Happy New Year!!!

Happy Mother's Day

"There's two to wash

There's two to dry,

There's two who argue

There's two who cry.

...

... One's in the mud

Having a ball

The other holds a crayon

Another marked wall.

Some days seem endless

My patience grows thin.

Why was I chosen

To be a Mother of Twins?

The answer comes clear

At the end of each day,

As I tuck them in bed

And to myself I say.

There's two to kiss

There's two to hug.

And best of all

There's two to love."

Upcoming Events at Historical Tapestry

Historical fiction fans might like to know there are 2 events coming up at Historical Tapestry. Next week will be the start of the Titanic Week - many posts devoted to the sinking of the Titanic and reviews and lists of the historical fiction it originated. If you're not into HF but you are curious about the unsinkable ship pay us a visit and see all the interesting information we have collected.

Then in June we will have the Daphne du Maurier Season - a month long event dedicated to the life and work of du Maurier. Drop us a line if you want to participate and mark it on your calendar so you wont forget to stop by and discuss her work with us.

Looking forward to see you there!

Pssst!!

Come and join us for the 1st anniversary of Lights, Camera... History!

Paralympic Games

They made us proud!

Parabéns Nelson Évora!

You make us proud!!

The Olympic Games

Wishing them all the luck in the world!!

More 7 Wonders of the World

After having voted for the Wonders of The World and The 7 Wonders of Portugal we will now vote for the 7 Wonders of Portuguese Origin of the World . The results will be revealed on June 10th 2009.

21 monuments were selected from which the final 7 will emerge, and they are:

África
Etiopia Cidadela de Fasil Ghebi;
Gambia Ilha de James;
Ghana Fortes e Castelos em Volta, Greater Accra;
Marocco Cidade Portuguesa de Mazagão (El Jadida);
Mozambique Ilha de Moçambique;
Senegal Ilha de Goreia;
Tanzânia Ruínas de Kilwa e de Songo Mnara


South America
Argentina e Brazil Missões Jesuítas dos Guarani;
Brazil Centro Histórico de S. Salvador;
Brazil Centro Histórico de S. Luís;
Brazil Centro Histórico de Diamantina;
Brazil Centro Histórico de Goiás;
Brazil Centro Histórico de Olinda;
Brazil Centro Histórico de Ouro Preto;
Brazil Santuário do Bom Jesus de Matosinhos em Congonhas;
Paraguai Missões Jesuítas de Trinidad do Paraná e Jesus de Tavaranque;
Uruguai Bairro Histórico da Colónia de Sacramento;


Asia
Bahrein Sítio Arqueológico de Qal’at al-Bahrain;
China Centro Histórico de Macau;
Índia Igrejas e Conventos de Goa;
Sri Lanka Cidade Velha de Galle e suas Fortificações.


While it may seem the portuguese have been afflicted with a sudden desire of voting new wonders right and left there is no doubt that any of the monuments, ruins, historic centres mentioned above are well worth a visit and are rich memories of the past. I was sorry not to see Porto Seguro's historic centre mentioned because I've been there and quite liked it. After seeing this list I wish I could just pack and leave to visit some of them.

The names are in portuguese but the links will take you to sites in english.

Força Portugal!!!

Here We Go Again...

Crossing Fingers!

Portugal! Portugal!

Wishing the best of luck to our national team in the Euro 2008!

Medieval Report

We arrived late yesterday and this morning I was too tired to write anything with sense so I decided to wait for lunch break.

We had a great time!
We arrived friday night, too late to actually go out and explore but we managed to have a good night sleep so we could start early in the morning. We did that but the whole town just started to move by lunch time.

where we had lunch

The whole center of the town was occupied by reenactors, handycraft's stalls, restaurants. Further down by the river we had more restaurants but also the recration of a medieval camp, the birds of prey area, the children's area (with medieval games) and all sorts of activities.

The time frame was the time of King John I, you can read all about it here


The decoration at the inn were we stayed

After dinner it was time for the big procession, 450 people in costume from peasonts, nobility, knights, dancing girls and lots more...



The last event on saturday was the Joust and I'm afraid it was the only thing we were disappointed with. I was expecting a serious reenactment event and instead we had some sort of a parody with a host wanting the audience to cheer on the knights like it was a football game, oh and one of the kinghts was a woman. It was hardly what I was there to see and especially after having spent more than half an hour waiting to get in and then having the people that were part of the organisation very rudely telling us where they wanted us to sit.


The birds of prey, L.'s favourite area...


Children's games...

I still haven't organised the photos, I just dumped everything on Flickr so I could show you but from what I've seen the pictures of the night's events are very bad. You can check them all here. I'm afraid neither of us is very good with the camera...

Medieval Weekend

It's all settled, we are going to the Medieval Fair this weekend. We want to stay right in the middle of things so we're staying here which will allow us to cover everything on foot.

I hope to be back on monday with lots of photos and things to tell!
Till then!

Medieval Fairs

Medieval Fairs and reenactment are all the rage here during the summer. I usually attend when there's one near me, 2 weeks ago there was a small one in Sintra and we had great fun watching a man play with fire. I should have taken some pictures but I forgot the camera, L. took some pictures but phone cameras are not the same. This year I'm even hoping we will manage to visit the big one in Santa Maria da Feira.
I'm not sure if this a complement of my love of medieval readings or if those are a complement to my love of medieval history but I really enjoy attending these fairs. The nice handycrafts and the good food also help making these outings something memorable.

Do you enjoy visiting these kind of events?

Not sure why they don't do it with other periods but so far it's always medieval. I certainly would love to see other periods recreated.

New 7 Wonders

Yesterday the world elected it's New 7 Wonders!

I had no real favourites, there were too many I liked, but as I love all things historical so I was hoping the "older" monuments would win. It seems the world agreed with me and most of the chosen ones were representative of ancient cultures. Only Brasil's Christ the Redeemer left me with some doubts, although an imposing monument it's basically a concrete statue and the design is a regular representation of Jesus Christ. In it's place I would have picked Spain's Alhambra.

I'm glad they removed the Pyramids of Gyza from the competition. It made no sense to me to have the only remaining of the ancient 7 wonders competing with the new ones.

We also elected the 7 Wonders of Portugal and unfortunately my favourite - Mafra's Monastery - did not make it. I must admit it was also a difficult choice and all the 7 elected Monuments are something special. Here's the list of the winners so you can see a little bit of my country:






Mosteiro de Alcobaça










Mosteiro da Batalha










Mosteiro dos Jerónimos










Palácio da Pena










Castelo de Óbidos










Torre de Belém










Castelo de Guimarães

Tintin

Tintin's creator would be 100 years today

7 Wonders

As the World prepares to the election of the New 7 Wonders of The World we, in Portugal, are also voting for the 7 Wonders of Portugal.

Regarding the international candidates it really is a difficult choice and I think there should be more than 7 wonders. I like Neuschwanstein Palace, The Taj Mahal, Macchu Picchu... but all of the others are pretty spectacular too.

Regarding the portuguese ones I know I may be a bit biased but my vote goes to the one that is closer to home The Palace and Convent of Mafra. Even if I've lived with it in my backyard all my life, so to speak, it never ceases to amaze me whenever I look at it.

What about you? Do you have any favourites?

The Horse's Show

I was planning to write this yesterday but I didn't upload the photos sucessfully and that's why I'm only doing it today. I really enjoyed the horse's show on sunday. Unfortunately we forgot the camera home (this is always happening, I really must find a way to remind myself...) but L. managed to get a few pictures on his mobile phone.

If you're curious you can find a couple more here

World Press Cartoon 2007

We spent an enjoyable afternoon yesterday visiting this exhibition. Highly recommended for everyone who loves humour and cartoons!