The Carnation Revolution

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Like most things in our apartment other than the terrace, the bedroom's very small - the bed fills just about the whole room. There's no space between the sides and the walls, so we can only get in and out by crawling over the end.

As we discovered yesterday our apartment's in the very hilly Alfama neighbourhood, and we read that Alfama means "the baths" in Arabic. It‘s apparently the very oldest part of Lisbon, and in Moorish times it was the whole of the city. Unlike other parts of the metropolis it apparently fared quite well in the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, which is a bit surprising based on the rickety appearance of most of the buildings.

We go wandering. First stop is the Lisbon Cathedral which is also in Alfama, but there's a mass in progress so we decide to come back later. We walk down the hill into the city's enormous main square - Praca do Comercio. It faces the waterfront, and is surrounded on the other three sides by buildings with arched walkways. The large Arco da Rua Augusta arch is on the side opposite the waterfront, and leads through to Rua Augusta - a wide pedestrian thoroughfare which runs right through the centre of the old city.

We get good views of the Ponte 25 de Abril bridge from the waterfront. It's more than two kilometres long and was the first bridge to be built across the Tagus River. It was opened in 1966 and looks exactly like San Francisco's famed Golden Gate Bridge. We read that it was originally named the Salazar Bridge after the dictator who ruled Portugal at the time. "Named after" probably isn't the right term; "named by" is probably a bit closer to the truth if our experience of typical dictator behaviour's anything to go by. It was later renamed in honour of the 25 April 1974 Carnation Revolution which culminated in the overthrow of the authoritarian fascist regime which had ruled Portugal for forty years. The revolution was so named because no shots were fired, and people instead put carnations into the muzzles of the soldiers' rifles and onto their uniforms. This marked the beginning of Portuguese democracy, and also resulted in Portugal withdrawing from all its African colonies; it had been fighting wars with nationalist movements in Angola, Portuguese Guinea and Mozambique since the early 1960s.

We decide to try to get a feel for the city from the hop on hop off bus. We plug our headphones in and tune into the English channel. There seem to be separate channels for the European and Brazilian versions of Portuguese. I've often thought that a channel with the Aussie version of English might have come in handy in some of the places we've been to, but we've yet to come across one of those.

We're told that the Great Lisbon Earthquake was one of the largest and deadliest in history. It caused five metre wide fissures to open up in the city centre, and these and subsequent tsunamis and fires destroyed 85 per cent of the buildings. Fatality estimates range from 10,000 to 100,000, which is pretty significant given that the population at the time was only around 200,000.

We pass Lisbon's bull ring. The commentary is quick to point out that unlike in Spain, the bull's not killed at the end of bull fights here. We read however that in a lot of cases it's killed later anyway by a professional butcher, unless it performed well, in which case it's put out to pasture for breeding. I'm not sure the bull would care too much about these subtle differences if it's going to end up dead most of the time anyway. I wonder if anyone bothers to tells it about the consequences of its performances; seeing out the rest of my days in a nice green paddock with a herd of desirable females sounds like a reasonable enough incentive to perform well, particularly when set against the alternative of being hacked to death by a knife wielding butcher.

We head out towards the seaside precinct of Belem. We pass the iconic thirty metre high fort, the Torre de Belem, which was built on a small island in the river in the sixteenth century as part of the city's defence system. We continue on past the gigantic Jeronimos Monastery, which we're told is symbolic of Portugal's Age of Discovery. Notable exploits during this period include the famous explorer Vasco de Gama's discovery of the sea route to India, which then opened up the spice trade for Portugal. We're told that de Gama's buried in the Monastery. Spices were apparently very important in the days before refrigeration as they allowed food to be preserved. Portugal subsequently became the centre of the European spice trade, much to the benefit of the local economy.

Issy's feeling a bit tired so she heads back to the apartment while I continue exploring. First stop up the hill is the Order of Malta Church which was built by the Knights Templar Order of St John. The interior's adorned with Maltese crosses. I think Issy might be a bit disappointed that she's missed this one. Her homeland might be tiny, but its cultural reach is clearly extensive.

Next stop is Lisbon Cathedral where mass has now finished (why am I surprised - it is now four hours later....). The cloisters are particularly attractive. They surround a courtyard which is now an archaeological site where remains from the Roman and Arab periods have been unearthed. The Cathedral was built in the twelfth century, but they've had to have a few goes at rebuilding parts of it damaged by earthquakes.

Earthquakes do seem to be a bit of a problem here. I lay awake in bed last night wondering how our poor little apartment would cope if the ground suddenly started moving. Not all that well was the conclusion. I then stayed awake for a long time waiting for everything to start shaking and the roof to collapse. I hope I sleep better tonight.

Next cab off the rank is a climb up Praca do Comercio's Arco da Rua Augusta. The views over the square from up here are excellent.

I struggle up to the massive hilltop Castelo de Sao Jorge which overlooks the whole city. It's completely encircled by high fortified walls. The views from up here are spectacular. We read that the Romans built a fort here as early as 48 BC; the current iteration was originally constructed by the Moorish Berbers and dates largely from the tenth century. Like most of the rest of the city, it didn't fare too well in the 1755 earthquake, and much of it had to be rebuilt.

I remember what our taxi driver told Issy yesterday about needing to keep me on a tight chain to prevent the local women from luring me away. Their techniques must be quite subtle; I'm sure they're trying very hard, but they're just going to have to get a lot more obvious. I'm fairly sure Issy hasn't seen too much need to invest in a chain just yet. She asks me if I'm disappointed; I think this might be a trick question.

We enjoy a very pleasant dinner on a terrace at a restaurant up the hill from the apartment.

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