Quina de Regaleira AKA Fairy Tale Gardens

What a gift to have 2 weeks for spring break!  We kicked it off with fantastic guests Jen & Travis by visiting the "Quinta de Regaleira" in Sintra, a site that seems to have come right out of Alice in Wonderland, complete with murky caves, twisting tunnels, elaborate rock bridges, towers buried underground, stone doors, and a garden with plants from all over the world.  Cool stuff! 

This was amazing.  Apparently a place for initiation into some fraternal order? 

 

Palaces & Padres

The Barnetts became the next set of parents to make their way across the pond this March.  We had a fantastic time exploring the Palacio da Pena in Sintra before they went on a tour of Portugal.  After they came back we took our first trip on the Lisbon trolley together.

A Big Old Bridge Run in Lisbon

We have been doing what we can to whip ourselves into reasonable shape in 2014, and a 7K run across the beautiful 25 de Abril bridge in Lisbon was a perfect part of our training regiment. Not so coincidentally, the bridge looks a lot like the Golden Gate, and in a sense is the reason that we are in Portugal.  I've been told that the bridge was built in the 1950s by the same team of engineers that had built the Golden Gate; Because this was a project that took a few years, some of the American employees came with their whole families, including children of schooling age.  The school that we now teach at was started in Lisbon those many years ago to accommodate these families.  I love the synchronicity that our lives can take... from SF to Lisbon, to work at the school founded by people that came from our last home... what a small world! 

At least 35,000 people participated!

It was a little crowded at the beginning...

The big guy was watching from the hill. 

Lisbon, to the North