Holidays memories - IV

After so many church visiting I thought my husband could be a bit tired but, praise the good Lord, he wasn’t. He asked me if I wanted to go next Sunday to mass at Sameiro Sanctuary ! How happy I was!
And we went.

See how beautiful it is.

After going to Sameiro we came back to Braga. Such wonderful days and nights. Good restaurants, nice gardens, beautiful architecture. Wonderful time we had.

Holidays memories - III

Here I am again.

One garden we went to visit in Braga was the Gardens and Palace of the Biscaínhos.

In this one we can see 3 of my children. The other one is not in the picture but she is in the garden.

It was in the day after that visist that we went to Bom Jesus.
When my husband said we would go to Bom Jesus next morning, I was so happy. Such a wonderful place: the park, the garden and the church.

And on the day after we went to Tibães Monastery.

Here are my girls on a lane at Tibães.

We had a wonderful time. We made a picnic there and then visisted the gardens and convent, including the church.

Did you see, some post ago, a picture of an hydrangea with rain drops? It’s from that garden.

Wonderful place, as everything around Braga.
Just look at the inside of this church.

See you tomorow for the final post about our holidays.
I think some of you are maybe tired of that kind of posts, but I feel I must do it so it would be recorded.
How could I just ignore sunch a wonderful time I had with my husband and children?
And in such beautiful places.

Holidays memories - II

Our days in Luso – and Bussaco – were wonderful. Plenty of days of good air, wonderful landscapes and amazing leitão which is a culinary speciality from the region, not only Luso and surroundings but also from Coimbra, the place where my grandmother was born, she and all my family – the one from that side, the side of my family most dear to me, the side of my grandmother.

Well, all happy, there we went to take the train again and heading to Braga, in the North of the country.
That is a wonderful place. I shall never tire to praise the beauty of that ancient city, once a roman town. It had an important role in the begining of Christianity. There was more then one Council of Braga .
Some years ago my husband was there to attend a conference and went to look for a nice hotel to take us there when we could go. He saw one that he liked very much for the appearence and for the location. It was in the middle of the historic center. So we went there and when we realized that was such a nice hotel with wonderfull views, he went to book for more days. And in good time he went because in the day after all the hotel was full. We heard a frensh man opening the door of his room for the first time and says:
Oh, mais c’est magnifique! C’est magnifique !
It was fun.

Here is the view from one of our room windows, seeing in the distance the Bom Jesus (Good Jesus).
You can see the same view here but in the rain.

The Bom Jesus

( 3 of my children here).

(The way to go up to Bom Jesus, otherwise you must go on foot.)

More to follow...

Missing England

If somebody is reading my blog, he must have realized the amount of english (british) blogs I've been adding to my blog list.
The reason why I'm doing this is:

1. I do like british blogs;
2. I'm crazy for England;
3. I do miss going there;
4. When I look at british blogs I feel a bit there.

When the Autumn cames here, I am homesick of England.
First time I went there, it was October and I was just married. It was our honeymoon. Almost twenty years ago.
We went to England and to Paris.
It was then that I discovered England. Before that I liked it already but I thought that all that loveliness only could exist in movies. When I arrived there it was love at the first site. And I'm still in love. For ever.

The picture above shows a lot of drinking chocolate I brought last time I went there, at Christmas time. After that, my husband needed to go there and came full of drinking chocolate too, for me.
England and chocolate.
Two passions I have.

Note: Please, the non british blogs don't be ofended because I like you all.
Update: I couldn't resist and added some americans too.

Just a little note

Because I have two blogs, when I make a comment in a Blogger's blog, people won't know if I coming from This Burning Fire or Alfazema.
So, from now, in the end of the comment I will sign always alfazema.
And I hope you, when taken to my profile page, will click in the Alfazema link.

Holidays memories - I

When we went on holiday, we took the train and headed to Luso, a place in the middle of Portugal that is a spa and was very in fashion until some decades ago, until the revolution years.

(Everything is so green in Luso, I took this picture from my room)

Now its importance is going up again. When my older girl was a baby, almost 17 years ago, we went there and we could see his lost splendour. Now is going better and the hotel was full. My girls had a very good time in the pool.
From there we went to Bussaco

and delighted ourselves with the landscape, the gardens,

the convent, the church

and the Palace Hotel .

After some very nice days, we took the train again and went North, to Braga. Ah, wonder of wonders! It's an amazing place. But I will talk about that tomorow.

Here are my little girls in the garden of Bussaco.
Such gardens! See more here:

See you tomorow...

See you tomorow

My computor is being silly and I'm having trouble with my pictures. Because I'm cross, I can't post anything good today so, it will be tomorow.
To say sorry, I leave you with this rose I found in a garden in Braga.

The Autumn is coming

I feel the need of entering "full time" in the Autumn that we can feel already in the air .
It's amazing that, usualy, we have such hot days until October - including it - and this year we feel already the pleasant breeze that Autumn brings and we feel it everyday, all day long.
The air has more oxygen, the light is more beautiful. I seat in my sofa curled with a warm blanket in the evenings. I feel good.
Everybody that reads my blog knows I can't stand summer. The only things about summer that I like are my girls nice dresses and going on holidays. Nothing more.

Talking about holidays. I need to do a closer to summer and holidays so, I will post some three or four times about our wonderful holidays and then jump into my favorite time of the year: Autumn and Winter.
Did you realize that I put two (!!!) Christmas counters already? One in the right side and another in the bottom.
Another thing that I did on the blog was to add new blog links.
I was missing England so I went surfing the blogosphere searching for english blogs. I found in them such inspiration. I feel well reading and looking at the beautiful pictures.
The result of that was that I'm adding new blogs to my growing list, as you can see in the right side of my blog.

I realized know that, for some reason, I can't post a picture now. I'll try sort it later and, God willing, start to post those 3 or 4 posts about our holidays.

See you tomorow, then.