Friday, October 22, 2021

Autumn Beauty

 


Fall is here to stay, I think.

What a beautiful time of the year!

1909 sheet music cover art



All kaleidoscopes by inkspired and KaleidoCam 

Found on Pinterest, no credit


Every fall we would go downtown to a big
City park, with huge trees-
and lots of leaves!
It was great fun to run & jump in piles of
richly colored, crunchy pieces of Autumn.
Nothing quite like it.

Public domain




Poem by Humbert Wolfe

Fall colors are warm & inviting.
Rich & saturated.
No harsh brights like her brother Summer.
No wish-washy pastels like her sister Spring.
No washed out neutrals or dark blotches
like her sister Winter.

Stephanie Morris, Pinterest
 

Tangerine!
Spiced Apple!
Golden!
Persimmon!
Ochre!
Herbal Garden!

Sounds more like an exotic salad, doesn’t it?!

1909 sheet music cover art


hopechim ImArmy, Pinterest 

Jennifer Priest, Pinterest 

Dbackdrop, Pinterest 

Unknown

By inkspired


1905 song sheet cover

Unknown



1911 song sheet cover art


That’s all for today.

I hope you take the time 
to find a pile of leaves…
and jump in it!

‘Til next time,
inkspired












Saturday, October 2, 2021

Portugal Perusings

 Viva, amigos!

(Portuguese for ‘hello, my friends!’)

 Artist Sebastian Rodrigues, 1953.

Photo credit: 1stfloor, Pinterest

Portugal

Land of wine and olives

A golfing Haven

A Mediterranean Fatima

15th century New World discoverers

A Monarchy

A Republic

A Military Dictatorship

Benagil  Cave, Lagos, Algarve Coast, Portugal
Posted by C. Struik, Pinterest


Cristiana Silva, Miss Universe Portugal 2020
Posted by Yahaira, Pinterest

Portugal is a country rich in history,

traditions, art and natural beauty.

…and that doesn’t even start to cover it!

Malzada of Portugal vintage paper doll
By Dorothy Wagstaff

Why have I chosen Portugal for today’s blog?

I try to feature every now and then 1 of the more than 190 countries that have inkspired readers in them. No particular order, although I do enjoy learning more about countries I am not as familiar with.

And so, today we have PORTUGAL!

Lisbon, Portugal
Photo credit: isango!

All of the above ‘labels’ are true, at one time in Portugal’s history. Once known as one of the poorest countries in Western Europe, following the end of a dictatorship in 1974 democracy was introduced. It resulted in significant prosperity!

Copyright 2010, hugolescargot.com; Pinterest

The official National Flower is lavender .

Portugal is about the size of the 

state of Indiana, USA;

(Indiana is pink, center then to the right)
Courtesy of ephotopix, Pinterest 


yet it has a wide diversity of folk customs, 
foods and terrain.

It can be correctly called a land of waterfalls, rocky and green mountains, caves, beaches, islands and even sand dunes!


The Douro Valley has some of the most scenic 
wine regions in Portugal.
Grape harvest and wine production go back 
more than 2,000 years.
Borders were marked in 1756, 
making it the oldest demarcated wine region in the world.

But wait, there’s more!


Kevmrc travel

While looking up info for this blog, I found out Portugal has a very significant 
World Heritage Site.
It is a huge section of rock, carved along the Douro River, which separates Portugal from Spain. On both sides there are prehistoric carvings that are guesstimated to be the earliest carvings ever discovered,
and they just kept carving for thousands of years!
What does that mean?
It means there are thousands of carvings that depict human history for thousands of years!

Wow.
TANN, Pinterest
I did find it hard to find a good photo, but the one above has some helper white lines!

For being a rather small country,
Portugal has a lot of interesting things
packed in to it.

McCall’s magazine, 1972

The Portuguese National Anthem is
“A Portuguesa”
(Or “The Portuguese”)
It was adopted in 1911.
The current official version was adopted in 1957.

Traditional designs of Portuguese tiles
Stickers Coloray, Found on Pinterest

Portugal is the oldest European country
with the same borders!

In 1986 it became part of the European Union.

A series of international paper dolls found in 
Kellogg’s KRUMBLES cereal, mid 1950s

Portuguese is the sixth most common language spoken in the world by native speakers.
That means not taught in school as an additional language,
 but people’s first language.

How is that possible?

Portuguese is the official language of:
Portugal 
Angola
Mozambique
Cape Verde 
São Tome’ and Principe
Guinea-Bissau
East Timor
Macau and…..
Brazil -
who has the largest # of Native Portuguese speakers 
in South America.

Terceira , Azores Islands, Portugal
Azores Islands, Portugal
Photo credit: pedrosimoes7
Azores Islands, Portugal

I discovered a fascinating man-made water spillway while learning about Portugal.

Covao dos Conchos, Portugal

I’ve never seen anything like it!
It is a Bell-mouth spillway.
It prevents water from spilling over a dam edge.
Excess water goes down through the spillway and exits farther down the ‘wall’ of the dam.

I found many credits for these photos 
and could not determine who were the originals. Apologies.



Portugal was named Best Golf Destination 2008
by Golf magazine readers.
It has 14 courses rated in the top 100 of Europe.

Traditional Folk Costume
No credit listed

There are many famous Portuguese people,
here are just a few:

Carmen Miranda
actress, singer, entertainer

 Art.com, photo from late 1940s

Ferdinand Magellan
Explorer

Ferdinand Magellan, world explorer
Britannica.com

Cristiano Ronaldo
Professional athlete (footballer)
Cristiano Ronaldo
Posted by Zfriazzi, Pinterest 

There is so much I discovered about Portugal, and this brief overview just scratches the surface.
It has certainly made me want to visit and explore this beautiful country!
São Miguel Island, Portugal

I think the last thing I will feature today
is the UNESCO World Heritage Site of
Sintra.

Victor Gomez, Pinterest

Sintra is a magical place of fairytale castles, Roman ruins, beaches, parks, gardens & historic palaces. 

Palace of Montserrat 
Harbors and Havens Travel blog


Quinta da Regaleira
Photo cred: Le Boudu Monde

Pena Palace, Sintra, Portugal
Photo cred: Ciccio Nutella

That’s it for today!

Portugal has so much more
than what I briefly shared with you today.
Why don’t you share with us your
Vacation/time in Portugal?

‘Ate’ mais!’
(See you soon!)
Inkspired


Castles of Sintra
Photo credit: Condé Nast Traveler, Pinterest

Places where I scrounged information from:
(in no particular order)

wiki travel.org
wanderingPortugal.com
2010hugolescargot.com
fluent.com
TripAdvisor.com
en.Wikipedia.org
Pinterest