Up the hill to Castelo dos Mouros, in Sintra (Sintra's Mourish Castle)

A lovely walk towards Sintra's Mourish Castle in the company of friends was the best Sunday program ever! The freshness of the hills, the greenish landscape, the ripe blueberries (handpicked), and when back to the historic center, a visit to an iconic 'patisserie' called 'Piriquita' to eat the best 'travesseiros' in the whole wide world (a special pastry made with egg custard and puff pastry covered with sugar).

An invitation for tea and marshmallows!

A well-set table laden with delicious plastic food (apart from real marshmallows),

a very elegant host,

many other guests, 

an exquisite hand-painted tea set,

(some real size tea cups for 'human-sized' guests),

(a shoe free place)

and the company of a furry guest (Toffee) that never fails to attend any of these events!

A lovely afternoon.

Recently enjoyed things

1 - Another visit to an all time favorite place.

2 - Strawberry juice I made with organic strawberries.

3 - A second hand vinyl record I remembered listening as a kid

4 - Walking, walking walking in the city.

Back to (my present) reality...

Coming back home after summer holidays is (mostly) good... even when there is so much reorganizing to do, preparing for a new year ahead.

Mia was a great help (as shown bellow) just lying around in the floor because its so so so hot...

Reorganizing meant (amongst many other things) folding again some old linen cloths, towels and napkins to free some space in the drawers (linen made in the old days is so wonderfully thick and rough).

Found a tiny crochet piece I had kept to myself years ago, used by my grandmother to cover the water jug. Love it.

Resumed my walks in this city and found new interesting spots as well as some more beautiful buildings (and their secret gardens).




An Orthodox Church tucked away in a narrow street.



The smell of freshly baked bread lead me to an old bakery and I had to buy a loaf to bring home for tea!






And last, but not least, some window shopping!

Its good to be back :-)

The Best Thing I Read Today... "Success"

"One of the interesting things about success is that we think we know what it means. A lot of the time our ideas about what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. They’re sucked in from other people. And we also suck in messages from everything from the television to advertising to marketing, etcetera. These are hugely powerful forces that define what we want and how we view ourselves. What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we’re truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it’s bad enough not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along.” Alain de Botton in a TED EX conference

Brazil IX - Thank you for such lovely days...

The Best Thing I Read Today: from 'Alice in Wonderland'

Brazilian details