| Through Spain and Portugal Contributor(s): Peixotto, Ernest Clifford (Author) |
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ISBN: 1115418475 ISBN-13: 9781115418478 Publisher: BCR (Bibliographical Center for Research) OUR PRICE: $27.68 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2009 * Not available - Not in print at this time * |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History |
| Physical Information: 0.68" H x 5" W x 8" (0.71 lbs) 326 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PORTUGAL'S BATTLE ABBEYS ALCOBACA ON a certain Sunday morning we set out from Lisbon to visit Portugal's battle abbeys? her monumental trilogy, her splendid triptych, as I like to call them: Alcobaca, singing the praises of her rude conquistador Affonso Henriques; Batalha, built by John the Great, hero of Aljubar- rota, and Thomar, stronghold of the inspired disciples of Henry the Navigator. They lie away from the railway lines and from this fact are a little inconvenient of access, but to me that is an attraction rather than a drawback, for no tourist caravan breaks the spell nor disturbs the harmony of the impression. As you leave the capital, the train skirts the sea for several hours, not indeed within sight of its breakers, for these are hidden by intervening dunes,but through pine woods, up-hill and down, and across sandy plains. Even this short bit of railroad is replete with souvenirs?those, for example, that cluster round Pefia Castle high perches to the left upon Cintra's mountain and about the huge convent- palace of Mafra, built by the pietistic John V. Then you thread the steep declivities of Torres Vedras, into whose flanks Wellington dug those stupendous trenches?marvels of military art?that stopped Massena's onward march forever and turned the tide of Napoleon's career. An hour later you spy Obidos, the feudal stronghold of Diniz the Good, rising proudly upon a hill, clad in all the majesty of its walls and towers, its long lines of battlements securely enfolding the vassal town that looked to it for protection. Then, in a lovely valley, the big pink Hotel Lisbonense tells of the continued vogue of the famous sulphur baths, the Caldas da Rainha, whose hospital, capable of sheltering some four hundred patients, was founded nearly five centuries ago by Le... |
