being nearer to the moon on a moonlit night.
The sea beating against the rocks and swirling
back and forth between the rounded stones on the shore made
a hypnotizing sound, which made us to run and hop and shout like
maniacs.
(And how does that be different from your normal behaviour? Asked Henna)
Wouldn´t you like to be here with us?
We spent there some hours playing, and then we climbed back up,
because the sun was starting to set.
Here we are up again.
Surprisingly it was easier to climb up than down!
See you soon again, dear mom!
Kisses from 3* Euro!
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Posted Jan 3, 2014, 2:31 pm
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Capuchos Cork convent, Portugal - 14th January 2014
By: Eohippus
Muito bom dia para ti, mamã amada!
Como está? É o seu pequeno macaco que tá a escrever de Portugal novamente.
Não é apenas incrível o quão rápido eu estou em aprender novas línguas?
One day we took a train and went to a small
town called Sintra, not far away from Lisbon.
Here I´m at the Rossio railway station.
When we got nearer Sintra the landscapes
turned greener, which was fantastic.
Here I´m missing the nature - the country is so densely populated
there isn´t much left.
So when we got to Sintra, we just run trough the town (sorry mami, no town photos this time!) until we reached
the edge of the forest, and then we dived in.
Sintra area is one of the last forested areas in Portugal, and a real paradise for people (or monkeys) feeling
suffocated by the urbanism.
There is also few little pools, like this.
Henna and Tuli, who are from Finland, love
this area, because it reminds them of home - forest and lakes.
Of course even here part of the land is prvately
owned and the owners are restricting people from walking trough
their lands by erecting fences and putting up this kind of signs.
It is good my portuguese is not SO very good yet, so I didn´t understand what was written there. Zoe said she suffered from a
sudden loss of memory, and Henna said she had never even bothered to
learn so stupid words.
So we just walked happily forward.
We saw many beautiful flowers.
These are for you, mom!
We walked some kilometers trough the forest,
climbing some fences every now and then, until we reached these
stairs and a plaque which told us we had come to the Capuchos
Cork Convent.
An admirable filosophy, think I!
We followed the stairs, admiring the cork oaks
along our path.
There was little cross signalling us that we
were now entering an area dedicated to the worship of god.
We reached the small front yard of the convent,
where there was couple of stone tables where the monks could
sit near to the nature eating their meals.
This is where they washed their hands.
This is the main entrance to the convent.
This sanctuary was inspiration of the former fourth Viceroy of India, D. João de Castro (1500 - 1548).
According to a legend, João de Castro was hunting in the mountains of Sintra, and chasing a deer, he found himself lost. Tired from his search, he fell asleep against a rock, and in a dream, he received a divine revelation to erect a Christian temple on the site.
There was originally eight monks living here,
and amongst them was a real celebrity - Friar Honório, who, according to the book "Mirror of Penitents", lived to be 100 years old, despite which he lived his last three decades in a small cave
next to the convent.
We entered the monks humble recidings,
which consisted of tiny cells in which they lived and a bit bigger
common areas for worshipping and eating and such.
As you can see, many surfaces - walls, ceilings,
doors and benches are coated with cork to make the space
at least a BIT warmer. That´s why it is called "Cork Convent".
The convent didn´t have any kind of heating system besides the
hearth in the kitchen.
It must have been freezing cold in the wintertime inside the stone
walls!
Of course the winters here are not so very cold, but at winternights
the temperature can drop under zero.
The doors inside the convent were so small that even Henna, who is not a big woman, had to bend almost double to get trough them.
Either the friars were very tiny, or the doors were planned so that they had to almost roam trough them to grow their humility.
This is one of the cells, and it is one of the biggest -
meant for very old monks, who couldn´t walk outside anymore.It has a window too, so that the monk could see the nature trough
it.
Here we are sitting on the monk´s window.
And then we climbed to the roof.
I wonder if the monks ever did that.
While we were sitting on the roof Henna told us more about friar Honório.
So, this 70 years old monk was once walking on the road carrying
a basquet of apples, when a naughty young village girl, whom
he encountered on the road, wanted to have some fun and teased
the poor monk, asking "Could I taste your appless?", besides
which she was smiling seductively for the old guy, who
undoubtedly almost got a heart attack.
The monk then decided to retreat into a cave to rest of his life, to
avoid further encounters with horrible maidens.
Anyway, he became a real superstar of his age - even the king
was once visiting his cave.
So, not much peace, after all.
We climbed back in trough the window and
walked trough every corridor and peeped into every little cell
in the building.
We tried one of the cork covered benches,
and it felt quite warm under our bottoms.
Then we went to investigate the yards
and sidebuildings of the convent.
This is the inner yard of the convent,
round which the buildings are organized.
It had a small fountain and a shrine.
Well, living in the convent building doesn´t
much appeal to me, but living in these surroundins does!
Add, let´s say, some light and heating and carpets and nice beds
to the cells, and it would be all right!
I entered a small sidebuilding, and guess
what it was!
The monks´s toilet!
There gould be three of them at the same time.
How.. ..fraternal.
Then I entered another sidebuilding, and
there was the monks´s kitchen!
There was a big hearth.
I´m happy the monks could feel some warmth at least when cooking.
I just wander what they ate. Probably not much.
The cauldron was really stylish,
like straight from the fire of Hamlet´s witches.
There was still a bowl on a shelf, totally
empty except us.
We didn´t stay there long, in case any hungry friars could lurk near by.
This is the table round which the monks ate
at winter or when it was raining like hell (all but friar Honório
who ate only dry bread the other monks were taking him).
What if they gave him too fresh bread? Maybe he put it aside for couple´
of weeks to get nicely hard and dry?
That girl really made a big impact on him!
We returned to our yard-investigations,
and started to follow a path up to nearby rocks.
We passed the owen in which the monks
baked their bread.
The path led us on a small platform on top of
the rocks, where the monks climbed to admire the landscape.
This is the cave in which our friend Honório
lived 30 years.
In very cold nights, they say, he covered himself with dry leafs.
I´m not sure if I would like to meet the guy..
We returned to the convent yard and started
our walk back trough the forest.
It was an interesting visit, don´t you think?
Many many kisses from 3*Euro! See you soon!
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Posted Jan 14, 2014, 12:00 pm Last edited Jan 14, 2014, 12:03 pm by Eohippus
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Cristo Rei, Almada, Portugal - 3rd February 2014
By: Eohippus
Hip hei, mom!
How are you?
I´m going to show you some photos we took in Cristo Rei.
On April 20, 1940, the Portuguese Bishops, gathered in Fatima
for their annual retreat, made the following vow:
“If Portugal is spared from the War, a Monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
will be erected facing Lisbon, as a visible sign of how God,
through Love, desires to conquer for Himself all mankind”.
Portugal stayed neutral troughout the Second world war, and the giant statue of Cristo Rei
was inaugurated 1959.
Took some time to raise the money.
I have to mention that in the dictatorial regime where 70 % of the nation
was unable to read or write, the little kids troughout
the country were collecting coins in their piggybanks to support
the building of the statue.
The kids´s collection produced a sum,
which
nowadays would be 7500 euros.
A huge sum, considering that there
were people ekeing out their living in the edge of starvation.
Sorry, but I think the nice guy Jeesus would have been more happy if
the kiddies had bought bread with their pennies.
There is a lift inside the base of the statue,
and we took it up to see landscapes.
Besides, I wanted to talk a bit with Jeesus.
"Hello, Jeesus!" said I.
"Oh, but do I see right?" said Jeesus, "Are there some toyvoyagers
again coming to meet me? Gee, that´s great! The more the better!"
"Ha ha, yes!" answered I, "We tought you would value our merry
company, instead of the ever-so-pious pilgrimers!"
"You´re so right, little monkey! said Jeesus, and laughed a bit, causing a giant wave in the river Tejo,
so that some Casilheiras (the ferries) made couple of extra loops.
"I´ve got kinda fed up with the fervent adoring.. don´t they have
anything better to do, oh my!"
Then we were watching the views from
up there.
This photo is taken to the direction of Laranjeiro where we live here.
"In that case we´re just the right companion for you, since we´re
not specially pious!" said I.
"I have kinda noticed!" said him, "And that´s just great!
Pious brats make me sick."
"And what about the money used on building churches and temples,
instead of feeding hungry folks?" asked I. "Am I right thinking
that you´re not very happy with it?"
"Certainly you are, little monkey!" said he, "and you can tell that to others too!"
So, now I am. Not that I thought there to be many temple builders here!
In this photo you can see the both banks
of the river - Almada and Lisbon.
While we were admiring the views Cristo Rei was asking about our
adventures, and we were asking about his life up there.
Here is the city of Lisbon on the other shore.
I asked if it isn´t unendurably hot in summertime, up there.
Cristo Rei answered:
"Well, don´t you tell this outside the toyvoyaging circles, but sometimes
when it is very hot, I I dive into the river at night!"
"Uhm, hey.. do you have any other clothing under your gaberdine?"asked I.
"Yes, I do, and don´t you try to peek, you little brat!
I have swimming trunks!"
"Really? What color?" asked I.
"Red, with a pic of Donald Duck" said he!
Here you see Ponte 25 de Abril, which
is connecting Almada to Lisbon, or Lisbon to Almada, depending
on the viewpoint.
"Good point", said Jeesus.
Then we said good by to him, and he told
us to keep our tails up and ourselves spirited.
I guess we will!
Yours, as ever
3*Euro
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Posted Feb 3, 2014, 5:41 pm
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Castelo dos Mouros, Sintra, Portugal - 11th February 2014
By: Eohippus
Hullo, hullo, hullo!
Do you have snow there, mom?
We have just rain and more rain, and fog, for a change, when the
clouds need to rest for a day
and collect more water in their innards to be able to puke it over us the next day.
It was a very foggy day when we went again to Sintra, to climb the
ruins of a mediaeval castle.
In Sintra we walked trough a park called
Parque da Liberdade.
It had some odd inhabitants, and they were staring at us while
we passed.
We were heading upwards, since the castle
ruins are on top of a hill.
After the park we followed some secret paths,
always upwards.
It started to rain, and we were hiding inside a cave for some time,
but it was too humid for the camera to take pics.
After climbing the wet and slippery, rocky hillside, we reached the castle walls.
(without paying the tickets.
I´m not sure what the stay here with this gang is going to do to
my morale! )
The castle was built on the Sintra hills by the moors in the 8th and 9th century,
during the arab occupation of
the Iberian peninsula.
There is many legends connected to the castle.
According to one there was a moorish princess who fell in love
with a christian boy.
Her father got so angry with her, that he cast a spell over both,
unhappy lovers, and they are still living on the hill, a ghostlike,
neverending existence, unable to leave the spot, in which the
spell fixed them.
Zoe told me that on a sunny weather there
is great views from the castle over the landscape around, but
we couldn´t see absolutely anything!
But the fog gave the place a slightly unreal atmosphere.
I was almost ready to believe enchanted moorish princesses appearing
from the midsts of it.
After the conquest of Lisbon (1147),
the castle surrendered voluntarily to Christian forces.
The king then shared the Sintra lands to some highborn bimbos,
with the responsibility to militarily secure the area.
I rather think that for the poor, common people it was about all the
same who was on power - muslims or christians.
Their life was always as hard, the lands they were tilling gifted
away in front of their noces.
The legends about the enchanted moors weren´t fairytales for people, though.
For centuries people told stories about enchanted mooresses,
left to Portugal by their fathers, when escaping the christian forces,
to guard over hidden treasures.
According to the stories the treasures would feel into the hands
of the person who managed to break the enchantment of the moors.
And people were trying!
Using different grimoires - especially the "book of st. Cyprian",
they climbed to certain caves and hilltops to utter odd magical
formulas in hope of getting rich..
Pretty sad, actually.
The fog was getting even thicker!
I could hardly see my hind paws (and that has nothing to do with
the size of my belly!)
We sat on one of the walls, discussing
the wonderful atmosphere on the place, and how it would serve
as a scenery for a great film with ghosts and mysterious happenings.
Don´t you agree?
Then we left back home, because, umm, it
was somewhat chilly up there.
I wish you keep warm!
A hug from
Your little monkey ;-)
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Posted Feb 11, 2014, 12:26 pm
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Pena palace garden, Sintra, Portugal - 28th February 2014
By: Eohippus
Hello again, mom!
We´ve all been a bit lazy to make updates lately, read: Henna
has been.
Well, actually she is just so deep in her studies that she hardly
knows on which planet she is on.
But today we just gagged her and dragged her to the toilet,
and while the joined toyvoyager forces are pushing their legs
against its door, we can write our updates here, one voyager
at a time.
You should hear how Henna is kicking the toilet door. He he!
We´ll open the door when it is time to go to bed - today it is our turn to use the comp!
So - I´m now going to put here some pics of Pena palace garden.
This is the Pena palace itself.
Looks like a fairytale castle, doesn´t it?
Well, no wonder - it was built in the romantic period of Portuguese
history, according to the mental images people of those days had
about how a royal palace should look like.
We didn´t go in, because Henna already
knows it is not allowed to take photos inside, and what´s the joy
of going in if we can´t share our experiences with other toyvoyagers?
Instead we went for a walk in the palace
gardens.
it is a quite big area, divided into different kind of sections.
This is the Garden of Camellias.
It was quite amazing - all those colourfull
flowers shining against the dark green shades behind.
We were imagining the royal family ladies
promenading in the gardens with their parasols, carefully not
to step on mud with their dainty silk slippers..
And then we put on suitable headwear and played to be such
promanaders ourselves too!
We found a pergola.
It must look wonderfull when the visteria climbing on it wakes alive,
with all it´s purple flowers. But now it was just dry and brown.
I´m sure the 19'th century royals would be
quite amazed if they could saw us sitting in their pergola.
Maybe they did.
I wish they don´t come to kling any ghostly chains for us at nighttime!
There was some interesting looking little
buildings appearing trough the heavy foliage.
And a fountain, but there was no water in it.
(Which was good, because after our friend Tuli plunged into the
river Henna has been quite hysterical about us being near any
water at all. What a drag!
Like any of us others would be interested into froggish love calls!
We monkeys certainly don´t have our love nests in any slimy waters!
We walked under an arch and came into
what was called "The Fern Valley of the Queen".
It seems that the queen whateverhernamewas
was very fond of ferns, and wanted a lot of different species be
planted into the garden.
They were really gracefull things.
But guess what? I got the first mosquito bites of this year under
them!
And it is only February!
We saw a small building which pretends to
be some kind of moorish temple.
It was made for the people to shit in shade on very hot days,
sipping their humble tea.
Why on earth is tea called humble, mom?
We were debating about that for a long time, wondering what if
all things we drink and eat have somekinda characteristics.
Well, like nervous buttermilk or nasty rye bread, not to mention
the loony beetroot. Not that anyone of us would ever drink
buttermilk anyway, yaiks!
We saw very fantastical looking trees!
Sadly I´ve forgotten their name..
And then we climbed a hill, where they have
erected a cross called Cruz Alta.
It is a habit here, to erect crosses on top of hills, kinda sanctifying
them.
As you can see, the garden is a really big one, because we were still inside it, and the palace was so far away
we could hardly see it.
Then we came down again and admired the
ivy covered trees.
It makes them look like they had clothes on.
Then we found a series of artificial lakes.
There was small brooks running between them and small
waterfalls too.
Can you hear Henna shouting?
"Don´t you go a step nearer of that water, or I put you all
on a leash!" Thanks, Tuli.
Classically, it started to became a bit dark,
and we headed back home.
Your enthusiastic traveller,
3*Euros
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Posted Feb 28, 2014, 7:03 pm
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Hiking trip on Serra da Sintra, Portugal - 5th March 2014
By: Eohippus
Hyvää iltapäivää, rakas äiti!
As you might have guessed we´re all here rather late with
our updates.
So don´t feel too surprised in seeing persons, who are not
anymore in our midst, appearing in them.
With this I´m hinting to Tuli, who eloped into a frog orgy, and to
Poschti, who is now on the cruise ship with Rike H.
Anyway, in this update you´ll see nothing but landscapes and nature.
That´s were we spend the time when Henna goes crazy with her
studies. We recognice the signs - she starts to spend more time
upside down standing on her head than on her feet, and then
we know it is time to drag her out to the nature.
Here we are following a small path somewhere
on the Serra da Sintra.
That is an area where it is possible to walk about 15 kilometers
to different directions between the towns of Sintra and Cascais,
without meeting too many people, just some similarly odd
hikers and bikers.
There is many little brooks and rivers running
trough the area, from the hills towards the Atlantic ocean in the west
and the lower lands of Mafra in the east.
Yes, it was one of the bigger rivers into which our friend Tuli hopped.
Here she is still with us.
I hope she sees these updates somewhere and giggles her wits
off (if she has any).
Here we are following a small brook, called
Ribeira da Mula, which leads onto a water reservoir.
As you can imagine, the lack of fresh water
has always been one of the biggest troubles in Portugal.
So in earlier times they tried to collect all the rainwater of the winter to be used later in the dry summer.
They built all sorts of reservoirs and aqueducts and channels to
lead the waters to fountains or onto fields.
I love the sound of running water!
Don´t you, mom?
I always spend some time near the specially delicious sounds.
Here we are coming near to the reservoir lake.
Here! We reached it! This one is quite big -
it could almost be a small Finnish lake.
Here you can see the dam built to prevent the water from running towards the sea.
The lake has also real little sandy beaches,
but it is not allowed to swim here, because the water is meant
to be consumed. I think some people do, anyway.
Here we are following a bit bigger road, surrounded
by eucalyptus trees.
No koalas, sadly.
We passed a ruined farmhouse.
And an old lime owen.
The mimosas were in full bloom!
If you walk trough a bush like that, you´re quite yellow when coming
out!
And then the road took us onto a totally different landscape.
Onto open hills, grass and flowers!
It feels good to breath in this kind of landscape.
Even Henna calms down and forgets her studies for some hours.
For us the flowers and grass is like a different
kind of forest.
Between the flowers hang spider webs decorated
with raindrops. Beautiful!
It started to rain, and Henna collected us into
her backback, where we next couple of hours singing encouraging
songs to her, while she walked ten more kilometers trough rain
and mud.
It is good to be a toyvoyager!
After our twenty third encouraging song the
rain stopped (Henna says it juct couldn´t take it any more) and
Henna digged us out from her backbag again.
The landscape was totally different again - we had reached the
shore of the Atlantic.
The sun came out a bit, and we were stretching
ourselves in it, enjoying the warmth.
The flowers were strecthing too!
I swear I saw them doing it! I even heard one of the flowers
making a sound most people do while stretching, like "eeeaaaaahh!".
We saw a small waterfall, born by the rain.
We followed narrow paths up and down the
hills, admiring the views.
I found a parasol mushroom, but I didn´t
use it as a parasol, because I like the sun, but as a chair,
to see the views better.
Soon it was, unsurprisingly, time to go home.
I have to think about different ways to end an update.
Many kisses from 3*Euros!
Have a great week!
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Posted Mar 5, 2014, 12:44 pm
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Nuuksio, Finland - 1st May 2014
By: Eohippus
Hello, dear mom!
At last we've got our internet connection back! Phew!
We are now in Finland. We arrived here almost a month ago.
I have still some updates I should make from Portugal, but
it feels a bit stupid now after such a long time.
So I will just hop here into Finland.
Hey! This certainly is not Finland!
We´re still in the Portuguese "winter" here. Hah!
We were celebrating our last day in Portugal
by stuffing ourselves!
We started with wonderful spenach pies in a street café.
Then we continued into a pizzeria and
started the serious eating with this salad.
And then we attacked the pizza itself!
I´m here having my fift slice, but there´s still some room!
So we filled the corners with good coffee.
And then we rolled out, because our feet couldn´t reach the floor from under our bellies.
Then we rolled onto a meadow to say our
farewells to the Portuguese nature, we have all got friends with.
And then we had a little snack in midst of
yellow wood sorrels.
In the evening we were singing fados.
The next morning we were horribly early on
the airport!
Luckily we didn´t need to wait our flight.
Oddly enough, it was on time!
I loved the getting up into the air!
It was wonderfull to go trough the clouds and see the river Tejo
and other places now known to me from the bird perspective.
I was watching the wonderfull landscapes
until I fell into sleep.
And so did the others too! Henna just pocketed as all and tried
to look nonchalant when the other people were staring at her
wondering the awful snoring coming seemingly from her person!
We only woke next morning and roamed
to see our whereabouts and soon found ourselves in a pile
of snow and ice.
Well.. actually there was snow left only in the deepest shadows
and ditches and such, and our hopping there was quite
voluntary!
There wasn´t yet anything growing,
the earth was still empty, grey and brown.
But at least the sky was blue!
We all put on some more clothes, because it was still rather cool.
In spite of the clothes we were feeling cold!
We had just arrived from the Portuguese warmth.
So we lit up a fire and put a pot of coffee
to boil.
We gathered round the fire and it warmed
us up wonderfully.
And so did the hot coffee!
Never does coffee taste as good as in nature on a cold day!
But anyway, we wanted the spring to come
a bit faster!
So, we knew we had to perform the Spring calling.
"How is it done?" I hear you asking.
Well, it is simply done by shouting and asking and coaxing the spring
to come, and by singing spring songs, mentioning flowers, sun,
birdsing, green foliages and other such things.
So we walked along and shouted and sang so that the forest was
ringing.
"Lalalalalaa, the sun shines, the forest is full of flowers nad the squirrels are hopping on the trees and cleaning their nests for the summer" we sang on the shore of a lake.
"Anemones, clovers, bluebells, lillies of the valley, come!" we shouted on a high hill and performed a little
dance.
And it worked!
They came! They came!
Suddenly, in front of our noses, wonderfull crocuses popped up
from the earth and opened!
"Wellcome, wellcome, spring beauties!" we greeted them and danced
around them.
The Sun started to shine too and we greeted
her joyoysly!
Suddenly the air felt warm and it smelled of growing things and
we realised the spring had really come!
A bunch of blue anemones run along the path
towards us, and we run to meet them and their radiant beauty
almost blinded us.
"Wellcome, miracles!" we shouted. "Good springtime, little voyagers!"
they andswered!
See you soon again, mom!
Kisses from your happy 3* Euros!
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Posted May 1, 2014, 11:02 am Last edited May 1, 2014, 2:46 pm by Eohippus
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Making soup in Nuuksio, Finland - 11th May 2014
By: Eohippus
Hello, dear mom!
One morning we woke up the winter had come back!
The fields and forests were totally white, and it was raining fleet and little ice balls whole day, but happily it only lasted one day and the next morning the spring came back and everything started to grow.
The birches started push out tiny, tender new leafs. Oooh they are so cute!
Henna told us to go and find wild vextables to make soup with!
I found soon young nettles.
They have to be picked in a certain way to avoid burning your paws!
Then I found deer droppings!
I didn´t pick them!
We found many many different vegetables,and Zoe helped us recognizing them if we weren´t quite sure of the species. Luckily Tuli was teaching her well before plunging into the frog orgies.
Here are the soup vegetables we picked:
- Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
- Sheep´s sorrel (Rumex acetosella)
- Common wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella )
- Ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria )
- Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea )
- Velvet Lady´s mantle (Alchemilla monticola )
- Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale )
- Nettle (Urtiga dioica )
- Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris )
Can this be eaten? Do I pick these too?
- Oh no, let them be! They´re Kingcups (Caltha palustris) and they´re
poisonous!
It´s good to have Zoe around, although it is a bit irritating, her snobbing around with the Latin names of the plants..
Can you imagine, mom, when we are eating cucumber-cheese sanwiches, Zoe tells us to "enjoy the bread made of Secale cereale and covered with Cucumis sativus and milk given to us by a female Bos taurus!"
Of course we then tell her to go and spend some quality time with a swarm of Culicidae.
We found the remnants of a lost civilization from the forest. It must be a relic of that period when people were black and white and moved around jerkily and in odd clothes. I have seen that in some old films they left behind before they disappeared.
We sat resting for awhile in the shore of lake Sahajärvi, and then we absconded into a café to have some buns, because we had some doubts about the quality of the soup Henna was going to make with the stuff we had just picked.
Mums mums, we ate approximately six and half buns each.
After thus strengthening ourselves, we returned to the little cottage with our vegetables.
We put all the vegetables into a big kettle.
Henna added there some potatoes, carrots, garlic, water and spices and we put it to boil over the fire on the yard.
In summertime (when it is not raining) we make often food outside over the fire - it is fun and gives the food a bit different taste than when it is done on a electric stove.
Here is our ready soup!
Believe me or not - it was simply delicious!
I wish you could have tasted it!
Kisses from your little monkey!
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Posted May 11, 2014, 10:08 am
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Nuuksio, Finland - 6th January 2015
By: Eohippus
Kukkuu, mom and all other toyvoyagerists too!
I'm so happy to be here again!
Now we have witnesses again around us, you, I mean, and Henna can't continue violating our toyvoyager rights in such a ruthless way as she has been doing during these eight months, by forcing us to clean and wash dishes and to do practically everything here! We even wrote to Amnesty International but didn't get any response! The amount of our sufferings! Oh!
Ha ha haa! Just fooling! Did you get worried?
No need! The cottage is as dirty as ever and we are as lazy and happy as ever!
Instead of cleaning, we have been having fun in the snow.
Here we are in a sleighing hill.
We ride down the hill at least hundred times - alone and together, forwards and backwards, sitting and laying and shrieking all the time so that the squirrels run horrified up onto the treetops and tried to hit us with pinecones..
We have been walking a lot in the forest and fields, wondering the landscapes.
It all looks so different than in the summertime! It is hard to even recognize the places!
It is beautiful now too, just in a very different way.
Everything being covered with ice and snow the nature looks like it had lost most colors - just the whites, blacks and greys left.
Here I am sitting on the ice of a small pool. Funny tricks the ice does! The surface here looks like it had small feathers all over!
All vertical rocks are decorated with icicles.
Here is the lake Sahajärvi, sleeping under the ice blanket.
I wonder what kind of dreams it sees.
Over the ice there is a winter road, kept clean from most snow.
People go there for walks, and the youngsters drive along it with their mopeds.
The little Sahaoja brook is still open. Later in the winter it will freeze.
Here is our ice lantern, into which we lit candles in the evenings. Isn't it beautiful?
See you soon again!
Yours, 3*Euros
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Posted Jan 6, 2015, 3:41 pm
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Almada, Portugal - 20th January 2015
By: Eohippus
Olá, mom!
Like I told you we were dragged back to Portugal.
I love Portugal, and usually I would have been delighted, but we were just having so much fun in the snow, that we would have wanted to stay a bit longer in Finland.
We tried to hide, but it didn´t help at all.
We found ourselves in the plane again.
Henna tried to sooth our feelings by talking about the sun and the sea and the wonderful Portuguese food, but we were anyway all rather pissed off.
Soon after arriving we decided with Zoe and Misters Casanova and Shaun to run away from home, well, just to show Henna !
So we turned our backs to the civilization and moved into the forest!
We walked through the Portuguese midwintery forest, searching for a perfect place to build a little hut.
The new grass was smelling, little streams were running, birds were singing and the sun was shining..
.. suddenly a joy filled our hearts and it didn´t actually feel at all bad to be back in Portugal!
I don´t know when and why we started to sing, but the truth is, that I found us walking through the forest, singing "Yl kasteisten vuorten me kuljemme" (We´re hiking over hazy hills) and my feet felt so light!
I filled my lungs with the wonderful fresh air in a young eucalyptus growth.
We pushed through mimosa bushes, and then we found the perfect place to build a hut, and then we built it!
Here it is!
Oooh, we stayed in our forest hut for a week, not anymore because we were sulking, but because we enjoyed every minute!
And because it was right for Henna, hah!
See you soon again, mom!
Kisses from your little monkey!
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Posted Jan 20, 2015, 1:41 pm
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Óbidos, Portugal - 27th January 2015
By: Eohippus
Hello, mom!
How are you? Is the spring time already there?
Here it is typical early spring - the weather is changing every ten minutes from rainy to sunny and back again.
Last weekend we took a bus from Lisbon to a small town hundred kilometers towards North called Óbidos.
The trip took about an hour.
I saw many electricity producing windmills along the route.
I think they´re a bit creepy! They always remind me of the horrible Tripods in the War of the Worlds by Wells!
Luckily though the windmills were behaving, (although I think one of them was staring us!) and we got peacefully to Óbidos.
This is one of the many gate towers into the town.
Óbidos is a very old town, and it is encircled by a wall.
It's name, Óbidos, comes from the Latin "Oppidum", which means a fortified town.
We, of course, climbed immediately on the wall.
From there we saw that the wall really continued round the whole little town -
so we decided to walk a full circle around it.
"Why not five full circles?" asked Henna. "We could also run and shout and wave our hands like wings?"
I think there was some sarcasm there..
There is about 3000 inhabitants in the town.
We were watching into their yards and living rooms from the bird perspective while passing by. It felt a bit funny, but I guess they must be used to it, because there is always many tourists populating the walls, especially during the summer months.
There has been some kind of fortified town here on the same spot since the Bronze Age.
A settlement was constructed by early Celt tribes, that was later a centre of trade for the Phoenicians.
After them the Romans, Visigoths and Moors continued the construction on their turn, and so did the early Portuguese kings, starting 1148.
It´s like some kind of mania! Didn´t they have anything better to do?
It was a nice view from the top of the wall over the surrounding countryside.
The fields formed a very beautiful picture of different shades of greens, yellows and browns.
We sat down on a tower to rest both our legs and our minds and souls.
We saw an old white windmill on a hill.
(Much friendlier than those modern ones. )
We then continued our circle.
The wall was rather high on some parts, and narrow for people to walk, but for us toyvoyagers it was wide and comfortable as a boulevard.
We saw a tourist woman creeping along the wall, keeping her both hands pushed tight against the wall, legs wobbling. Poor thing!
I guess she must have been afraid of hights. Rather brave of her to be walking there anyway!
There were large thickets of blooming aloes growing in the holes of the old wall.
I think they were really wonderful!
On the other end of the town there is a small castle, which was built in the 14th century, by King Fernando.
Sadly it is now turned into a hotel, so it is not open for visitors, without staying overnight.
I also doubt if there would be much to see in the modernized hotel rooms.
The little town itself looked quite cute.
We wanted to go and investigate it's narrow streets and alleys.
So we climbed down the wall again.
We landed near the castle wall, and saw many more wonderful aloe bushes.
Look! They're almost reaching the sky!
In front of the castle was a telescope with which we could see even more of our surroundings.
There was hole in which we should have put an euro coin for the telescope to work, but Zoe knew a handy trick to do with a safety pin.
I can show it to you too some time.
We started to investigate the streets, walking where our noses were pointing.
It was a very typical little Portuguese town.
It had lots of stairs everywhere, and all the houses where whitewashed, with their corners and windowsills painted either blue, yellow or brown.
There was lots of plants everywhere, planted to grow next to the white walls or stairs or into flowerpots, to make the stony streets more beautiful.
There was also a nice little garden.
We saw very juicy oranges on a tree, and climbing over the fence we were just and just able to reach them..
.. but then the owner of the yard was also able to see us reaching them, so we had to do a tactical retreat into a flowerpot and try to look like chrysanthemums.
We must have been convincing enough, because the owner just darted by, uttering some words I again had to write into my little notebook.
Instead we found some nice grapes somewhere, and went into a little park outside the wall to enjoy them in peace.
And then we played to be invading Visigoths, or whatever.
Back inside the walls again, we walked past some nice looking little bars.
(Yeah, walked past, because Henna made us to! )
We saw a nice looking old church.
Henna told us the church is famous because some Portuguese king got married in it with his cousin in the 15th century.
The king gave the town of Óbidos as a wedding present for his new queen.
Can you imagine? How is it possible to give a town for a present to somebody? What about the people living there?
I peeped into the church.
It looked quite a nice spot to get married.
If any cute monkey, who wants to marry me and gift me a town, happens to read this: I am ready!
After the church we had really seen everything there was to be see in the town, and so we took the bus back to Lisbon again, and escaped the Tripods luckily on our way back too, phew!
Kisses from 3*Euros!
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Posted Jan 27, 2015, 6:58 pm
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