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Posts Tagged ‘tiles’

“Dead House” : Porto, 10th September 2011

Sad to say, but from what I saw, there are many abandoned buildings like this one all over the urban areas of Portugal. Some, as we have seen, have been transformed into interesting and cheerful street art, but this forlorn shell in the centre of Porto has had no such treatment.

Despite this, however, the building retains a certain proud grandeur and is resplendent in its gorgeous facade of green tiles (it is a feature of traditional Portuguese architecture to have a tiled frontage, though more often than not this is blue or patterned rather than green).

I hope the money can be found to rescue this once grand residence before it crumbles into dust…

You can see a larger version of this photo here.

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“Ornate Orange Roof” : Sintra, Portugal, 6th September 2011

Sintra is a countryside getaway for the population of Lisbon. Just a short train ride out, and you can escape the crowded run-down suburbs of the Portuguese capital and find yourself out in a rocky, hilly playground near the wild Atlantic, studded with beautiful forests, ancient castles and more modern follies of the rich and regal. Idyllic, except that you’re going to have to share this rural paradise with all the other thousands bent on making the same excursion as you. Hint: don’t go on weekends.

I’d barely got a couple of hundred meters from the train station on the longish walk to the attractions when I spotted this gorgeously intricate (and perhaps over-the-top) roof. There would be plenty more photo ops later…

You can find a larger version of this photo here.

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After my trek through the vineyards around the Burgundian town of Beaune, I still had some time left before my train back to Dijon, so I stopped by the amazing Hospices de Beaune.

Resembling a church, this ornate structure built in the fifteenth century was actually, as the name implies, a hospital for the poor.

Inside it houses some impressive art by Rogier van der Weyden and Lucas Cranach the Elder – big names indeed, considering the diminutive size of the town.

Here’s a detail from another part of this vast building’s roof:

Bigger versions of these photos can be found here and here.

 

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Sometimes I deliberately zoom in on the textures and patterns I see because that’s what makes the photo a little different from the norm, especially where travel pictures are concerned.

Here, though, I did actually take a wider shot of a church in Dijon, but since the weather was bad and the sky a dull grey, I just kept cropping until it had all been expunged, and these colourful tiles were all that remained…

See a larger version here.

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