Lisbon and surroundings

---

Lisbon is my first stop on a 9-country business trip. I arrived on Saturday the 13th and only had the rest of the weekend for sightseeing in Lisbon and for taking a day trip to Obidos, Nazare and Fatima. On Saturday afternoon I took the blue Cityline double decker bus tour which covered most of the Lisbon highlights including the city center, the Belem tower, the Campo Pequeno bull ring, the Abenida de la Libertad, the Estreal Basilica and other sites. Lisbon is beautifully located on seven hillls overlooking the mouth of the Tagus River where it enters the Atlantic. It has many historical buildings, some faced with beautiful Portugese tile. However aside from the highlights, my overall impression was that Lisbon is quite run down and that it will take lots of time and EU money to restore it back to its former glory. For me, the two most interesting buildings were the Belem Tower, which is directly on the bay and which is on the World Heritage historical site list, and the Campo Pequeno, the venue for weekly bull fights, for concerts and other events. I stayed at the Marriott Hotel which is not in the city center, but close to a large shopping mall and only about 10 minutes from the airport. It is a comfortable hotel, although not one of my favorite Marriotts, which are usually my hotels of choice.

On Sunday, the 14th I took an all-day Gray Line tour to Obidos, Nazare, Batalha and Fatima. Obidos is a lovely medieval town built at the base of a castle. It has narrow, tree-lined streets, pretty houses with flower boxes and sovenier shops which primarly sell local handicrafts. I found it attractive, but as a jaded long-time traveler an hour stop was long enough and it was time to move on.

Our next stop was for lunch at the lovely beach resort of Nazare, named after the city of Nazareth where Christ was born. Nazare has wide, beautiful beaches but the water is apparently very cold and rough as there were few swimmers despite 70+ degrees F and sun. We ate fish in an restaurant overlooking the beach.

After lunch we drove to the pilgrimage church of Fatima where a miracle is alleged to have taken place. The church itself was quite impressive but as a non-Catholic I found the rituals surrounding it bizzare. There weren't many pilgrims present but there were a few older women and young mothers with babies, deomonstrating their faith by walking on their knees for several hundred meters on hard pavement to reach the site of the miracle. Near this site candles of various sizes were being sold. In addition to the usual rack for placing lighted candles, there was a large permanent fire into which many people tossed their burining candles. Apparently it was sort of an instant messaging system for sending up prayers to the Virgin. A few years ago Pope John-Paul II made a major contribution to the aura surrounding Fatima by donating the bullet that an assasin almost killed him with and which was extracted from his body.

---