Frutas Frescas

When you visit Porto you have the opportunity to fill yourself up on delicious fresh fruit. Practically every street has a small fruit shop. There are also large market places where you can get fruits and vegetables and handmade items - like beautiful table clothes.

Here are some pics to get your mouth watering! (Not just fruit pics)

Roses - Rosas do Jardim do Palácio de Cristal

Juliet:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

William Shakespeare 

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

muito linda, não é?

"O que há em um nome? Isso que nós chamamos uma rosa
Por qualquer outro nome cheiraria como o doce. "

The Crystal Palace Gardens in Porto have a beautiful rose garden within the bigger garden area. 

Genesis 1:12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.

Gênesis 1:12 A terra, pois, produziu relva, ervas que davam semente segundo as suas espécies, e árvores que davam fruto que tinha em si a sua semente, segundo as suas espécies. E viu Deus que isso era bom.

The Blue Tiles of Portugal

Portugal is famous for its blue tiles. Almost every building - at least it seems this way to me - has a tile facade. The tiles are part of what makes Porto such a beautiful city.

Here's a picture collage I made from a trip to Porto a few years ago.

The train depot has some amazing tile scenes that tell the history of Portugal.

You can read about the blue tiles - called Azulejo - here Azulejo on Wikipedia

The Douro River - O Rio Douro

As seen from the 

Jardins do Palácio de Cristal (Crystal Palace Gardens) 

Just past that bridge the Douro River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

It looks so peaceful and beautiful. 

Here's something Jesus said about peace.

John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; 

not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful."

João 14:27 A paz vos deixo, a minha paz vos dou. 

Mas não a dou como a dá o mundo. 

Não se preocupem nem tenham medo. 

Capela do Rei Carlos Alberto - Jardim do Palácio de Cristal

The Chapel of King Carlos Alberto in the Crystal Palace Gardens

in Porto, Portugal

Filipenses 2: 8-11 e, vivendo como homem, humilhou-se a si mesmo, obedecendo até à morte, e morte na cruz. Por isso, Deus elevou Jesus acima de tudo e lhe deu o Nome que está acima de todo o nome; para que ao nome de Jesus se dobrem todos os joelhos: no Céu, na Terra e debaixo da terra; e para que todos proclamem, para glória de Deus Pai: Jesus Cristo é Senhor!

Philippians 2:8-11 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Bells of Porto

 Throughout the centuries bells have been placed in churches and cathedrals and church towers. They are used to call people to prayer, to special events (weddings and funerals etc.) and to worship services. Porto has a lot of big bells in beautiful churches and towers.

I think that if the psalmist had bells available he would have added them to this list of instruments used to praise the Lord.

Psalm 150

1 Praise the LORD! Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty expanse. 

2

 Praise Him for His mighty deeds; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. 

3 Praise Him with trumpet sound; Praise Him with harp and lyre. 

4 Praise Him with timbrel and dancing; Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe. 

5 Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with resounding cymbals. 

6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.Praise the LORD!

Salmos 150

1 Aleluia! Louvem ao Senhor! Louvai a Deus no seu santuário; 

louvem-no pelo 

firmamento, que é a sua fortaleza!! 

2 Louvem-no pelas suas obras poderosos; 

louvem-no por todas as suas grandezas!

3 Louvem-no com o toque da trombeta; 

louvem-no com harpas e liras!

4 Louvem-no com tambores e danças;

 louvem-no com instrumentos de corda e flautas! 

5 Louvem-no com címbalos sonoros; 

louvm-no com címbalos vibrantes! 

6 Que todos os seres vivos louvem o Senhor!

Aleluia!

Handbells were first used as a way for those who rang bells in church towers to practice. I suppose if you were going to play for a wedding people would come to church for the wedding while ringers were just practicing.

You can hear my handbell choir and read about our trip to Porto on my Rezounding Praize blog.

Rezounding Praize

These - of course - aren't all of the bells in Porto. Just ones I happened to get pictures of.

A REALLLLLY Tall Bridge and a Brave Woman

The Luís I Bridge as seen from above

She stood frozen, but only for a moment. Would her fear of heights or her dread of walking a long way up a hill win? The bridge stands majestically above the Douro River at 44.6 metres (146 ft). If she didn't walk across the bridge then she would ride the metro down to a lower level of the bluff and then have to walk up to the level of the bridge on the other side.

I wouldn't describe my lovely wife, Cheryl, as a fearful person. She just has a few things that she really doesn't like. The main two - and I'm not sure which is the worst - are snakes and heights. The heights fear includes such things as flying in airplanes, driving or walking over really high bridges and poodles looking out a second story window with only a screen between them and certain death if they pushed the screen out when seeing the neighbor's cat.

Since we had walked a LOT during our visit to Porto her dread of walking across a really high bridge weighed less than the thought of walking up a giant incline.

So she took off. The normally somewhat slow walker suddenly found the energy to get off of that bridge as quickly as she could. the bridge is 385.25 meters across (421.31 yards - give or take an inch).. 

She couldn't wait for our grandson, Gibson. He would have to fend for himself. (For a Grani to leave a grandson behind is a BIG deal.)

Oh! And when walking across the upper level of the Luís I Bridge you have to move away from the yellow line and closer to the rail (where you could plunge to a scary painful death) when the metro train goes by. (Such things as being this close to a train while on a bridge would never be allowed in the USA. I suppose the European leaders believe that their people are smart enough to know to move over - or they don't have lawyers suing everyone in sight.)

After I got Cheryl across the bridge (I did help her when I wasn't taking pictures! ha!) She sent me back to rescue our grandson who at any moment could fall off of the bridge to his scary painful death. 

He and I stopped for a selfie. After all, we didn't know when we would ever be so high up on a bridge again and needed to record the moment. 

Cheryl was very excited that Gibson made it across the bridge alive and that he didn't fall to his scary painful death from the terribly high bridge.

Psalm 56:3 When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You.

Salmos 56:3 Quando tiver medo, confiarei em ti.

If you'd like to see what Wikipedia has to say about this beautiful bridge, 

click here Dom Luís I bridge





Porto has 6 bridges. (I have pictures of others for a later post.)

Do not worry.

Promise of the Rainbow

Do you still remember the meaning of a rainbow? Each time I see a rainbow I am reminded of God's promise to Noah and to mankind to never flood the earth again the way he did in the time of Noah.

Thank you Lord that you keep your promises!
Next time you see a rainbow.....give thanks for kept promises!

Trust in the Lord

I took this picture at the big rocks by castelo do queijo. The tide was high and the waves were crashing against the rocks. It was beautiful!

Photographers in a Tree

Our first post!
We want to share some of the beauty of Porto with the rest of the world. We also want you to know that God loves you. Falamos um pouco de Português, so most of our posts will be in English. But you're probably here to see the pictures anyway.