Green are the fields...
(There's a poem by Luis de Camões starting like this).

GREEN are the plants (most of them anyway).

Ajuda Botanic Garden (Jardim Botânico da Ajuda) - Lisbon, Portugal.

GREEN are the receipts (the receipts' paper is coloured green) of the about 900 000 people working in this country (Portugal) as if they were freelancers when they are actually employed by one particular organization (including many, many, many Public services). These people have all the duties of a regular employee, but none of the usual intrinsic rights.
There's more on this subject in the blog Um Jardim no Deserto. [A Garden in the Desert - English translation provided].

[Portuguese post on April 7th, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

Dec. 2008: Images down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

Covering an area of about 630 acres (255 hectares) in the centre of Berlin, the Large Tiergarten - Großer Tiergarten - owes its name to the fact that it was originally a hunting ground. It was designed as an English landscape-style Park, by Peter Joseph Lenné, at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In the western area, near the Zoo, the Lichtensteinallee and the Siegessäule (Victory Column).

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The eastern area, close to the new Bundeskanzleramt (German Chancellery).

[Portuguese post on April 1st, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

Dec. 2008: Images down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

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[Portuguese post on Mar 2nd, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

Dec. 2008: Images down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

Bandstand in the gardens of the Estói Palace nearby Faro - Algarve, Portugal.

See also another post on these gardens: THIS PIECE OF SCULPTURE.

What this post is about: The PORTUGUESE GOVERNMENT wants to put AN END to the NATIONAL CONSERVATOIRE!
The Music School of the Lisbon National Conservatoire was launched in the 19th century. It has about 900 (NINE HUNDRED) students nowadays, but will probably have no more than a few 50 (FIFTY) of them next year, because of the recent proposals to reform the system by the Ministre of Education.

ADDENDUM: An online petition against this reform reached 19 143 signatures and was presented to the Assembly of the Republic (Assembleia da República), the Portuguese parliament, on Feb 20th 2008.

[Portuguese post on Feb 8th, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

Dec. 2008: Image down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

- was built by the end of the XIX century, bombed in 1945 and restored in 1947. Since then, it has been non-stop turning around ... at 0.75 metres per second (one metre is about 3.3 feet).

Das Wiener Riesenrad is located in the Prater Park, has 15 wagons and 61 metres (200 feet) diameter. Vienna, Austria.

[Portuguese post on Jan 31st, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

Dec. 2008: Image down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

Urban parks are privileged areas for leisure and for different formal and informal sports activities, which is quite healthier than exercises in gyms but not yet very common in Portugal.

A few images from urban parks in Europe:

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Sportsmen that come to Portugal from abroad have already complained about the lack of adequate practice areas in the open air, away from traffic, pollution and urban noise.

We just have a fantastic climat for plants to grow fast and beautiful and for people to leisure and sport in the open air, but our government chooses to promote gyms instead of parks... SO SAD!
[The Portuguese Government has recently lowered the gyms' VAT].

[Portuguese post on Jan 27th, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

Dec. 2008: Images down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

- at the Botanic Garden of the Natural History National Museum (Lisbon University), widely known as the College of Sciences' Botanic Garden.

A botanic garden is obviously more than just a garden. The being botanic indicates that the plants growing in it, more than just being beautiful and providing a pleasant environment, have necessarily other usefulnesses, such as teaching, investigation and conservation of the vegetation's genetic heritage.

Free translation: Professor Fernando Catarino (Director of this Botanic Garden for twenty years and recently retired),
A Importância dos Jardins Botânicos - The Importance of Botanic Gardens.

[Portuguese post on Jan 23rd, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

Dec. 2008: Images down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

Sanssouci Park, Potsdam - Germany.

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Sans Souci means without concern.

[Portuguese post on Jan 14th, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

Dec. 2008: Images down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.