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The train trip from Porto to Lisbon was crowded, but seats are preassigned so it was fine. Overall, it takes a little over 3 hours and cost EUR 33 in second class. You can get off at either of two stations - Oriente or Santa Apolonia I chose the latter since it let me get to my hotel without having to change metro lines. Note, however, that Oriente is closer to the Airport. My first order of business, once I unpacked, was planning some sightseeing. I hear that some people actually do that before they get somewhere, but that requires being organized. In the past, I’ve found hop-on hop-off bus tours to be a useful way to get an overview of a city (and see a few attractions) and I quickly decided that a 2-day, 3 route ticket for one of those would be a good option. (There are at least 3 companies running those buses, by the way. I chose Gray Line / Cityrama, mostly because they had a decent discount.)
The first route I did was the Oriente route, which essentially covered the eastern part of the city. The first place I got off was Oceanario, which is a large aquarium. There is some dispute about whether it is the second or third largest aquarium in Europe. (There seems to be general agreement that the largest is in Valencia, Spain. The other contender is in northern France.) I like aquariums, in general, and this one one met my needs, with lots of sharks and rays and assorted things like otters and murres. And magellanic penguins.
My very favorite sea creatures are sea dragons. And, look - both leafy sea dragons and weedy sea dragons! (You may have to click through to flickr to see the video in motion.)
I think I ended up spending nearly 3 hours there, including having lunch at their cafeteria.
I just missed one bus so I had a bit of a wait. When I reboarded, I was tempted by the Torre Vasco de Gamma, but decided I would want more time at the next place I planned to get off. Which was the Muse de Azulejo, i.e. the National Tile Museum. While Lisbon has fewer azulejos in the wild than Porto does, this did satisfy my needs for gawking at tiles. I also learned that the word “azulejo” comes from an Arabic word meaning “polished stone.” I had assumed that it came from “azul” meaning blue and “legos” meaning far. When I mentioned this on Facebook, I learned that “lazuli” (as in :lapis lazuli) also comes from Persian. Anyway, here are some pictures from the museum.
I literally laughed out loud at this piece.
Here’s a good example of fitting your work into an awkwardly shaped area.
A rather creepy version of the god, Pan.
The museum is in an old convent.
Here are a couple of more modern pieces.
Overall, this was an excellent museum and far more comprehensive than the Azulejos Museum I’d been to several years ago in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay.
The bus looped past the Lisbon cruise port and through the Alfama neighborhood, before turning back north through Restauradores and back to Marques de Pombal (which was right across from my hotel). I decided I’d done enough for one day.
The next day was also a busy one. I started out with the bus route around Cascais. This is an upscale beach town about a half hour from Lisbon. The bus route went past the Jeronimos Monastery, which is a World Heritage site. I intended to get back to it, but never quite managed to find the time to, so it’s on the top of the list for any future trip I make to Lisbon. Anyway, the bus passed several beaches and gardens (Estoril looked particularly attractive), then looped around the rougher seas of Guincho Beach (which, as one of my puzzle friends noted on Facebook, is a supervocalic). It was quite scenic, but I failed to get a good photo, possibly because it was cold and windy and my hands were freezing. The center of town was a pleasant pedestrianized area, with shops and restaurants and a couple of museums.
Because the bus loop was about 3 hours, I didn’t really have time to explore, but I think it would be very pleasant to spend a couple of days there as a relaxing break during a longer trip to Portugal. On the way back, I got off the bus at Padrao dos Descombrimentos, a monument to explorers, notably Vasco de Gama. (Prince Henry the Navigator and Ferdinand Magellan are also included.)
That was also a good place to get lunch (and gelato). You can also get a good view of the 25th of August bridge, which was built by the same company that did the Golden Gate Bridge.
I waked around the area a bit more and contemplated various possibilities for stopping at museums, but it was getting late in the day, so I decided that the best thing to do was to use the third bus route included in my pass and took the loop around Belem. There are lots of sites to see in that part of Lisbon and it would really be worth spending an entire day, between the Jeronimos Monastery and several museums.
After two days of bus touring, I needed to spend a little time catching up on writing in my travel journal, followed by random meandering on foot. I strolled down Avenida de Liberdade which is alleged to be the Lisbon equivalent of the Champs Elysees, though I thought that was an exaggeration. Looking at the map on my phone while eating lunch at a place near Restauradores (which is marked by a monument to the people who restored Portugal’s independence from Spain), I realized I was near something I wanted to see. Namely, here’s the monument to the Jews massacred in 1506.
The story is that members of the congregation of the church of São Domingos claimed that they they saw a strange light emanating from a crucifix in the Chapel of Jesus. One of the “New Christians” in the congregation ridiculed the claim of a miracle and a fight broke out, resulting in the murders of several congregants who were believed to be Jews. The violence spread, apparently stirred up by Dominican friars, and resulted in the deaths of somewhere between one and four thousand people. Approximately 500 of the rioters / murderers were executed. This also resulted in King Manuel granting New Christians the right to emigrate from Portugal (largely to the Ottoman Empire, but also to Brazil and Suriname).
Apparently this monument is defaced with antiSemitic graffiti roughly weekly. The city of Lisbon has added a separate memorial and does a better job of keeping it from being defaced.
By the way, here’s the church where all the violence started.
I spent more time wandering around Baixa and Rossio, which is a heavily touristed area. I contemplated souvenir shopping, but didn’t really see anything that appealed to me. Eventually, I took the metro back up to my hotel and decided I’d done enough for the day.
My final day in Lisbon was spent mostly on a day trip to Sintra. This is an easy train ride, taking about 45 minutes. Why Sintra? It’s a World Heritage Site, for one thing. And it’s generally regarded as one of the “must-see” places near Lisbon. I had hesitated between going there and going to Tomar, which has a historic synagogue (as well as various sites associated with the Knights Templar. But Sintra is a shorter train trip, so it made more sense. I’d looked at various bus tours, but it is, frankly, just as easy to see the highlights on foot, with the option to use a local tourist bus for places that are harder to reach.
I’d noticed on some website that there is something called Beca da Judiaria, which is apparently the gateway to the one-time Jewish quarter and set out to try to find that. My phone told me I was within about 150 feet of it, but I never succeeded in finding the correct alleyway to go down. I eventually gave up, though not before infecting myself with an earworm. Namely, the Ladino song “Cuando el Rey Nimrod,” in which Nimrod goes out and sees a strange light in the Jewish quarter, heralding the birth of Abraham. I’ve never understood how there was a Jewish quarter before Abraham, but this seemed to be a day for Jewish quarter mysteries.
Anyway, I meandered around the central area of Sintra, which was quite crowded. Here’s the city hall.
I quite liked the Moorish Fountain.
The National Palace has odd towers that are supposed to be shaped like champagne glasses.
Frankly, I think it looks better from a distance.
By the way, there are lots of statues lining the road from the train station to the center of town. Here are a few.
Eventually, my meandering took me to the Sintra Myths and Legends Interactive Center. This has a number of videos (some on computer screens plus one which you get three-D glasses to view) about the history of Sintra and about various associated legends, e.g. a friar who fought temptation and escaped by deciding to live underground. The technology was pretty cheesy, but the stories were reasonably interesting.
After stopping for a leisurely (and latish) lunch, I debated what to do next. I was not particularly interested in palaces and castes (which are abundant in Sintra). I was quite interested in the News Museum, but I decided it would take more time than I wanted to spend. In the end, I wandered my way back to the train station. On returning to Lisbon, I did something else I had managed not to do up to that point - namely, go to a large supermarket. I only bought a couple of things, since I was leaving Lisbon in the morning, but the selection was quite impressive.
Overall, I feel like I got just a small taste of Lisbon and the surrounding area. But I can always go back - or, since United has nonstops from IAD to LIS, use it for a few days layover to somewhere I haven’t been. And, yes, despite what some of my friends believe, there are plenty of places I haven’t been to. Yet.
The first route I did was the Oriente route, which essentially covered the eastern part of the city. The first place I got off was Oceanario, which is a large aquarium. There is some dispute about whether it is the second or third largest aquarium in Europe. (There seems to be general agreement that the largest is in Valencia, Spain. The other contender is in northern France.) I like aquariums, in general, and this one one met my needs, with lots of sharks and rays and assorted things like otters and murres. And magellanic penguins.
My very favorite sea creatures are sea dragons. And, look - both leafy sea dragons and weedy sea dragons! (You may have to click through to flickr to see the video in motion.)
I think I ended up spending nearly 3 hours there, including having lunch at their cafeteria.
I just missed one bus so I had a bit of a wait. When I reboarded, I was tempted by the Torre Vasco de Gamma, but decided I would want more time at the next place I planned to get off. Which was the Muse de Azulejo, i.e. the National Tile Museum. While Lisbon has fewer azulejos in the wild than Porto does, this did satisfy my needs for gawking at tiles. I also learned that the word “azulejo” comes from an Arabic word meaning “polished stone.” I had assumed that it came from “azul” meaning blue and “legos” meaning far. When I mentioned this on Facebook, I learned that “lazuli” (as in :lapis lazuli) also comes from Persian. Anyway, here are some pictures from the museum.
I literally laughed out loud at this piece.
Here’s a good example of fitting your work into an awkwardly shaped area.
A rather creepy version of the god, Pan.
The museum is in an old convent.
Here are a couple of more modern pieces.
Overall, this was an excellent museum and far more comprehensive than the Azulejos Museum I’d been to several years ago in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay.
The bus looped past the Lisbon cruise port and through the Alfama neighborhood, before turning back north through Restauradores and back to Marques de Pombal (which was right across from my hotel). I decided I’d done enough for one day.
The next day was also a busy one. I started out with the bus route around Cascais. This is an upscale beach town about a half hour from Lisbon. The bus route went past the Jeronimos Monastery, which is a World Heritage site. I intended to get back to it, but never quite managed to find the time to, so it’s on the top of the list for any future trip I make to Lisbon. Anyway, the bus passed several beaches and gardens (Estoril looked particularly attractive), then looped around the rougher seas of Guincho Beach (which, as one of my puzzle friends noted on Facebook, is a supervocalic). It was quite scenic, but I failed to get a good photo, possibly because it was cold and windy and my hands were freezing. The center of town was a pleasant pedestrianized area, with shops and restaurants and a couple of museums.
Because the bus loop was about 3 hours, I didn’t really have time to explore, but I think it would be very pleasant to spend a couple of days there as a relaxing break during a longer trip to Portugal. On the way back, I got off the bus at Padrao dos Descombrimentos, a monument to explorers, notably Vasco de Gama. (Prince Henry the Navigator and Ferdinand Magellan are also included.)
That was also a good place to get lunch (and gelato). You can also get a good view of the 25th of August bridge, which was built by the same company that did the Golden Gate Bridge.
I waked around the area a bit more and contemplated various possibilities for stopping at museums, but it was getting late in the day, so I decided that the best thing to do was to use the third bus route included in my pass and took the loop around Belem. There are lots of sites to see in that part of Lisbon and it would really be worth spending an entire day, between the Jeronimos Monastery and several museums.
After two days of bus touring, I needed to spend a little time catching up on writing in my travel journal, followed by random meandering on foot. I strolled down Avenida de Liberdade which is alleged to be the Lisbon equivalent of the Champs Elysees, though I thought that was an exaggeration. Looking at the map on my phone while eating lunch at a place near Restauradores (which is marked by a monument to the people who restored Portugal’s independence from Spain), I realized I was near something I wanted to see. Namely, here’s the monument to the Jews massacred in 1506.
The story is that members of the congregation of the church of São Domingos claimed that they they saw a strange light emanating from a crucifix in the Chapel of Jesus. One of the “New Christians” in the congregation ridiculed the claim of a miracle and a fight broke out, resulting in the murders of several congregants who were believed to be Jews. The violence spread, apparently stirred up by Dominican friars, and resulted in the deaths of somewhere between one and four thousand people. Approximately 500 of the rioters / murderers were executed. This also resulted in King Manuel granting New Christians the right to emigrate from Portugal (largely to the Ottoman Empire, but also to Brazil and Suriname).
Apparently this monument is defaced with antiSemitic graffiti roughly weekly. The city of Lisbon has added a separate memorial and does a better job of keeping it from being defaced.
By the way, here’s the church where all the violence started.
I spent more time wandering around Baixa and Rossio, which is a heavily touristed area. I contemplated souvenir shopping, but didn’t really see anything that appealed to me. Eventually, I took the metro back up to my hotel and decided I’d done enough for the day.
My final day in Lisbon was spent mostly on a day trip to Sintra. This is an easy train ride, taking about 45 minutes. Why Sintra? It’s a World Heritage Site, for one thing. And it’s generally regarded as one of the “must-see” places near Lisbon. I had hesitated between going there and going to Tomar, which has a historic synagogue (as well as various sites associated with the Knights Templar. But Sintra is a shorter train trip, so it made more sense. I’d looked at various bus tours, but it is, frankly, just as easy to see the highlights on foot, with the option to use a local tourist bus for places that are harder to reach.
I’d noticed on some website that there is something called Beca da Judiaria, which is apparently the gateway to the one-time Jewish quarter and set out to try to find that. My phone told me I was within about 150 feet of it, but I never succeeded in finding the correct alleyway to go down. I eventually gave up, though not before infecting myself with an earworm. Namely, the Ladino song “Cuando el Rey Nimrod,” in which Nimrod goes out and sees a strange light in the Jewish quarter, heralding the birth of Abraham. I’ve never understood how there was a Jewish quarter before Abraham, but this seemed to be a day for Jewish quarter mysteries.
Anyway, I meandered around the central area of Sintra, which was quite crowded. Here’s the city hall.
I quite liked the Moorish Fountain.
The National Palace has odd towers that are supposed to be shaped like champagne glasses.
Frankly, I think it looks better from a distance.
By the way, there are lots of statues lining the road from the train station to the center of town. Here are a few.
Eventually, my meandering took me to the Sintra Myths and Legends Interactive Center. This has a number of videos (some on computer screens plus one which you get three-D glasses to view) about the history of Sintra and about various associated legends, e.g. a friar who fought temptation and escaped by deciding to live underground. The technology was pretty cheesy, but the stories were reasonably interesting.
After stopping for a leisurely (and latish) lunch, I debated what to do next. I was not particularly interested in palaces and castes (which are abundant in Sintra). I was quite interested in the News Museum, but I decided it would take more time than I wanted to spend. In the end, I wandered my way back to the train station. On returning to Lisbon, I did something else I had managed not to do up to that point - namely, go to a large supermarket. I only bought a couple of things, since I was leaving Lisbon in the morning, but the selection was quite impressive.
Overall, I feel like I got just a small taste of Lisbon and the surrounding area. But I can always go back - or, since United has nonstops from IAD to LIS, use it for a few days layover to somewhere I haven’t been. And, yes, despite what some of my friends believe, there are plenty of places I haven’t been to. Yet.
