(Porto, 11/11/11)

(Porto, 11/11/11)

When we arrived on the train, we saw the beach during the rainstorm. The waves were big, and we decided we needed to go to the beach, rain or not. We love beaches here in landlocked Salamanca. It was about 4:00 when we decided to go to the beach, but it took longer than we thought it would to get there.

Luckily, that meant it had stopped raining and the sun was setting. 

(Porto, 11/11)

Almost every building was covered in these beautiful tiles, known as azulejos in portuguese.

I tried to find one that had fallen off of a building, but I only found boring pieces. I kept an olive green one with ridges, prompting my friend to accuse me of hoarding trash. As they say, one man's trash is another man's azulejos.

(Salamanca, 09/08/11)

Catedral Vieja.

During the 1755 Lisbon earthquake (11th worst by magnitude @ 8.7), the old cathedral cracked. Today, if you stand at the correct angle, you can see the slight tilt of the tower. 

(Jungfrau, 08/18/11)

Somewhere between Kleine Scheidegg and the Jungfrau peak. 

(Béjar, 10/12/11)

Abandoned/out of use church on the hill overlooking the town. 

(Firenze, 08/23/11)

Brunelleschi's Dome, Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. 

Built in the 14th century, the dome was an amazing feat of architectural genius. Of all the geniuses of the renaissance, architect Filippo Brunelleschi managed to design a structure that could support its own massive weight.

To get to the top, we climbed roughly 460 steps between the outer and inner dome.

Click the link. I promise it's interesting. And better at explaining cool things than I am.