Graça
Alex, Zoé and Roxane joined us in Lisbon for John’s birthday. We had a memorable meal at Taberna do Sal Grosso, sharing lots of delicious petiscos, the Portuguese name for tapas or pintxos.

Alex, Zoé et Roxane nous ont rejoints à Lisbonne pour l’anniversaire de John. Nous avons partagé un repas mémorable à la “taverne du gros sel”, partageant de nombreux petiscos, l’équivalent portugais des tapas ou pintxos.
Typical of Portugal, the ceramic tiles (azulejos) are omnipresent in and on many buildings. There are azulejos protection groups, as many were stolen off buildings to be sold on markets, mostly to tourists, at high prices.
While they come in many colours, blue is very predominant.
Typiques du Portugal, les carreaux de faïence (azulejos) sont omniprésents sur et dans de nombreux bâtiments. Il existe des groupes de protection des azulejos car de nombreux vols ont eu lieu (des pans entiers de vieux bâtiments manquent), les carreaux étant vendus aux touristes sur les marchés à prix d’or.
Bien que le choix de couleurs soit large, le bleu domine nettement.
The shabby, industrial eastern part of Lisbon was rebuilt from scratch for the 1998 World Fair Exhibition and now hosts about 25,000 inhabitants, businesses, concert halls, the aquarium and the science museum.
Its train station was designed by famous architect Santiago Calatrava.
La partie orientale de Lisbonne, miteuse et industrielle a été entièrement reconstruite pour l’Exposition Universelle de 1998. Elle abrite environ 25.000 habitants, des bureaux, salles de concerts, l’aquarium et le musée des sciences.
Sa gare a été conçue par le célèbre architecte Santiago Calatrava.
A 5-hour long hike in the UNESCO-listed natural park of Entlebuch, passing through meadows, marsh and karst fields. Then a last push to reach the top and walk right along the ridge. Another beautiful day!
A beautiful day’s hike from the end of a valley, up 1000m to reach the top of Pilatus.
At the summit (2130m), the view is 360 degrees, and offers great plunging views of the Four Cantons Lake. The Alpine panorama is also stunning: from the Säntis in the East to the Bernese Alps and the Eiger-Mönch-Jungfrau and the Wallis 4000+m all glittering in the sun.
It was an easy ridge-walk on the hill behind Ebertswil this morning. There were views over both Zurich and Zug. The path led through small farming communities.
The Mythen mountains are a popular destination in canton Schwyz. We hiked 800m up to the top of the bigger one. The clouds were playing around us and we had not even seen the hut until we got there.