Queluz: A rose pink palace in the French eighteenth-century style May 8, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Bank Note, Beach Resorts, Brazil, Denmark, England, Europe, Flight Schedule, Hotels, Italy, Library, Lisbon, London, Memorial, Museum, Portugal, Restaurant, Spain, Sweden, Travellers Cheque , add a commentThe palace of QUELUZ, near Lisbon, is elegantly rustic in a way that is very characteristic of Portuguese life and manners. It has a seductive grace, for its muted beauty grows on the beholder gradually, until at length the splendours of a more conventionally royal building seem almost vulgar in comparison.
The rose-pink colour-washed facade is cunningly designed with two low semi-circular wings springing out from a small central block. The southern side ends in a black onion dome above the chapel, and goes on at right angles in a series of dependent buildings of different sizes. The northern wing now contains a luxury restaurant in the original kitchens of the palace. (more…)
The Winter Palace: A masterpiece by Italian and French architects on Neva continue… May 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Bank Note, Beach Resorts, Credit Card, Flight Schedule, Library, Memorial, Moscow, Museum, Paris, Travel Clinic, Travellers Cheque , 3commentsWith Catherine the Great in power we find a new style creeping into the character of the buildings, classical tendencies from the West replacing Elisabeth’s Russian rococo style, the Palladian influence reaching as far as St Petersburg. The town gradually became, particularly in the reign of Alexander I, an ‘ Empire’ town; its classicist features were introduced first by Quarenghi and later maintained by Rossi. Rinaldi, the Italian architect, and the French Vallin de la Mothe, both employed by Catherine the Great, brought the Louis XVI style to St Petersburg, but on an overwhelming scale, inspired and required by the gigantic dimensions of the Neva. (more…)
