Last month I completed the visit of the 4 major US universities that were on my To Visit list. After Sanford and Berkeley during my internship in California, visited Boston this October for a conference and had the opportunity to visit the Harvard and MIT campuses.

While Harvard is a beautiful place to visit with all the fancy coffee shops and restaurants around Harvard Square and a very nice bookstore, that makes you feel you are still in the XVIII century.

As for MIT, not much to see, besides lots of geeks (yes, they are easily spotable) and lots lots of bicycles in the parking lots. Just a few funny buildings like the ones in the picture.

As for Boston city, although at first it looks just like a small size NYC, after a few walks around the city you can feel its own vibe and style. For food, you must try the Italian restaurantss in the North End. For guided tours, the list of attractions listed on the trolleys is just a joke, i.e., “Access to MIT campus and Harvard Square” means: we let you out close to a subway station where you can catch the subway to there

This year’s vacations were spent discovering Portugal’s typical villages (Idanha-a-Velha, Sortelha, Castelo-Novo, Almeida, Monsanto, Belmonte, Castelo-Mendo) and also visiting some Unesco World Heritage sites in Spain (Caceres, Merida and Sevilha).

We visited about 60% of the Portuguese villages classified as :”Typical Portuguese Village” and, in addition to last year’s vacations, completed the visit to all but Tarragona in Spain’s mailand Unesco Heritage Cities.

More photos to come on my flickr set: Vacations 2007

 

I’ve uploaded to Flickr the pictures from my vacation trip in Portugal. Although I spent five weeks in Portugal, I only did a 4-day trip through the country, visiting some places like: Palacio do Bucaco, Fatima, Montemor-o-Velho, Conimbriga, Convento de Cristo (Tomar), Vila Vicosa, Evora, Sintra, Parque das Nacoes (Lisbon), Mafra, Obidos, Mosteiro de Alcobaca and Batalha.
You can see the full picture set here.