Lisboa, Portugal
After 10 hours in the bus through the Portuguese country, I arrived in the Lisboa Sete Rios station at 18.30. Sofia met me at the bus station, and got a bit of Portuguese organization… she asked at the service counter if they knew when and where my bus would arrive. Since it was international, they had no info. I had called her when the bus got to the Oriente station to let her know we were close. She asked again, if the bus was just at Oriente, when when and where it would come to Sete Rios. They still didn’t know. “Maybe over here, maybe over there… just stand around and look for it” was their answer. Despite being a rather big station, we managed, then headed to the metro to back to her house. After a shower and quick nap, we met some friends for dinner back in the center. As I’ve come to know the Portuguese habits already, it was no surprise that we waited for everyone for a while. In the meantine we got a drink in a nearby bar. After dinner we headed back to an area Sofia had said before was packed with people after midnight or so. And she was right. At a corner outside a particular bar, hordes of people were hanging around, drinking. The streets in general were quite full, lots of young people. It had a familiar Iberian/Latin feel. Warm weather, youth, music, alcohol, late nights, a bit of griminess…
The next day Sofia’s little cousin was having a birthday about an hour outside of Lisbon. Normally I wouldn’t have had any problem going, seeing another part of the country, and experiencing more culture, but since my time in Lisboa was limited we decided maybe I’d just hang around the city on my own. She took me to the Castle of São Jorge, overlooking all of Lisbon, and showed me a bit around the area before she had to leave again, including the Sé de Lisboa, the oldest church in the city. Once she did, I went back to the castle to actually go inside (€2,50 student). It has some great views over Lisboa, as well as having some cool castle architecture itself. After strolling around a bit, in the 35C heat, I sat in one of the large courtyards where a guy was playing flamenco guitar, busking and trying to sell some CDs. I rested on a bench to get some sun and listened. Once I left the castle, I walked through the neighborhood immediately around. I was pretty grimy. Not what I would normally expect of the area around a castle, but I suppose when it’s the main castle of a city, and not something in the countryside of the UK or Germany, it makes sense that the surrounding area would be a little rough. I found a bar and grabbed a beer to help with the heat and sat in the shade outside. It didn’t take long to realize there was a lot of drug dealing going on, and not much longer before someone asked if I wanted anything.
From the castle I had been able to see various things in the city I’d like to see, and with my map I tried to identify them and head there when I left. After some walking and wandering I found my way to a small but interesting archaeological museum. It held a lot of interesting artifacts, including two mummies of children, one boy, one girl, from South America. The building itself was an old theater or something from Roman times. From here I found myself at the Elevador de Santa Justa, an Eiffel-esque lift which helped deal with the hilly area. From the top was a good view of the castle I had just left and the city below. It was taking too long to actually take the lift, though, so I made my way down otherwise. I explored a plaça with some interesting tile work on the ground. Sofia informed me later that this is typical Portuguese, as I saw it many times around the city. I eventually found my way by two churches, Igreja da Graça and Igreja de Santa Engrácia. There was a market cleaning up in the area. Pity I didn’t make it there earlier to check it out. There were some pretty grimy areas over here, too. But also interesting Portuguese architecture on the houses. Tiles and colour on the exterior is common. After hanging around, having some beers, Sofia evetnually called to say they were coming back. I headed to meet them at a metro station where they picked me up with the car, and we went to have dinner in the area where the Expo ’98 was. Patricia, another Portuguese friend from Amsterdam, but from another city, met us there. Sofia and her were flying to Italy on Monday, so she was coming first to Lisboa. After dinner, we walked the area of the Expo, and Sofia’s dad pointed out and explained (while the others translated) the various new buildings and such that had been built for it, including the Portuguese contribution, which has a pavilion with the largest cement ceiling without any mid-support… or something like that.
On Sunday Sofia and I went to the Belém area in the west of the city, stopping first at the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, an World Heritage monastery. From there we went across the street to the Museu Colecção Berardo, a contemporary art museum which happened to be free. There was an exhibit on surrealism, which was bizarre, since I had just seen one at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. There were a lot of names I recognized because I had just seen some other their other works, and in fact, there were even some of the same pieces, such as pieces from the the Dali lobster phone experiments. Sofia’s parents picked us up from there and we went further down the road along the water to see some of the other monuments the city offers. First we stopped at a carriage museum, housed in what used to be the stables for the horses that pulled them. They had an array of the old carriages used to carry various members of royalty, both Portuguese and foreign. Next we saw the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, a monument to the explorers of the Age of Discovery, and the Belém Tower. Sofia also explained how Lisboa has copies of many famous structures… such as the 25 de Abril Bridge, which looks just like the Golden Gate Bridge; the war memorial, with a wall listing names of people that died, like the Vietnam Memorial in America; as well as a large Jesus statue very much like the one in Rio de Janeiro. Before heading back towards home, we stopped for some coffee and pasteis de nata, the typical Portuguese pastry.
Sofia and Patricia’s flight was just an hour or so before mine the next morning, so Sofia’s parents drove us all to the airport where we parted ways until our returns to Amsterdam in September. But in the meantime, back to Berlin for me…
Tags: Europe, Portugal, Travel
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