A Portuguese Love

From time to time I bring some more serious matters to this blog. Yesterday Portuguese workers were on strike nationwide. My country is at crossroads and I can't see the end of it. Portugal's biggest union CGTP called for a general strike to protest against the center-right government's labor market reforms. Portuguese are protesting against exploitation and growing impoverishment. The strike aimed at the erosion of workers' rights, lower salaries, and record-high unemployment. People feel that austerity measures don't solve anything and that we will soon be as bad as Greece. In Lisbon, a small group of young demonstrators clashed with police, and two photographers were hit by the police who charged the group. As you may know, sometimes it's difficult to protest without provocation. I read that eggs were thrown at bank buildings and persons that were near picking money from cash machines in this group. Probably policemen were hit too with anything that was ...

Hello once more! A friend of mine read the recent post I wrote about Monsanto's big rocks and houses and phone me saying that she once visited this house that has been built between four rocks on the hill of Fafe. It stands in the north of Portugal. I made a quick search. It seems everybody knew about it but me! This House of Stone - A Casa do Penedo - was built in 1972 when Rodrigues family discovered the rocks on the hill on a spring afternoon. They decided to build a house and bought the land. They had no phone or electricity or water but they spent their holidays in the House of Stone. It has a fireplace and pool, and interior stairs, what a shame no one lives there anymore. A few years ago everybody was talking about it on the internet as someone took photos of it and called her The true Flintstones house. Because of vandalism, it has bulletproof windows and a steel door! Everyone is climbing the hill of Fafe to take a look at this peculiar house. No one lives there...

A friend of mine, Lia Flora, - thank you Lia! - went to Monsanto and made a couple of nice photos. I asked her if I could share it with you and she said yes. I prefer to show you photos taken by Portuguese people on travel than to show you the ones I have from advertising sources. Sometimes these late are digitally retouched. This way I give you what you could really see if you were on the spot. Monsanto is a peculiar village. It belongs to Castelo Branco District. It's in mid-Portugal, nearby to the Spanish border. Look at the map. In the summer the temperature is very high in this region, in winter it can get very cold. I am sure you would love the local scenery where the houses are built only with granite stone, a local and natural resource. Some of them are built using rocks as walls or ceilings and one of these big, huge rocks has a restaurant below in the basement. Monsanto really rocks! It's a remarkable village and at the top of maybe 1500 feet high hill, the...

T his small painting "Beard the guise head," an oil on a card (24.5 X19 cm) Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso painted in 1916 was sold for 122,000 euros (170,000 USD) in an auction of Modern and Contemporary Art in Lisbon. The bid came on the phone. Other renowned Portuguese artists of the twentieth century as Abel Salazar, Graça Morais, Menez, Arpad Szenes, Vieira da Silva, and Cesariny, among others, were also represented. Amadeo de Souza-Cardozo was born in 1887 and died in 1918. He had no opportunity to see his work recognized. A precursor of modern art died prematurely at age 31. He just knew the incomprehension of others towards his art. At 19 he moved to Paris taking his first contact with Impressionism, then Expressionism and Cubism. He was a friend of Amadeo Modigliani and they shared a studio and hold exhibitions together in 1911. After attending an exhibition in the United States in 1913 he returned to Portugal where he causes a scandal with his exhibitions respecti...

Founded on April 11, 2011, the Art Institute is a non-profit organization that promotes culture and showcases art from Portugal. It is a space that offers a creative environment for Portuguese artists in the field of art, literature, music, dance, and film. It promotes an innovative artistic dialogue between the many communities in New York and the Portuguese artists. Arte Institute in collaboration with Pilar del Rio and director Miguel Gonçalves Mendes will promote a week of events to honor the Literature Portuguese Nobel Prize winner, José Saramago. The feature film "José e Pilar" by Miguel Gonçalves Mendes is Portugal's Oscar 2011 Submission and will be shown at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). This documentary shows the life of José Saramago, the Literature Nobel Prize winner and his wife Pilar del Rio. If you are in NY try to watch it because it's a wonderful film. Even if you never read anything from him you can still enjoy the movie. It's wonderful ...

   OMG, I can't believe that next week summer will end and that I just bought myself a new bikini...! Last week I got lucky enough to watch the marés vivas - some photos here - at the beach for the first time. Huge waves, quite a show. Ice cream is something we associate with summer. I want to tell you about Portuguese ice creams. It will be a sweet post! I am not sure but I think this video is a collage of Olá Ice cream commercials. They still use the old logo. Olá is the most popular ice cream brand in Portugal. Olá began to manufacture ice cream in 1959. Portuguese do not eat a lot of ice cream. In Europe, my country is second with lower consumption. Finland consumes lots of ice cream as a dessert especially and it's at the top of the list. The country that consumes more ice cream in the world is the USA. You can find it everywhere. But beyond this brand, there are several smaller brands that have great quality and that built quite a reputation. If you visit ...

Since 1998 Google creates special logos, called doodles to celebrate holidays, birthdays, and special events. This one came out on August 31st and celebrates the first electric tram's 110th anniversary. If you visit Lisbon or Oporto you can still watch these vehicles on the street. In Lisbon, they are driven through narrow streets, up and down the city’s hills. The most famous is the tram 28. They are cute and quite a tourist attraction! I have to say I never traveled in it! But I want to! Don't miss the video where you can watch trams and tour some beautiful Lisbon spots and monuments while you listen to lovely guitar music...enjoy!(You can check this page if you want to discover more Google doodles.)

Video As some of my blog visitors might know my country, Portugal, is going through pretty rough times. This year's street protests were the biggest ever to take place. 400,000 people took to the streets and many strikes occur just before the downfall of Sócrates's socialist government. Then the IMF arrived in Portugal to negotiate the terms of the rescue, the bailout. The "troika" are the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank (ECB), and European Commission (EC). Negotiations took place about the conditions that Portugal has to obey in order to receive financial aid. If you think that things are going to get better for Portuguese people you are not aware of what this bailout means. The IMF help depends on accepting austerity measures that will deepen the crisis further. I believe that living standards will fall and unemployment will get higher. So most of us are not happy about IMF presence, but Portugal had no choice because at one point ban...