Not on the Itinerary continue… August 8, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Brazil, England, France, Hotels, Round The World, Tour, Travel Clinic , 3commentsNow I felt well under par. Lying on the bed, which was very old- fashioned but deliciously comfortable, I thought of my home, my Queen and my country. The time was now about nine-thirty, and I must have looked ghastly, for a young nurse who popped in with a set of pyjamas sized up the situation in a second and popped out again, running down the corridor calling for help. (more…)
Pleasant hollow QUELUZ June 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Brazil, Lisbon, Portugal, USA , add a commentThe royal palace of Queluz is situated in a pleasant hollow about nine miles north-west of Lisbon. It belongs to the last phase of the opulent period in Portuguese culture that followed the discovery of gold in Brazil in 1693. At the beginning of the 17th century, foreign artists flocked to Portugal, where they created the somewhat over- decorated Baroque art of the royal palace at Mafra and the churches in Oporto and other cities. Artistically, Queluz represents a reaction against this earlier heaviness a shift from the dominant Italian influence to the lightness of French Rococo. (more…)
Queluz: A rose pink palace in the French eighteenth-century style continue… May 8, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Beach Resorts, Brazil, Europe, Flight Schedule, France, Las Vegas, Library, Lisbon, Memorial, Museum, New York, North America, South America, USA, VISA , add a commentThe Sala dos Embaixadores is the throne room, but an intimate one, for the room is not very large and the windows on either side let in the sun, and the gardens and black and white marble floor are reflected in tall mirrors above the narrow semicircular console tables. This is the only room where the restoration after a great fire in 1934 appears obvious. The other rooms which were damaged have been admirably restored.
Beyond, at right angles, are the apartments of Dona Maria’s son, Dom Joao VI and his sinister Spanish Queen, Carlotta Joaquina, whom Beckford described with such vividness. Sitting oriental fashion on a red velvet carpet laid on the grass, she made him run races with her ladies in the gardens and dance the bolero to a ‘ low, soft-flowing choir of female voices . . . smooth, well-tuned, and perfectly ‘melodious’. The orchestra, which then existed at Queluz was, according to Beckford, the finest in Europe and at that time the wooden theatre in the park still existed, though nothing now remains of it. (more…)
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…)
ROCOCO April 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Australia, Austria, Brazil, England, Europe, France, Germany, Greece, Hotels, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Spain, The Nile, USA, Wellington , add a commentAfter the great days of Baroque, the High Renaissance, led by Bernini and Borromini, and followed variously by Mansart and le Vau in France, Fischer von Erlach and von Hildebrandt in Austria, Zimmerman in Germany, Churriguera in Spain, and Wren,Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh in England, and before a period of Revivalism, France emerged from the reign of Henri IV (reigned 1589-1610) to establish a wealthy bourgeoisie under the political patronage of high taste in the salons of country chateau and hotels. In the next century, during the transitional period from Louis XIV (1638-1715) to the regency of his great grandson, Louis XV (1710-74), a demand for comfort, intimacy and ornament led to the late Baroque variant of Rococo.
The word Rococo derives from the French word rocaille, meaning sea rocks and shells, and it is applied to the highly ornamental and decorative strain of late Baroque architecture. (more…)
