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Lello Bookstore Visiting Porto, we certainly couldn’t help dropping into the famous Lello Bookstore. Not only is it famous due to its connection to the creation of the Harry Potter books, but also because it’s one of the oldest bookshops in the country. A magnificent facade, sophisticated interior design, a bright-red staircase, pelmets, a coloured stained glass ceiling… It's a very impressive place, but we expected something different. From our point of view, a bookshop or a library is an area of total silence and reverence for books. It's different here. Almost every tourist considers it necessary to visit Lello, so [...]

The São Bento railway station is situated near the city hall. It dates from the late 19th century. The building is neoclassical in style and is famous for its interior, and a large number of incredible azulejo tiles specifically. The walls of the lobby are decorated with huge panels from ceramic tiles coloured in traditional shades of blue and white.  They depict different historical events connected with the railway as well as the Portuguese life as a whole: military battles, celebrations on the occasion of the kings’ arrival, etc. The snow-white stucco ceiling adds to the overall magnificence. Любопытный памятник [...]

Porto is the north capital of Portugal located on a bank of the Douro River emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a port city crammed with picturesque streets, where charming colourful houses with tiled roofs are interlaced with monumental representatives of old architecture. When we decided to go to Portugal, we knew at once that the cities we should definitely visit during our stay were Lisbon and Porto. These are the largest cities in the country and they are chalk and cheese. Lisbon is a noisy modern capital, while Porto oozes local colour and has a wealth of historic sites (as [...]

Sintra is a unique place full of castles, landmarks, and various antiquities. It’s a resort town that used to be popular among Portuguese monarchs, which is why it’s crammed with palaces, villas, and other royal residences. The Palace of Sintra is the central (in every sense) landmark of the city. It’s easy to reach it as it’s located in the centre, near the railway station. The present-day palace was built in the 14th century (it was constructed on the site of the Castle of the Moors). It’s a snow-white building complex made in the Manueline style (Portuguese Renaissance) mixed with the [...]

One of the main things that we intended to do in Portugal was to see the ocean. Since Lisbon lies on the River Tagus that empties into the Atlantic Ocean, we had to go further west to get to the ocean. The city of Cascais located near Lisbon was the place that introduced us to the open ocean. It took just 40 minutes to reach it by train. Cascais is popular among the Portuguese, who often come here from different parts of the country to swim and sunbathe. The town is famous for its lovely natural beaches – there's about a [...]

Oceanarium and Zoo Lisbon has a huge oceanarium, which is one of the most outstanding ones in the world. It’s a large complex, where you can easily spend all day. When we got there, our babies were just mesmerized. The interior of the oceanarium is truly grand. There are high three-people-tall aquariums in the form of huge wide pipes, which are surrounded by stairs for a better look at the inside of the pipes. All fish and aquatic animal species, even the rarest ones, seaweed, corals are present here. It’s so curious to walk around and have a close look at, [...]

Old Town is the main landmark of Lisbon. It’s a vast area that consists of several districts. It’s a very authentic, colourful, and historic place. Winding paved narrow streets, bright facades, most of which are decorated with a mosaic of ceramic tiles (azulejo), myriads of flower pots looking like gardens [...]

When we made up our mind to continue travelling, we chose Central and South America for our next grand journey and started to map it out. However, it made sense to wait till autumn, when it’s getting cold in Europe, and flee to warmer countries then. We left Cyprus in August, so we had a couple of months for [...]