Traditional Portuguese Architecture: granite and timber balcony, typical house in Pitões das Júnias, Montalegre.

[Originally posted on Mar 11th, 2008]

Category: THE ARCHITECTURE

... to watch the Palio di Siena (a traditional medieval bareback horse race, late afternoon, in the famous Piazza del Campo, Sienna - Italy).

Piazza del Campo during the Palio. Sienna, Tuscany - Italy.

NOTE: On March 8th, 2008, a crowd of demonstrator teachers and professors (100 000) invaded Lisbon, to protest against the policies of the Portuguese Minister of Education. THANK YOU, PROFESSORS!

[Originally posted on Mar 9th, 2008]

Category: THE CITY

- the challenges of Architecture.

Canopy over the central atrium of the Sony Centre (eight buildings complex), Potsdamer Platz in Berlin - Germany.

Glass canopy over the main entry to the DG Bank building (a project by Frank O. Gehry), Pariser Platz in Berlin - Germany.

[Originally posted on Feb 18th, 2008]

Category: THE ARCHITECTURE

Copenhagen, Denmark.

[Originally posted on Feb 13th, 2008]

Category: THE CITY

The archipelago of Madeira is part of the so called Macaronesian Islands - Azores, Madeira and Savages, Canaries, Cape Verde.

The Laurisilva (a Laurel forest type, relict of Mediterranean forests from the Tertiary Period) is to be found only in these archipelagos - except for Cape Verde which is now too dry - "in places with very high relative humidity and low temperature's variation". It is characterized by "dense, shady and misty woods [...] where the vegetation is dominated by big trees of the Lauraceae family."
(Translated from Portuguese, António Pena & José Cabral, Roteiros da Natureza - Madeira, Nature's Routes - Madeira).

"Its natural essence is well presented by abrupt slopes, almost vertical, covered by an impenetrable and polystratified green mantle." (idem, ibidem).

"... the condensation clouds (or dense mists) occur especially from 700 to 1300 metres altitude [about 2300 to 4300 yards] and that's where the Laurisilva finds its optimum developmente environment". (idem, ibidem).

The Laurisilva of Madeira is the only Portuguese Natural Site in UNESCO's World Heritage List.

In fact, it is in Madeira Island that the Laurisilva is nowadays kept under better conservation conditions and has more endemisms (species that are native only to this Island and to no place else in the World).

The forest canopy's predominant trees are the Madeira Laurel (Til), Ocotea foetens and the Baytree (Loureiro), Laurus azorica. Among smaller tree species, there are the Madeira Mahogany (Vinhático), Persea indica and the endemic Lily of the Valley Tree (Folhado), Clethra arborea.

[originally posted on Feb 10th, 2008]

Category: MOUNTS AND VALLEYS