Lisbon - Day 3

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Phew, another hot and uncomfortable night with no air conditioning. The owner/operator of the apartments did respond to Bernie’s email about the a/c. They are aware of the situation, but it is the outdoor machines that have a problem and it is being investigated. Well, der, it is the outside unit that does the heavy lifting, just get them serviced or replaced! We are very cynical about this and feel that the owner/operator has probably been telling clients all summer that the air conditioning is ‘being investigated’.

All we can console ourselves with is that we are not in residence during one of the three extreme heat waves that Lisbon has sweltered through this summer. I mean at least daytime temperatures are only in the 30s not the 40s!! So, we slept with the pedestal fan going all night which I guess took the edge of the heat a little bit? It was a bit weird though that each time I stirred during the night I thought that the police helicopter was hovering over Bell Street. Ha, ha.

This morning we headed across to Baixa-Chiada Station to catch the green line to Cais do Sodré where we changed to an overground train heading for Cascais. With Cascais being a beach destination we were sharing the train with people obviously heading to the beach for the day. Oops we managed to catch a train that didn’t stop at Belém. We might need to keep in mind to check the information board in case it says that the service is going to be a limited express?

Not to worry, we alighted at the very next stop and set out along the riverfront towards Belém Tower. Approaching from this direction we walked past the Museu do Combatente which pays tribute to and honours the members of the Portuguese armed forces who have given their lives for the country in various conflicts. As luck would have it, we were able to watch the 10.00am ‘Changing of the Guards’.

We arrived at Torre de Belém about 10.15am to be confronted by quite a queue of tourists waiting to be admitted. Damn, a much, much longer line than we encountered at Convento do Carmo yesterday morning. So much for thinking that an attraction a bit further out of the city would be less popular?! We joined the end of the queue and settled in to wait in the sun. Thankfully it was cooler by the river than it was in the city yesterday.

Officially known as the Torre de São Vincente, the tower is a 16^th-century fortification that served as a point of embarkation and disembarkation for Portuguese explorers and as a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon. It was built during the height of the Portuguese Renaissance in the Manueline style attributed to the period during which King Manuel I reigned. Limestone was used to build the bastion and 30-metre, four-story tower.

I held our place in the line while Bernie went to buy us a bottle of water to stay hydrated during our wait. When he came back he decided he should check if our Lisbon Cards entitled us to a fast-tracked entry. That would be ‘no’, but he did discover that we needed to validate our cards at the ticket booth … which we would have walked past if we had come from Belém Station. He validated both our tickets and rejoined me to wait it out. Thank goodness we discovered that before we reached the head of the queue!

The line was moving along quite nicely. Half a dozen people would exit the tower and they would admit another six or so people, presumably to manage numbers inside the tower so it wouldn’t become too crowded. Anyhow, the line was moving along, moving along and we were creeping ever closer to the entry point … and then they admitted the group with 11.00am timed entry tickets and everything came to a standstill with us having advanced to within eight people of the tape. So close and yet so far!

And then nothing happened, at all, for about half an hour. What? The ticket attendant went into the tower with the 11.00am group and the tape barrier was left unattended with no-one coming to replace him. It’s a credit to the patience of human beings that no-one even considered ducking under the tape and entering the tower. I mean with no attendant there, there was seemingly nothing stopping us from storming the tower!!! So we waited and waited and waited until, finally, it was our turn to enter the tower.

I am in two minds about whether entering the tower was worth the wait? I think much of the romance of the tower is the image it creates jutting out into the Rio Tejo … and goodness knows we managed to take enough photos of the outside of the tower while we were waiting in the queue!!! It was interesting to enter the UNESCO World-Heritage-listed fortress, but was it interesting enough to justify the amount of time we had waited?? Anyhow, once inside we made sure to explore every inch that we could, including climbing the narrow spiral staircase to see the Governor’s Hall, the King’s Hall, the Audience Hall and the Chapel on the first, second, third and fourth floors of the tower.

Leaving the tower behind us we walked along the riverbank past Farol Belém (Belem Lighthouse) to Padrão dos Descobrimentos. Where the Belém Tower is a 16^th-century tribute to the Age of Discovery, the monolithic Padrão dos Descobrimentos was inaugurated in 1960 on the 500^th anniversary of Henry the Navigator’s death and is pretty much a who’s who of Portuguese explorers.

In the shape of a caravel ship frozen in mid-swell, the 56-metre-high limestone sculpture features Henry at the prow joined by some 29 other Portuguese seafaring adventurers of note including Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan. Talk about a MASSIVE monument to colonialism. In Australia Captain Cook is seen as the bad guy, the invader rather than the discoverer but, let’s face it, the Portuguese started it all in the 15^th-century, long before James Cook came on the scene.

As we had been walking along the riverbank we discussed whether or not we would go into the monument to take in the view from the top. Hmmn, we decided, let’s see what the queue is like, but we are not going to queue for another hour to look out over the river again. Well, it seems that not many people are interested in venturing inside the modern monument, because there was hardly anybody in the queue. Could it have been the €10.00 vs €6.00 entry fee? That doesn’t seem significant enough to make such a huge difference to the numbers entering the two monuments.

So we paid for two tickets (€8.30 each with our Lisbon Cards) and took the lift to the top and looked out over the Rio Tejo, Ponte 25 de Abril and the Cristo Rei Statue on the one side and the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos on the other. When we looked out over the monastery we were dismayed to see how long the queue still was after noon. It was on our list to do today, but we felt like we really could not face queuing again for an hour or more in the sun.

Feeling a bit frustrated with the sheer volume of visitors to the attractions in Belem today we found some lunch at Gandalata, a coffee shop adjacent to the ferry station and considered our options. While we ate we decided that we would visit the Museu Nacional dos Coches instead, even though Google Maps warned that it was busier than usual.

We negotiated the conveniently located pedestrian overpass to make our way to the coach museum on the other side of the road and railway line. Gosh the place must be as dead as a door nail ordinarily because, despite Google’s dire warning that it’s busier than usual, we almost had the place to ourselves. Probably a bit nerdy, but we found the collection of 17^th- to 19^th-century coaches very interesting. These coaches were not just transportation, they were statements, kind of like the red Lamborghini of their day?!

After our fill of antique coaches we crossed the road to Belem Station and reversed our journey of this morning to return to our apartment. We’d only had a light lunch so declared it gelato o’clock as we walked between the Baixa-Chiada Station and our home away from home. We didn’t even have to go out of our way to stop in at Artisani – Rua do Ouro, it was literally on our way! And we didn’t have to order, she remembers us and our order.

Tonight for our dinner we returned to Taverna Alfacinha. We started with garlic prawns again and then had the cod special which was delicious if bony. It’s always a challenge eating fish with bones in it!



Steps: 12,657 (8.56 kms)

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