Graciosa is another Island of the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. Located 31 miles North-West of Terceira, Graciosa is very small, about 25 sq miles (60 Km2) and it has about 5000 habitants. The main municipalities are Santa Cruz, Praia, Guadalupe, Luz and Carapacho.
The island is characterized by its windmills and natural beauty. It’s an extremely calm place, and the inhabitants are very calm and friendly. It is common to see an old man riding his donkey on the way to feeding their cattle. Graciosa also produces its own wine and cheese, which are awesome by the way. The “Linguica” produced there is also quite unique and tasty.
The municipality of Praia hosts one of my favorite Azorean sand beaches, with very clear waters. Carapacho is home to a very unique place. It has volcanic springs that are used by visitors for medicinal purposes.
Knowing the island as well as I know it, I recommend a few destinations:
Barro Vermelho – Great picnic area by the ocean, very relaxing, you can fish and swim as well.
Carapacho Hot Spring Baths.
Monte de Nossa Senhora da Ajuda – a small hill located in the heart of Santa Cruz, offers a great view over the island’s main municipality.
Ethnographic Museum, which displays several cultural and whaling artifacts and memories.
Caverns: “Bolos, Lembradeira, Manuel de Avila, Labarda, Furada, Linheiro, Cardo, Gato, Castelo, Calcinhas, Queimado, Vermelho, Cao, Urze and Luis”.
There you go. Some basic information about this beautiful island of the Azorean archipelago. This is a place you want to spend 2 weeks just to relax and be away from everything bothersome about society in general, like sounds/air pollution, traffic, etc.
Freddy Adu’s Goal for Benfica in the Carlsberg Cup
Freddy Adu’s winning goal against Maritimo
Overview
Freddy Adu is a Ghanaian-American soccer player, considered one of the biggest all-time talents of American soccer. At the early age of 14 he made his professional debut in the Major League Soccer. Freddy Adu played in D.C United and Real Salt Lake, while playing for the American U-17 and U-20 squads.
Well, he’s in Sport Lisboa e Benfica, a Portuguese club. It’s not just another club, it happens to be the club with more paying members in the world (over 160,000) beating clubs like Manchester United and Real Madrid. Benfica is also a club with a lot of tradition in the European Cups, including 7 Champions League finals, having won 2 of them. In the country league, Benfica also leads with 31 “campeonatos” thus far.
Freddy Adu moved to Benfica in the beginning of the current season, 2007/08. Since then Adu has participated in a few games, mostly as a substitute and scored 2 official goals thus far. One of them was the winning goal against Maritimo, but the best goal he scored so far was against Estrela da Amadora. Enjoy the videos.
Where does Freddy Adu go from here?
Freddy Adu needs to play more often, he’s got skill, but he’s young and needs time adapting to European soccer. He’s continuously improving, and local Portuguese media report him as being hard at work to improve even more. I’m confident that he will help Benfica win many games in the near future.
In contrast with the previous post (about Beckham), Cristiano Ronaldo is at his prime at Manchester United. The portuguese has scored what is probably one of the best free kicks of the year against Portsmouth, and has 27 goals this season – he’s a getting very close to George Best’s record! Ronaldo is doing his best season yet, and is a serious contender for FIFA’s player of the year.
I'm a PHP/Zend developer for Netzuri with over 5 years of professional experience. I have a B.S. in Information Systems, and a M.S. in Management Information Systems.
Feel free to visit Netzuri.com if you need professional Web Development and Design.
My resume can be seen here.
