The first thing that hits us upon our arrival in Lisbon is the rain. The city is under a weather warning, as cyclone Gabrielle lurks out at sea promising rain and strong winds.
We buy Navigante cards at the station, and put €5 onto each card, enough for three or four journeys but clearly not enough. The cards can be used on the metro, buses, trams, ferries, and local trains. Very integrated. After two stops on the metro and a short walk we manage to get to our flat without getting too wet.
We are staying on the fifth floor of an apartment building, with views down to the nearby Tagus River. This whole area of the city seems to have been given over to Airbnbs and tourism
A promised gap in the rain allows us to get out to explore our local area, buy supplies, and get something to eat. After the devastating earthquake of 1755 Lisbon was rebuilt with five storey buildings laid out on a grid pattern. The ground floor of each building was given over to commercial premises. This means there is no shortage of places to eat, but rather you are overwhelmed with choice, countless restaurants offering what seem to be very similar menus and all trying to entice you in as you stroll down the street
Vera sheltering from the storm as we ponder our options for the evening. We end up in a very low key establishment, which is displaying its fresh meat and fish in a fridge in the window and they look good. As indeed they turn out to be: I have sea bream with salad and some very flavoursome boiled potatoes, Vera has shrimp and calamari kebabs. Washed down with the house vinho verdi.
For our first day in the city we have booked onto a historical walking tour. Our guide, Constanza, worked in the theatre in the evenings and did guided tours in the day. With yet another potted history of the country from its beginnings in the 12th century to the revolution of 1974 I am finally beginning to retain some of this information
Squares and pavements are laid out with simple black and white stones, in hundreds of different patterns
Lisbon's ancient electric trams wind their routes through narrow streets, up and down steep hills, and offer a great way to get around. They are, of course, packed with tourists enjoying the low cost sightseeing tour. What locals, with real journeys to make, think of this I'm not sure but it must be quite annoying
In the evening we take a ferry across the Tagus to Barreiro to try out the local restaurants there. This turns out to be a mistake. It is Sunday, the restaurants a mile from the ferry terminal, and mostly closed. To make matters worse the normal 15 minute interval between boats heading back drops to one or two per hour on Sunday evening; there is no real reason anyone makes this journey. We have hit the one per hour period and have just missed a ferry, so it's a long wait
We head for what we thought earlier in the day looked to be a good place to eat. The Portuguese specialise in cod dishes, so I try Bacalhau a Bras, basically cod cooked with garlic, onion, and bay leaves. It is tough and highly salted. Vera's shrimps are overcooked and rubbery. So not the best evening, so memorable for that. Some you win, some you lose.
The city of Lisbon is overlooked by its 12th century castle, the remarkably well preserved Castelo de Sao Jorge. Its current state of repair owes much to the restoration work done in the 1930s by the Salazar regime keen to write a national history based upon military values.
Ancient olive trees in the castle forecourt
An unusual peacock
We have booked ourselves onto a free tour of the castle, and this turns out to be a very good move. We get another lively condensed history of the kingdom of Portugal, but also access to the archaeological area. Our guide is clearly passionate about his subject, explaining what the remains represent and how they fit within the iron age, Roman, Moorish and then Christian phases of the castle area
A walk around the walls, with views over the city below and river beyond
The castle also has a very nice cafe, perfect for early evening drinks
Busking from a first floor balcony. Money is collected in a bucket at the end of the rope
After the previous night's food debacle we have taken the precaution of asking local people for dining recommendations. Unfortunately, both the recommended places were shut on a Monday, and we ended up back at the restaurant from evening one.
Tuesday has been earmarked as an exploration of some of the city's museums.
The Design Museum is opposite our apartment. Unfortunately they are running behind schedule on their new exhibition and not open
The Codfish History Interpretation Centre , exploring the Portuguese relationship with this fish, is open and very interesting.
The Portuegese were early explorers of the seas around Newfoundland and would regularly sail over to fish until excluded during the reign of Elizabeth I.
Hundreds of years later the Portuguese would revive this industry, and with a dearth of well paid work this was an attractive option for many
This small room attempts, reasonably successfully, to recreate the feeling of leaving your big ship in a small boat to fish alone for cod in the wild sea.
The drive for cod in the 1930s and 40s explains why salted cod dishes are so prevalent today. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas, we are told, without cod on the table
Joining the annual cod fishing 'campaigns' enabled you to defer your military service and eventually absolving you from being sent to fight in Portugal's colonial wars
Next up, the beer museum
In some ways a easier sell, taking us on a journey from the first farmers in Mesothelioma discovering how to ferment germinated barley seeds to the modern day craft beer movement in Portugal.
Portugal doesn't appear until the late 19th century in this tale, long after this Belgian monk had made his contribution.
The tour finishes with a selection of Portuguese beers, selected by the curator depending upon your beer preferences. Not quite as good as the Cod Museum as it was more of a bar pretending to be a museum
Then it was all aboard the tram for the trip across town to the Museum Da Marioneta, or Puppet Museum
This was the outstanding museum of the day
packed with exciting and interesting looking characters,
clearly with interesting stories to tell
Some, like Don Quixote, well known
most unknown outside of their tale
The story of Wednesday's trip to Sinatra is told on the previous page
Thursday, our final day, and we plan to visit Jeronimos Monastery, another Lisbon site on the UNESCO world heritage list.
We should know better by now, world heritage sites engender high demand and long queues. We join the 2.30 queue an hour before its entry time and take turns to visit the attached church
The church does impress with its size and scale
and richness of stone carvings
The tomb of Vasco de Gama is relatively modest and worth seeing. A complete contrast to the tomb of Christopher Columbus in Seville, visited last year
The monastery itself gets off to a promising start with the obligatory grand staircase
overseen by Jerome himself, hard at work in his office accompanied by a plethora of symbolic items
It is architecturally very impressive, with two tiers of vaulted cloisters
around a central courtyard,
all richly decorated
But in terms of the lives lived there it is a closed door. There is no sense as to how the monastery was organised or run, what the life was like, or even the rooms used. The building was all you got
So not really worth the wait beneath the baking sun, but did mean we are out quickly enough for a nice final lunch in the city centre
The fish cabinet of this restaurant had caught our eyes the night before on our return from Sintra. The thinking being that if they care about the fish that they display then they will also care about how the food is cooked. And so it turns out, a nice, fairly simple, farewell lunch. Washed down with a bottle of white wine
No comments:
Post a Comment