Our final week in Portugal landed us in the capital, Lisbon. We drove from Batalha through Sintra, heavily promoted as the fairytale mountain town dotted with palaces in which wealthy Lisbonites of old escaped the summer heat. We parked well outside the central area—very wisely, it turned out—and were disappointed to find that what is indeed a lovely setting, with some standout old palaces, has been sadly marred by the flood of souvenir-seeking, fast-food eating tourists, who arrive in flotillas of busses and by train from Lisbon. The tourist office was singularly unhelpful, merely slapping a map of the town before us and telling us everything we needed to know was there. We looked around, walked uphill—although not all the way up to the Pena Castle(only reachable by foot or local looping tour bus), wound our way through the traffic jammed hills and eventually out of town, disappointed with the whole place, but happy that we’d already handily compensated by having seen oodles of wondrous sites. We did stop for lunch on the outskirts of town, where we got caught up in conversation with the zany café owner and his girlfriend, an accomplished chocolatier.
On to Lisbon, where we dropped off the car, and then rode the metro into town, climbed the cobbled streets into the labyrinthine district of Alfama(Lisbon’s oldest neighborhood), to meet the lady from whom we rented our tiny apartment. We settled in easily, and then headed out to stock our minute fridge. In the early evening we began the semi-endless wandering that characterized our days in Lisbon.
We found the beautifully located belvedere of Santa Luzia, which commands a lovely view east over Alfama and out to the mouth of the Tagus river, the slowly setting sun softly highlighting the yellows and pinks of the old neighborhood. The famed #28 tram clanged up and downhill; the castle of Sao Jorge peered down from the nearest hill, as the city slowly lit up and geared up for the next work week. We really enjoyed roaming around Alfama, never really knowing where we were, but always finding our way back to something familiar. In the evenings fado music floated out of tiny restaurants and bars, while early mornings were crisp and quiet, with only a handful of open cafes where locals popped in for a coffee on the run.
During our stay we spent countless hours walking all over town. On the first afternoon we were caught in serious rainstorms, forcing us into a café near Restauradores for shelter from what turned out to be historic flooding in some of Lisbon’s neighborhoods. After the rain finally cleared out we continued looking around the Baixa and Chiado neighborhoods, the former a warren of restaurants and nightlife, while the latter hosts some of Lisbon’s fancier shopping areas, and several gorgeous squares. We visited the imposing if stiff Praca do Comercio, with its monumental gateway to the pedestrianized Rua Augusta, and saw many of the “elevators” around town, which are actually more like tram/funiculars linking the lower and higher neighborhoods.
The city is deceptively hilly, so to give our feet a rest we spent a day hopping on and off public transportation to get a fuller impression of the city. We headed west along the Tagus estuary to the Belem neighborhood which home to the stupendous Geronimos monastery. The medieval Tower of Belem, which used to stand further into the estuary has greeted generations of explorers, and now is dwarfed by gargantuan cruise ships. Between these two famed spots in Belem lies the modern monument to Portuguese discoverers, with its array of historic figures draped on the prow of a stone ship heading to sea.
Another day took us around the Bairro Alto, and then further west into the very lovely neighborhoods of Rato, Estrela(with its namesake park) and a somewhat newer version of the Alfama, called Madragoa. Everywhere there are small feasts for the eyes—lovely tilework, laundry flapping over the streets, ancient souls chitchatting in cafes, shopkeepers idling away time watching television, soulful singing wafting in the air, and the ever-present smell of fried fish. We saw a knife-sharpener with his whetstone attached to his bike working on huge carving knives outside a small restaurant, old ladies parked on their front door steps yelling their conversations down the alley to friends, grandparents picking up little ones from school, waiters setting café tables for the lunch crowd. We were additionally lucky to be able to understand the majority of people’s conversations as well, thus filling out our days with watching, listening and even occasionally joining in.
The final highlight of Lisbon was the spectacular Museu do Azulejo(Tile Museum), beautifully exhibited in an old convent east of the Alfama. Beginning with the introduction of tiles which were prevalent in Moorish culture and moving through the different kinds of tiles, to the manner in which they were painted, covering everywhere they were found, from palaces and churches to public buildings and small shops, it was visually exhilarating, even if it would take several visits for me to remember everything I saw. At the end of the exhibits is a huge room with a beautiful tile “map” of Lisbon, showing it prior to the hugely destructive earthquake of the mid 1700’s—sadly, impossible to photograph in one shot, and not really comprehensible in pieces. The room however, contrasts the tile map with a present day photograph of the city, which beautifully elucidated how dramatically the city has changed, and how many old edifices still pepper its hilly landscape.
Our days in Lisbon were mostly dedicated to getting a sense of the place and its people. We hit the spots that were on our list of things we didn’t want to miss, undoubtedly missed others, but all in all, it made for a memorable week in a city with lots still left to uncover.
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