Weekend visit to Sintra

Day trip to Sintra was great. Wish that I had more time to explore as the town was quite spread out. We explored the local park where we encountered rock climbers, took a trolley tour of the city, and relaxed at a cafe that our guide book recommended. I was very happy for it was the first time that i ordered the fish soup; which came in a dark broth with chunks of white fish.
The cuisine is a lovely change from the heavy red meats, jamon, and red wines of Spain. Portugal offers local reasonably priced fishs such as sea bream, cod, swordwish, sea bass (that are most likely caught that day). The fish are usually grilled or cooked in salt, served with peeled potatos, and a veggie. Portugal also serves up many other creatures of the sea like clams, prawns, sardines, and mixed seafood soups. To accompany the fish Portugal has a large array of wonderful light wines, I especially like the semi-sparkling white.
Well, I could go on and on about the food, but instead I will highly recommend anyone who can to come and visit this paradise. Out of my travels to Europe and South America, The Portugese Coast has been my favorite by far.

Day Trip to Lluc

Drove up into the West Coast Mountains of Lluc and Sollier where the highest mountain on the island is located (1445 metres). I can't believe that we made it up and down the windy roads with the old transporter that we are driving. We even passed a bus that had gone over the edge (pic above). Scary! The spanish authorities hadn't even cleared it away yet. I wonder when it had happened? Atleast we made it home safetly with some beautiful pics to share:)

Made it safetly to Palma, Mallorca.

I made it safetly to Palma Mallorca. I'm still alittle jetlagged, but other than that things are going well. I put away my clothes and set up my art work area. Already I've made 4 pieces, all smaller than usual. Its nice to change up the scale in which i work. I also got an email back from a store/gallery in Toronto that I'm going to have a show at in july, so i'm excited about that. I think that's made me get refocused on the artwork making.
Tomorrow I'll get to take a day trip to a different part of the island, probably up in the mountains. My boyfriend and I have an old transporter vw that we'll be using while over here. It's good to get from point a to b, but not very good at accelerating up the mountains. We'll be here for the next 6 weeks. The island is beautiful. We are staying in S'arenal at La Playa Palma. The earth is very dry and sand-like. Lots of cactuses and some how flowers manage to grow here.
Nothing really stands out quite like argentina yet. The produce is alright, nothing special, and i have yet to taste the cafe since I quit drinking it:(
Also the town that we are in is the German equivalent to Cancun for Americans. Its not quite the season yet, but there are almost as many germans as spaniards. yikes. Everywhere there is uber-this or beergarten- that. So this should be interesting...