Step Away

Hauntingly beautiful photos of Portugal in winter time by nessa_flame

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Two…

visitors from Portugal: let’s switch!

For a couple of weeks, that is.

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Attention, Cinderellas:

…уж полночь близится!

By Laurent.D.Ruamps, Museu Nacional dos Coches [1726][Belem, Lisboa, Portugal]

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И безумно прекрасна собою…

Found on Etsy

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Urge

It is probably effect of a certain time in life – suddenly I wake up to the fact of wide wonderful world out there. Suddenly, because the randomness and intensity is just like those annoying and a bit shameful “flashes” of middle age that I’d never believe my body is capable of. Until it was, recently. Now I live in uncertainty not unlike my teenage years: what to wear? how to dress? would people think me mad if I up and force open the office window – and then in two minutes flat run to shut it and put on a cardigan and a coat? The suddenness of my urge to travel surprised me exactly like that.
All fall and winter I was meeting with indifference stories of somebody’s trips; travelogues meant to me not much more than a nicely constructed text. And now, starting last week, I wake up with yet another vivid vision in front of my eyes – vision of another country, city, people, smells, language, food, melancholy or joy. They might be possible to recognize but never they will become my own – they are foreign and endlessly fascinating.
Lagos! Montevideo! Barcelona! Key West, Grand Cayman and Kauai! Rome, Ostia, Tivoli, Capri, Herculanum! Budapest!  I want to be everywhere, ASAP!

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Update to old post

Porto. Casa de Serralves

My stats showed a reader who came searching – not for “Jews”, not “Lvov pogroms”, not all-time stat champion “Bilibin”, not some LJ schlock – but  about Portuguese architecture. Darling visitor, you made me very happy.

…Pleasant park cacophony turned into a deliberate silence. Unknown bird cried something …a warning? The alley grew darker and longer. The tops of the trees swung frantically under invisible wind; here, on the path, like at the bottom of the well, all was quiet. I couldn’t see the end of the alley; it went uphill like a straight red arrow. A movement in the treetop sent a chestnut to my feet: small, hard as a rock, deliciously smooth and the color of dried blood. I picked it up and noticed, at a side glance, stroke of pink behind vegetation on my left. A flamingo? I followed the flashing vision…there was a path trickling between jasmine shrubs. I exited the alley and had a revelation.

Although you can’t see any pictures – my photos of the time all disappeared together with the depository storage site faces-dot-com – I can make at least one thing better, compared with 2006 post. Porto’s glorious Villa Serralves considerably improved their website; we can now read it in English, and they added several pages on history: original owner, architects, interiors and surrounding park. Enjoy it with me!

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Speaking of Lagos and Art:

How do you like the little animation?

Don’t see the little animation? Ah, sorry, here’s the link-to-click. Still don’t see it?  What about now?

 

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