Lisboa

Lisboa (Lisbon)
Lisboa is a beautiful and sophisticated city. I expect to have no end of things to do and places to visit during my stay at Cascais. There is rapid train service from Cascais to near the city center (Cais do Sodre) running every 20 minutes from around 6:00 AM to 1:00 AM. This train connects to the subway system, so transportation into and around town is not a problem and at €2.80 round trip from Cascais to Cais do Sodre not a great expense either. The picture above is a panorama created from five or six photos taken from the Castelo de Sao Jorge next to the old section (Alfama) of Lisboa. It is the highest vantage point in the city. The view is of the Lisboa city center.
Castelo de Sao Jorge is located in the heart of Lisboa and provides the best vantage point to view the city as demonstrated by the panorama, above. It is also and interested site to explore. In addition to the towers, ramparts and park area, the castle house a multi-media presentation on the history of Lisboa.



Steve Angst and I visited the Castelo on our first visit to Lisboa from Cascais. When Jack & Nikki Goodman visited in December, 2005 I returned to the Castelo (below, left). On that day the Castelo was the home of a herd of burros. The burros were there to promote the use of animals to treat persons with mental disorders and deficiencies. I had heard of the benefit provided by contact with small animals such as cats, dogs, but this is the first time I'd heard of the benefit of contact with large animals such as burros.
Photo by Jack & Nikki Goodman
Photo by Jack & Nikki Goodman
Photo by Jack & Nikki Goodman
Praças Like many European cities you can't go more than a few blocks in any direction before you come upon a large square or plaza (Praça) with a monument to some person or event in history.
This is the Praca do Dom Pedro IV. It also known as Rossio, which is the name of the Metro station beneath the plaza.

This is the Praca de Figueiras (Fig Tree Plaza), immediately adjacent to Rossio. Both photos on the right by Jack & Nikki Goodman.

This is the Praca do Marques de Pombal at the top of the Avenida Libertad (see below). The Marques de Pombal provided the leadership and financing to rebuild Lisbon after the great earthquake of 1755.
Avenida Libertade is a broad boulevard with a small park in the center island. This appears to be one of the main hotel and tourist districts of Lisboa.

The Alfama is one of the few neighborhoods or barrios to survive the great earthquake nearly intact. Hence it is also one of the oldest barrios in Lisboa. This is reflected in the narrow streets throughout the barrio. The information above was gleamed from several travel guide books. When I returned to Lisboa with my brother, Sandy, and his family we took a walking tour of the Alfama. Our Portuguese guide on that tour gave a diferent account of Alfama and the earthquake. According to our guide the Alfama was just as devistated as the rest of the city and it took the full brunt of the tidal wave that struct shortly after the quake. Marquis de Pombal rebuilt most of Lisboa in the style of the other capitals of Europe with wide boulevards and plazas that commemerated the pasted leaders of Portugal. Unfortuneately when the got around to the Alfama most of the restoration money was gone so the Alfama was rebuilt pretty much as it was before the earthquake. The fact that many, if not most, of the residents were Moors may have had something to do with they're being at the end of the line for restoration funds in Catholic Portugal. The Alfama is located just east of the Castelo. As Jack, Nikki and I were walking from the Castelo to the Alfama one of the electric trolleys came by (picture on right). This is the tourist trolley, but other trolleys run on this line for general people movement. This picture was taken about 2 weeks before Christmas, which explains the Santa Claus stocking cap on the driver. I had always thought we in the USA go to great excess in promoting the material side of the Christmas holiday. I was sure that our excesses were not reflected in other cultures that shared the celebration of Christmas. Interestingly I can detect little or no difference between these excesses in the USA and Portgual. I'm not sure who has caught up to whom. Photos above, right and below by Jack & Nikki Goodman


As narrow as these becos and travessas (passageways and alleys) are, it is incredible that Lisboans still drive vehicles on them. The Rua Sao Miguel (below) is one of the principal streets in the Alfama. As we walked down these passageways we would come upon little hole in the wall shops such as that on the right. A street map is totally useless when walking through these winding travessas that split, merge and cross like a maze. We just followed the basic land navigation principal we have used since our first encounter with a Portuguese city, "uphill is away from the water, downhill is toward it." Both photos by Jack & Nikki Goodman.

Eventually we reached the bottom of the Alfama near the river front and started to work our way west toward the Praca do Comercio from which we could head back to Rossio and the Metro Station. On the way we passed the Casa dos Biscos. I think it is commonly referred to as the Pincushion House, but I'm not sure that is an accurate translation of Biscos (which is not in any of my dictionaries). Both photos by Jack & Nikki Goodman.

As far as I know this Elevador is unique to Lisboa. This is a tower with elevators constructed in the 19th century to move pedestrians up the very steep hills of Lisboa. This is the Elevador de Santa Justa, not far from the Castelo. There is a skyway-type ramp in the back of the Elevador going to the top of one of the buildings. Other Elevadors in Lisbon are trams.
Behind the Elevador de Santa Justa is the Convento do Carmo, which was partially destroyed by the earthquake, but never restored as a church. It is now an acheology museum and ruins.
This is the Rua Augusta, a pedestrian only street from the Arco de Rua Augusta to the Rua da Betesga, near the Pracas Figueira and Rossio. That's Steve Angst standing in the center of the picture. The statue of Dom Jose and be seen in the background under the arch.

Parque da Nacoes
In contrast to the old Europe look of the center city of Lisboa is the starkly modern look of the Parque da Nacoes on the far east side. This is the former site of Expo 98, which must have been a World's Fair type of exposition in 1998. The former fair grounds are now the center of a large river front urban development, which includes several large sports and concert pavilions, gardens, shops and restaurants and the Oceanario de Lisboa. The later is one of the largest aquariums in Europe and the center of attraction in the park. Steve, Mike and I toured the Oceanario (the building that projects out into the lake, just to the right of the cable cars) for several hours and found it fascinating. In the center of the building is the main, two-story tall tank with a large number of pelagic fish such as sharks, barracuda, rays, tuna and more. Around the center tank are four smaller tanks that represent the four major oceans of the word, Atlantic, Pacific, Antartic, and Indian. Each of these smaller tanks contain reef and near shore fish typical of those oceans. The top level of the smaller tanks are aviaries with birds native to the shores of those oceans. We visited the Oceanario on a Monday and it was not very crowded. Apparently the Lisboans flock to this site on weekends and the queues to get through the Oceanario can be very long on those days.