Lisbon, Portugal

The Arco da Rua Augusta (August Street Arch) seen from Praça do Comércio, a large riverfront square is more dramatic at dusk...

Typical Portugese street scene with a small car and building facade covered in blue tiles

Music festival along the Belém waterfront

Really good graffiti and street art was everywhere...

Some jacaranda

Neither myself or these other travelers I met wanted to eat the cold snails the waiter brought us after our lunch.

Santa Justa Elevator

The Padrão dos Descobrimentos or Monument of Discoveries is a tribute to the Portugese navigators of the 15th Century.  In the background, the red bridge look a lot like the Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco.  Besides their look-alike bridges, Lisbon is packed with steep hills, vistas and colorful buildings just like SF.

Belém Tower at the mouth of the Talus River

Reggae music was in the air at this DJ festival along the waterfront.

 

The Disneyland-like Pena National Palace outside Lisbon near Sintra

Hazul's Street Art in Porto

Amazing Graffiti by Porto street artist Hazul...

This piece on the side of a parking garage in Porto was commissioned.

However, Hazul's innumerable other works on walls around the city are not officially sanctioned.  His other works of graffiti are mostly on the doors of abandoned houses, of which there are plenty in Porto.  

Porto's UNESCO World Heritage designation in 1998 brings international tourists to come see the old city, but it also places certain restrictions on homeowners in the historic quarter.  In order for someone to restore an old home or building, they must maintain certain historic features on the facade and exterior per UNESCO's rules.  This helps keep the historic center maintain a certain style, but the high cost of this highly regulated renovation also prevents many from being able to restore old homes.  The result is countless empty buildings and houses in city where homeless citizens could use a place to live.  The city actually puts up concrete blocks in the doorways of these derelict, abandoned homes to prevent squatters from entering - and Hazul paints these beautiful goddess images on these doorways all over Porto...

Palermo

My Vueling flight descending into the Palermo airport

Marié came to Sicily to hang out for a week for her spring break in March.  Here she's posing in the narrow streets of old Palermo with lights on strings and hanging laundry on the street level.

The church of San Cataldo is characteristic of Palermo's mix of Norman, Arabic and Byzantine architecture.

The Cappella Palatina contains amazing mosaics from the 12 Century.  Located in the Palazzo Reale, it was the royal chapel for the Norman Kings.

Here's Eve rising out of Adam's side.

And here's St. Paul receiving a direct message from God - from the sky into his ear.

Sometimes the street art mimics the church art.

More street art in Palermo's historic city center...

The intersection of the Quattro Canti, a square where four neighborhoods are represented by four Baroque facades replete with fountains and statues of four patronesses and four Spanish Kings.

Near Palermo's Cathedral

Banksy in Bethlehem & Thoughts on Palestine

Banksy street art in Bethlehem...A site for Christian tourists and pilgrims and only a little over four miles away from Jerusalem, Bethlehem is part of Palestine and is governed by the Palestinian authority.

Another piece of street art by Banksy

Here is the wall keeping the Palestinians inside the city of Bethlehem and out of the rest of Israel.  While traveling in Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine, I learned a lot about the entire Israel-Palestine conflict and more about the history of the region and the state of Israel.  The situation is really complicated, too complicated to want to profess a strong opinion here on my photo blog.  The plight of the Palestinian citizens is deplorable as they are not free humans and I hate that my government ('Murica) assists the Israeli military with cash (an annual package of 3 Billion dollars).  However, other than that, I am not going to suggest a solution or criticize either side too much as the more I understand, the more I realize how much tragedy has already occurred and how difficult it will be to resolve.  

But I'll add two things.  Reading Sandy Tolan's book, The Lemon Tree, helped me to comprehend better the context of the crazy quagmire that is now Israel.  And I was surprised to hear from several Palestinians that they support a one-state solution to their conflict.  That implication means that despite 135 countries of the United Nations (about 70%of the UN) recognizing the State of Palestine as a sovereign nation, at least some Palestinians would prefer for all of Palestine to be absorbed into Israel (it practically is already since it is all more or less occupied) and be given Israeli citizenship and the right to be free and to travel freely.  I imagine this one-state solution is preferable for some Palestinians as they would have the ability to work in Israeli society, which has one of the strongest economies of the region and would be more of a fast-track to modern "normalcy" of being able to work and live as free global citizens.  If you have thoughts on this, feel free to write in the comments below... 

Touching the spot in the Church of the Nativity where Jesus Christ was supposedly born

In the underground chapel (formerly cave) of Jesus's supposed birthplace with other foreign tourists

Here's a sign in Hebrew, Arabic and English noting the border of a Palestinian Area A.  The city of Bethlehem, for example, is an Area A of Palestine.  The cities of Palestine Area A are all or mostly enclosed by walls.  Israelis are technically not supposed to enter, but no one controls their movements.  For Palestinian residents of Area A, most of them cannot leave.  It is possible to get permits for day passes (for example to drive a few miles to go work in Jerusalem), but Palestinians must travel through check points to enter into Israel.  There are also Palestinian Areas B and C.  As a foreign tourist, I can travel freely through all, (though not to Gaza, which is a totally different situation).  Actually, this subject is so complicated and the issue of Jerusalem even more so, I'm just going to give you links for anyone who really wants to understand the current "borders" of occupied Palestine:
Wikipedia's explanation of West Bank Areas with maps
Al Jazeera's map of the "occupation" of the West Bank with an explanation of what each Area means and a map of Jerusalem 

Waiting at a checkpoint to reenter Israel.  Foreigners and Israelis are just waved through.

Also a few miles outside of Jerusalem is Herodion, the ruins of an ancient hilltop fortified palace built by King Herod.  Here, workers excavate some of the underground tunnels beneath Herodion.

An ancient cistern of Herodion

Tel Aviv & Israel's West Coast

Olives in Carmel Market

In February, I joined my parents for a trip to Israel with Overseas Adventure Travel.

Stand up paddle boarders in Tel Aviv

We visited the site where Yitzhak Rabin was tragically assassinated.

Halva in Carmel Market

My parents were psyched to drink the delicious, ubiquitous and relatively inexpensive fresh pomegranate juice, not poison soda.

Cool street art in Florentin, one of Tel Aviv's neighborhoods...

Gabe whom I met at CIDEP in Argentina showed me around the city.

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Ruins of a Roman Palace with mosaics on the Mediterranean at Caesarea

Entrance gate built by the crusaders at Caesarea

The Jazzar Pasha Mosque in Akko (or Acre)

Inside the Jazzar Pasha Mosque...

The vertical columns on the carpet separate kneeling places for those praying.

Another mosque in Akko

At Rosh HaNikra

The Israel-Lebanon border up the hill from Rosh HaNikra
Israel is the biggest receiver of US military aid since World War II.  Israel is now annually receiving an aid package worth three BILLION dollars!  That comes out to over 8 Million dollars that American taxpayers pay Every Single Day to support Israel's military...just saying.  (Numbers sourced from Reuters though you can find the same or similar numbers all over the interwebs).

Looking down on Haifa, the Baha'i Gardens and the world headquarters of the Baha'i religion