Farewell our sweet, sweet ship, our sweet, sweet crew and our sweet, sweet friend Zoe. It is time to start the next phase of our European adventure: 3 days in Lisbon. Needless to say we are up and off the ship early. We’ve got nothing to pack, nothing to do aboard and a full apartment – and full day schedule – awaits us.
Morning exercise: hoofing it up the hill to the apartment. Done. Backpacks stowed. Day backpack packed. We’re off to our first stop – The Museu Nacional do Azulejo, or the National Tile Museum. It’s free with our Lisboa card and looks totally interesting. More exercise for us, as it is a 22 minute walk from the apartment, but fortunately all on mostly level streets. Along the way we pass great street art murals and hardly any people. A sleepy Sunday morning in Lisbon we suppose.
The tile museum is really easy to find, and we get to skip the entrance line because of our Lisboa card. A helpful guard shows us where to activate it, and poof, we’re inside. Housed in a former convent, this museum documents the development of Portuguese tile art – which is huge here in Lisbon (as you’ll see ad nauseum from the photos we take of the tiled buildings we encounter in our wanderings) and around the country.
I can bore you silly with details, but suffice it to say, I am fascinated with all the displays and the different tiles and the progression of talent beginning in the 15th Century right up to today. Repetitive tiles, mostly made for the church, was the dominate style of tile in the beginning, and there are more than enough examples of them here. Plus more intricate designs that were sort of inlaid into the repetitive tiles, custom covered altar frontals, as I said – I could bore you more – but I won’t. The pictures tell the story.
Being that this is an old convent building, there is of course a church – a huge barrel roofed church – which has more tile work integrated into the gold filigreed chapel and paintings of saints on the ceiling and around the side walls. Oh, and this little room off the side – used for what? Nothing ever said except that it is work of Manuel dos Santos, one of the most important tile masters of the 18th Century. Anyway, it contains musical scenes of the life of St. Francis, all in blue and white tile art. Just gorgeous.
There is a fabulous 2 story courtyard (the cloister) with marble archways, more pottery and ceramic displays, another chapel, the upper choir and last but definitely not least (which is saying a lot in this place!) there is the most massive panel of tiles that display a panoramic view Lisbon before the massive earthquake of 1755 that almost leveled the city. It is over 75 feet long and is one of the most complete views of Lisbon, from a bird’s eye perspective no less, before the devastation. Now that was totally fascinating. Again…the pictures tell the story.
Fantastic visit. And free to boot (well sort of, with the Lisboa card). On the way out we spy a Lidls on the map, really close to our location. Bonus! We’re shopping and stocking up for our 3 days in the apartment. Plus, after we shop, we just hop on the bus right out front of the store to get back to Sant Apolonia and the apartment. Perfect little diversion.
Once the groceries are stored and we’ve had a quick restroom break, we are back out in the town, this time hiking up toward the cathedral to visit the Museum of Resistance and Liberty – a fascinating walk through the history of Dictatorial Portugal. I don’t think I even knew the basics – but this museum certainly spells it out in no uncertain terms. The oppression of the people, police actions, political courts, opposition resistance all the way up to 1974 with the overthrow of the regime in a military coup. Apparently this building was the actual political prison, the main gates are still here and there are cells where prisoners were held and tortured. Yikes. And right outside is the cathedral! Which you can easily see through the windows of the prison. Double Yikes!
Finished with the dark dictatorial visit, we stroll once again past the cathedral heading back down to sea level for the Lisboa Story museum, along the way intending to find a bite to eat. The route we take though doesn’t have any restaurants that hold much interest to us, so we end up on the Praco do Commercial, where the museum is located, and the myriad of over-priced restaurants line the square. What can you do?
We think about eating at the Beer museum, but it is packed with people and we’ve already been there once, so we stroll the square perusing menus and decide upon Marisqueira Azul – they have Polpo for Ed and lots of other choices for me too. Done. We order our beer and wine as well as Octopus salad for Ed and buttered goat’s cheese with toasted bread to share. We end up sharing it all, as the salad is excellent (even I like it!) and the cheese is sort of, well, just weird. I don’t know what we expected, but not a little round of warm cheese that you dig out of the rind. Good. But weird. And perfectly filling. We really don’t need anything more as far as food is concerned!
Lunch done, we walk literally next door to visit the Lisboa story – which is a museum that – you guessed it – tells the history of Lisbon. Which we really weren’t familiar with and proves to be a very interesting visit. The discovery of the city, the development, the earthquake (again, had no idea until the tile museum), through to present times – all displayed through really well done dioramas, life size mannequins acting out scenes and a freaky re-enactment of the earthquake. Again, free with the card. And well worth it even if it wasn’t!
It is still early when we leave the Lisboa Story and head back toward the apartment. We stop along the way to take pictures of the old church of the Lady of the Conception (Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Conceicao Velha) or try to take pictures I should say! There is some tourist standing in front of the doors and he won’t leave. He is literally the only person on the street – so we are waiting patiently for an opportunity to take some great shots – but he knows it – he’s looked over at us, sees us with our cameras at the ready and will not leave the spot. What a jerk! But you know what? We’ve got nothing really to do – so we can out wait him. And we do when he realizes we aren’t going anywhere. Sigh. People. What is their problem? In the long run, it is worth the wait (and the aggravation) as you can see here.
On the way back, we decide to stop at the Fado museum to get a little more background on this distinctly Lisbon music. As we enter, the guard takes our temperature, checks our vaccination cards, then points to the hand sanitizer. Gotta love it! Once checked and approved, we buy our tickets (discount for Lisboa card) and wander through 3 floors of displays explaining Fado (songs about urban lives that are melancholy and full of resignation and fate), the famous stars, a documentary about the stars and what Fado means to them, many examples of the music, guitars used to play and some weirdly intriguing artwork. Very cool and interesting.
Then it is home, up the claustrophobic elevator, onto the balcony for afternoon drinks (with my 89 euro cent liter box of wine – that is actually really good!) then down the block (literally – we can see the apartment door from here) to Arcaz Velho, one of the many neighborhood restaurants within stumbling distance of the apartment.
Sitting outside (on these cool chairs that they made specifically for the slope of the sidewalk with the legs at all different heights) we feast on an assortment of chorizo and garlic prawns, while listening to the Fado singer inside. Which was sort of funny, because you had to pay a set one-price of I think 30 Euros to go inside and listen to the Fado, but we could hear everything from where we sat outside through all the huge open windows! And we had a much cheaper ala carte meal. When in Lisbon…..
Finishing up, we stroll the few hundred feet back to the apartment, wrap up in our warm clothes to sit on the balcony for a bit, tearfully waving goodbye as the Quest sails off without us, then retire for the night inside our penthouse digs.
Andiamo 