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Published: December 31st 2007
Downtown Lisbon
Most of the city looks like this, with the cool lights.We arrived in Lisbon in the glorious sunshine and not so warm 12 degree heat of an Iberian winter. The Portuguese claimed it was cold, which I guess it was, but from the damp of France and the cold of Germany, Lisbon was positively tropical. Portugal is an interesting country. It's laid back, introspective and apparently living on past glories. That's what the guidebooks say and for the most part it's probably true.
We arrived a bit after lunchtime from Paris and by the time we'd been in the country two hours we'd already been offered hasish by three different people just in the street in front of cops who couldn't care less. It's imported from Morocco in vast quantities - when we left Sevilla the cops were celebrating bringing in 7.1 tonnes of the stuff in one bust. I tell you what, it's an interesting introduction to a city that's for sure. Beats being hustled though. Lisbon, along with a good chunk of southern Spain, was flattened in 1755 by a massive earthquake and downtown Lisbon is a reflection of the fact that the epicentre of the quake was right under the city! We
The Praca del Comercio
The man on the right is a drug dealer, but shhh..... strolled amongst the Baroquey-Georgiany-Spanish Colonialy (Jen keeps pointing out that it's not Spanish Colonial, and I know, but I don't know what else to call it!) buildings just constantly looking up at some of the more interesting bits of architecture that we've seen in a wee while. The Portuguese also put everyone else to shame with their seriously impressive Christmas street lighting displays.
We were back in the hostel in time for dinner that night. Al's Top Travel Tip for Lisbon: If you're staying in a hostel, get into the Oasis Backpackers Mansion and make sure you check in on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday. That way, the night you arrive, Linda is cooking dinner for five euros. Who's this Linda you may ask? She's a Portuguese mum who cooks at the hostel because she can and she rather seems to enjoy hanging out with random foreigners and raving about how great Portugal is (she's right, I might add!) She cooked a Brazilian dish of black beans, pork and rice called Feijoada which was simply outstanding and since Jen and I both are always knackered after travelling, it was a great way to end our first day in the
Segway Cops
Just had to chuck this in... Iberian.
The next day was stunning (as all our days in Lisbon turned out to be) and so we decided to climb up to the old castle above the city and check out the views. We wandered across downtown Lisbon, stopping to admire Portuguese attempts at ice skating - they all seemed to suck as much as I did at it. Teehee. We climbed up through the hills of a very old Lisbon and just got more of a vibe of how people really live in this city. It's a pretty cool place.
The castle, home of almost all of Portugal's kings over the years, sits atop the hill above Afalma and lords over the city providing unparalleled views of the Tagus and the town. We strolled around the walls, looked at the views, talked to the cats and admired the peacocks. See, the Portuguese have it right - it's not a stately home without peacocks! It was really rather a nice way to spend the morning. On the way up we kept seeing bits of a random medieval building and as we strolled back down the hill we managed to find it quite by accident. Known as
The Bridge
from the Stoner's View. Le Se, the medieval cathedral is one of the few buildings to survive the 1755 quake relatively unscathed. It's wholly unlike almost every other cathedral we've been into in Europe and is so much more Gothickly atmospheric than any of the others. It's dark and moody and full of shrines to saints whose names you can't pronounce and whose stories you can't remember. It's quite incredible.
One more stunning morning and we decided to go out and visit Belem. Belem is famous for two things and we got to enjoy both of them. It's famous for it's monuments and for it's pastries. Monuments first, pastries second.
We got off the bus next to the awe inspiring Monasterio del Geronimoes (or Monastery of St Jerome - patron saint of Skydivers) with the help of the very nice bus driver and were quite simply struck dumb. It's an enormous edifice now containing the Museum of Archaeology and the huge chapel but thanks once again to the EU, we weren't able to look inside. So we contented ourselves with a walk around the magnificent building and tried to get it all into a decent picture! We cruised down to the waterfront
Le Se
and a Lisbon streetcar and looked at the enormous bridge and took a closer look at the monument to Henry the Navigator. Belem is famous in Portugal as the place where Portugal's great explorers set off for their travels around the world. Da Gama sailed from here, as did Henry himself. The monument itself is a really interesting, with one side decorated with the military personnel that supported the exploration and the other with the artists and scientists who recorded and learned from Henry's trips into the great unknown. Our last stop was the Torre de Belem, built during the reign of Manuel I as a defensive structure on the Tagus in the style that now bears the name of the King who built it. Manueline architecture is unique to Portugal and that's probably a good thing. Manueline is....odd. It's vaguely Georgian but also organic, bubbly and well...quite unlike anything else you'll see anywhere else in the world.
We had lunch at a place called Past'eis de Belem. This little cafe is famous for the creation of a certain little pastry that has been copied all over the city but Past'eis made the first one. The pastry in question is a small custard
Monasteria del Jeronimos
HUGE! And we couldn't go in. Thanks EU. tart (which Jen didn't really like) that is baked with sweet filo-y type pastry and covered with cinnamon. They're really really good and, like most food things in Portugal, cheap! 70 cents! The recipe is still a secret after 100+ years in business and that alone makes a visit to Past'eis de Belem essential for the foody traveller. I have to admit that Jen and I didn't manage to do as many foody things as we wanted to, but this one was pretty good.
After our excellent lunch, we decided that we'd catch the train from Belem out to Cascais, Lisbon's beach resort. There's nothing in particular to do there, we just enjoyed getting away from the city and all the people and sat across the mouth of the Tagus and looked back at the city, admiring the view and the smog that hung over Lisbon! Had the weather been better, we'd have rented bikes and gone out to the beach proper (since the one at Oriental Bay dwarfs the beach in Cascais town!) but we decided that it was nicer just to sit in the sun by the sea and have a quiet drink and an icecream. What's
The Bridge
and the Henry the Navigator Memorial from a distance.... not to like?
The next day we decided to go to Sintra, a UNESCO World Heritage site outside Lisbon famous for it's palaces. We followed the directions from the hostel precisely and wound up on the wrong train. Al's Top Travel Tip - all the directions to Sintra are the same; they say go to the train station and get on a train leaving from Platform 2. That's it. Well, check with the guard to make sure since we wound up on the express intercity train to the middle of nowhere and fortunately it stops about half way to Sintra and that's the ONLY place it stops before it leaves Lisbon. It's the first and last place you can change to the right train!
We wandered into town from the train station (you can take the bus but....) and admired the town's current collection of public art and the Palacio del Sintra in the background. This used to be the Royal Palace in the city where the royal family would come to escape the city in the summer. It was not, however, the reason for our visit. We came to see one thing, and if you come to
Torre de Belem
It's a Tower. It's in Belem. Hence, Torre de Belem. Sintra and only have time, energy or funds to see one thing, then it must be Quinta de Regaleria.
Built in 1905 by set designer Enrico Morelli for an eccentric Portuguese doctor, Quinta de Regaleria is definitely the home of a crazy person. The Doctor was heavily into Hermetic philosophy and alchemy and was, frankly, a bit nuts as a result. Hermeneutics is as much a philosophy and way of life as it is about harnessing the power of the universe to muck about with alchemical experiments. So our Doctor had his own small castle built into the grounds, as well as a chapel, stable house, arts workshop, water filled grotto and a few other surprises. The hillside is honeycombed with caves that join up all over the place as well as an “initiation well” at the centre of the cave network and a number of symbolic entrances covered with weird and wonderful mythical sculptures that are connected with Hermetic philosophy. On top of all that, there's a tennis court and an underground aquarium. These days the aquarium needs restoration, as does the greenhouse, but given time, these things will come. The house is an essential part of the
Cascais
A brief escape from the "madness of Lisbon!" Quinta de Regaleria and it's a great place just to wander. The architect took the whole thing very seriously and the displays in the house go a long way to illustrating how he built the place - his careful drawings of every little detail including the mouldings, the flooring, the windowframes - you name it. Atop the whole house is a small alchemical laboratory accessed by hidden doors and spiral staircases and you can't actually get into it but you can get up into another tower and see all the crazy alchemical symbology that adorns the rooftop. The Quinta de Regaleria is probably the coolest thing in Sintra and definitely worth the visit, just to experience one man's obsession.
When we left Quinta de Regaleria and had lunch we got on the city tour bus and headed up the main hill. Al's Top Travel Tip for Sintra - the tour bus costs 4 euros but it is the only realistic way to see the Palacio del Pena and El Castelo Mouros. You can walk, but I can only imagine how long it takes and the road isn't really made for walking. Hence why the bus costs 4 euros! Since
Sintra Town Hall
As impressive as the rest of the city the funds and time were a bit tight we decided against paying for anything else (!) and so we strolled around the remnants of the Moorish Castle up to the point where you have to pay for it an did the same at Pena Palace. The Moorish Castle is looking a bit run down although that has something to do with the fact that King Ferdinand the Second had the place made so to make it a “romantic ruin” for him to muck about in when he was in the city. Kings? Who'd be one? Pena Palace looks like it's pretty mad, but 8 euros was a bit steep to see something that we'd already seen lots of pictures of. So we headed back down the mountain and rode the train back into the city.
On our last day in Lisbon we decided to slack off a bit and do something that was a bit more relaxed. We caught the subway out to the East of the city to the Parc des Nacoes - the home of Expo 98 in Lisbon. There are lots of things to do around the waterfront there and we settled on our old standby
The Royal Palace
You can tell by the pointy things. Apparently quite popular at the time. - the science museum! We spent most of the afternoon just mucking around and supposedly learning things as well as being grossed out by the large scale model exhibits of the human body, including an enormous nose that sneezed on you when you walked inside. Gross eh? We strolled around the park after we'd been revolted by the fart machine and the barf device and just admired the architecture and the scenery. The Parc has the most pointless cablecar in existence that runs along the waterfront walkway and provides excellent views of the longest bridge in Europe at a whopping 17.7 kms in length! Of course the view from the waterfront are no different and going all the way up the Torre Vasco da Gama seemed like a great deal of effort. On the plus side, we got to cross the bridge the next day...!
The next morning we climbed aboard the coach to Spain and we were on our way to the last stop on our European holiday. More to come.....
Talk soon,
Al and Jen
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Ruth
non-member comment
Lisbon
How many people tried to sell you drugs? We had 5 in 30 minutes - I don't know how offended to be at that. Isn't Lisbon wonderful?!? I love your blog guys!! R x