Vitor Rodrigues

Originally uploaded by Vitor Rodrigues.

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

Originally uploaded by Vitor Rodrigues.

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

 

Originally uploaded by vitor.rodrigues.

Over the years, the CN Tower has become the symbol of Toronto, receiving more than 2 million visitors per year. At the observation deck, the visitors can watch the frenetic life in downtown Toronto and Chinatown or just look back and see the Lake Ontario and the Toronto Island. In clear days, Niagara and Buffalo (New York state) are also visible.

Flickr pictures tagged with CN Tower. 

Originally uploaded by vitor.rodrigues.

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.

IMG_1838

Originally uploaded by vitor.rodrigues.

One of the goals of my blog is to publish some pictures and review or opinion about places I have traveled. This is the first travel related post, and I’m also trying this Flickr blog integration system.

About the picture: for the ones that didn’t figure it out yet, it’s a picture of the Space Needle tower, in Seattle. I visited Seattle on the weekend of July 4th 2006, and the Space Needle is a mandatory touristic place to go! The view from the top of it it’s just awesome, more during the day than at night. During the day, you can see downtown Seattle and the Mt Rainier to the south. The view over the bay is also great, where you can see the cruises coming and going.