Goodbye Lisbon...On To Bonnie Scotland

The last couple of days in Lisbon we were basically waiting to leave. Not that we didn’t enjoy the city, we were just ready to move on. Caitlin and Scotland beckoned.

We got ourselves in the mood for Scotland by watching Outlander, the first season of which is available on Netflix in Portugal. After a few episodes, we were hooked. (For readers not familiar with it, Outlander is a multi-episode historical drama, based on the novels by American author Diana Gabaldon, set in mid-1700s Scotland at the time of the Jacobite rebellion – with the tiny wrinkle that the central character has gone back in time from 1945.) Given that Caitlin’s employer, Mount Stuart, has a trove of important historical documents that includes some written in Bonnie Prince Charlie’s hand, it was apt preparation.

The packing up and departure were uneventful. Karen was urging me to jettison my beloved brown Camper sneakers. They were already through in the soles, which can’t be replaced, and now they were coming unstitched as well. Plus, we feared we might need to lighten up for the EasyJet flight to Glasgow, as EasyJet allows two fewer kilograms in checked baggage. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, gentle readers. Even though I have a newer black pair exactly the same.

We didn’t see Rita or Henrique, our landlords, again. At one point, Rita had promised to send Henrique over to try and fix a broken black-out blind, but that never happened. He is an advisor to a minister in the Portuguese government after all. We never did clap eyes on Rita either – the whole time we were there – although she handles all the correspondence with renters. She has two toddlers at home.

Our driver, recommended by Rita, came within a few minutes of the appointed hour and drove us to the airport by a completely different route than the one the cabby who brought us in had taken – a more sensible route that didn’t involve going into the crazy-busy centre of the city in the middle of the day. And it was significantly cheaper than the one we’d booked for Ralph and Pat, 12€. (Sorry guys!)

Lisbon’s is a well- but not flashily-designed new-ish airport, organized along similar lines to those in London and Barcelona (and probably many others in Europe, but those three, I know) – a central shopping/lounge area with video screens that show your gate number, but not until shortly before flight time. It was a quite different trip from the one coming over. We hadn’t been up all night and fighting jet lag. Everything seemed easy.

We landed at Heathrow about 6 in the evening, walked to the airport bus terminal, managed to get on an earlier bus to Gatwick than the one we’d booked, and were on our way little more than an hour after touching down. The bus was almost empty, the ride smooth and, for the most part, delay free. This was surprising given the route took us on the M25, London’s “orbital” road, infamous for hours-long traffic snarls. I had expected it to be still rush-hour, as it was only a little after 7 in the evening.

At Gatwick, we grabbed a cab (£12) to our Hotwire-booked hotel, a Crown Plaza. It was disappointingly un-luxurious for a supposedly four-star property, but the price was still good ($80.94 CDN), and the room fine. We got there a little after 9 and ate in the hotel restaurant, a surprisingly good, but horrendously expensive (£58 – $110), meal: the roast pork special for Karen, grilled chicken for me. We slept reasonably well, woke at a not-ungodly hour, had time for full breakfast (£17 each – eek!) and cabbed back to the airport for our 2:15 p.m. flight to Glasgow.

Caitlin, who’d been in York for a friend’s engagement party and had taken the train back, met us as we came off the plane. She had just said goodbye to another friend, Angela, who happened to be on a business trip, staying at a hotel across the street from the terminal. They’d managed to squeeze in a quick coffee.

Given that Caitlin had been partying all weekend, and had a cold, she seemed in reasonable shape, beautiful as always. It was good to be with her again. I quite like my daughter.

We picked up our rental car and had Miss TomTom guide us out of the airport and on our way to the first of two ferries we’d take to get to Caitlin’s new home on the Isle of Bute. I am always slightly amazed at how quickly I get oriented to driving on the wrong side of the road, from the wrong side of the car, using the wrong hand on the shifter and wrong feet on the pedals. It’s as if there’s a little data file with all the information about how to make the adjustment, and it activates automatically the minute I get behind the wheel. Even better, it appears to improve slightly with each visit to Blighty. It helped this time too that I wasn’t sleep deprived when setting out.

                           

The route we took was the back way: the Gourock-Dunoon ferry across part of the Firth of Clyde, then the Colintraive ferry across the Kyles of Bute to the island. To get to the Colintraive ferry, we had to go down a wild stretch of single-track (but paved) road through sparsely inhabited highlands. The scenery, almost as soon as we got away from the airport, was ravishing and would continue so for our entire stay: broody skies (Scotland does great clouds), gentle mountains, bigger mountains in the distance, lots of green, surprisingly wild.

We came this way because it’s more scenic than the (slightly) faster route – which goes through ugly Glasgow suburbs to the Wemyss Bay-Rothesay (Bute) ferry – and because there’s a pub at Colintraive, on the mainland side, that Caitlin likes. (She’s not very positive about island eateries and we never did sample any.) The pub is very typically...British. (I was going to say ‘English’ – sorry, Scottish nationalists!) We ate in the main bar with the locals, a small room with tightly-packed, mismatching tables and chairs and traditional L-shaped carved wooden bar with stools. The food was fresh – my hamburger was handmade from local beef – and well prepared. The hostess, one of the owners, was charming, kept calling me Darling.

A fine introduction to Bute (even though it’s technically not on the island). As my sister Pat said after her visit in the fall, Bute and vicinity seems a lot like southern England 30 or 40 years ago: still quaintly British, in a way the modern south no longer is. The Colintraive pub reminded me of something out of an old Britcom.

The drive along the coast road from the ferry was lovely in the evening light: through Port Banatyne with its sailboats, then Rothesay, which is bigger and prettier than I imagined, and finally to Kerrycroy Village, where Caitlin lives, just outside the Mount Stuart gates. Bute is everything Caitlin’s photos on Facebook promised: gorgeous, with the water and the hills off in the distance. And her little cottage is perfect. She’s as snug in it as a bug in a rug. We drank wine and nattered until it was (early) bed time – we were all tired, us from travel, Caitlin from partying and cold.

Caitlin's cottage (hers is the right-hand half)

Gates into Mount Stuart at Kerrycroy Village

The next morning, Karen and I were up at the crack of dawn, even before Caitlin, who was going in to work for 8. Our plan was to walk with her to the house if we were up in time, and that’s what we did. She walks about 100 meters down her street (the only street in Kerrycroy – and with houses only on one side because the village green is on the other, and then the Firth of Clyde) to the monogrammed gates into Mount Stuart. They’re unlocked and just need to be unlatched to enter, which we did, walking in past the stone gate house.

The park is spectacular. (You will hear a lot of raves in this account; I’m in love with this place already, and not just because Caitlin is here.) The lords of the manor have been planting trees, from all over the world, for 300 years. Some are giants. Many are exotic looking – although some also remind me of British Columbia. So you have this lush forest, park land, the Firth of Clyde peaking through the trees to your left, and the road goes on for over a kilometer before you get to the house. The morning was fabulously sunny. The walk can be a little eerie on dark winter mornings, Caitlin has told us, but today, the gods were smiling, although it was a little chilly.

Caitlin was giving us something of a guided tour as we walked along, but I don’t think she fully appreciates the park. The house and all the treasures in it, yes, she gets that for sure. But to me, the park is almost as special. As you get closer to the house, it grows a little less wild, a little more garden-like. It is rhododendron season in southern Scotland, and the Earls and Marquesses of Bute collected rhodies as well as trees. (The 18th-century third Earl, the focus of much of Caitlin’s research on the art collection, was also a noted amateur botanist. He helped found Kew Gardens in London.)

They apparently have some very rare varieties of rhododendrons. I never understood the mania over rhodies, now I do. Here in Ontario, they’re difficult to grow and even when they do thrive, are nothing like as spectacular as many of these. Some are huge, most are bursting with blooms. My favourite had deep red blossoms.

The walk takes a little over 20 minutes. We dropped Caitlin at the servants’ entrance where the staff goes in, just across from a very interesting-looking rock garden. We walked around to the back of the house. The broad, perfectly groomed lawn runs down almost to the Firth. Mount Stuart house is massive. It was built, in the neo-gothic style, between 1879 and 1900. The exterior is mainly sandstone.

Karen and I walked around it for a half hour or so, then hiked back to Caitlin’s cottage for some breakfast. Along the way, one of the gardeners – there is apparently a small army of them – stopped us and asked if we were ‘alright,’ and if we knew where we were going. I didn’t realize at the time that visitors are only supposed to enter the grounds if they pay, and the house wasn’t yet open as it was only 8:30. Plus, we were walking along a secondary road, the one that leads to Kerrycroy, which is probably not much used by visitors. He was basically asking us what right we had to be there. I explained we were staying with somebody in Kerrycroy, and he was fine with that.

The water is the Firth of Clyde, the yellow stuff gorse

After a leisurely breakfast, we drove into Rothesay, about 15 minutes away, and found the large Co-op grocery store. There are two in town, the only grocery stores. One, the “little Co,” is like a Tesco Express, a convenience store-sized shop with groceries. The little Co is right on the front. The other, the “big Co,” is tucked up a few blocks into the village. It’s more the size of a North American supermarket. It took some aimless driving around and finally asking a local to find it.

View along pier at Kerrycroy

Kerrycroy Village from Firth

After the shopping expedition, we set out from Caitlin’s cottage on foot again, walking back towards the house, stopping first at the small estate church, which is no longer in use and badly in need of renovations. I’m assuming it was mainly a chapel for employees, but must also have been used by family. Some of the Bute Stuarts are buried here, mostly children who did not go on to become Marquess, and their spouses. We couldn’t help noticing that many had died quite young, which is apparently the reason for the present marquess’s fitness and health mania.

Mount Stuart park: spooky hollow

Our route took us partly along the beach – the tide was out – and partly along the shore walk, a path that runs just above the beach. We came out behind the house. By then, it was getting to the time that Caitlin would be walking home to have lunch with us. We had her only house key, so had to make sure we were back before her. We were, walking along yet another path, and then, when it turned unexpectedly back towards the house, across country to get to the Kerrycroy road. We beat her home by less than 10 minutes.

Lichen on rock

Mount Stuart house through the trees

Mount Stuart park: a host of golden daffodils

Later, after we’d dropped Caitlin back at Mount Stuart house in the car, we drove around the island in the other direction – i.e. away from Kerrycroy and Rothesay. We weren’t too particular about what we saw, but aimed initially to try and find the ancient standing stones that sister Pat had taken a bus and then hiked to find. (She’s an avid Outlander fan too, and standing stones play a key role in the story. I suspect that’s at least partly why she took so much trouble to seek out this place. Pat remained, sadly or not, in the 21st century.)

Kilchattan front

We ended up driving into Kilchattan, a tiny Firth-front village of old stone houses at the end of the road. There was a gale-force wind blowing so we didn’t get out of the car for long. (The sun was still shining, though.) The stones were near there, but we also noticed a sign for St. Blane’s Chapel, apparently a ruined early-Medieval church, and decided on a whim to go there instead.

On the way to St. Blane's

It was a good decision. St. Blane’s is our kind of place. You walk along a country path through sheep pastures to this bucolic ruin. It is maintained as an historical site, but there is nothing there but a couple of weather-proof interpretive signs and the ruins of a church and old monastery walls. It had been in use as a religious site since about 500, and continued until the 1500s. Much of the church – some of the walls are still there – dates from the 1200s. It’s a lovely spot. We spent almost an hour, and would have spent longer but had to get back to Kerrycroy to meet Caitlin.

St. Blane's (and around)

Caitlin made us a lovely meal of chicken marsala, noodles and salad. Somehow we managed to hang in, chatting and drinking wine until after midnight. Luckily, Caitlin was taking the next day off work to spend it with us.

We had a leisurely start the next morning. It was 11 by the time we set out for the Colintraive ferry. The itinerary for the day was to drive to Inveraray, a pretty fishing/tourist village with a “castle” that Caitlin had visited with work mates recently and wanted us to see. The Mount Stuart folks are very disparaging about the “castle,” actually a mock-medieval 19th century manor house. They see it as competition for Mount Stuart, and resent it because it draws significantly more visitors than their property. The reason for this, they insist, is simply that Inveraray is on the main route to Oban, another famous Scottish beauty spot and tourist magnet, with an historic whisky distillery. Oban is also a gateway to the Hebrides.

Colintraive: ferry on its way (it only takes five minutes)

View along Kyle of Bute toward Port Banatyne

This is no doubt true, but we think a big part of the reason for Mount Stuart lagging as a tourist draw is that the ferry is too expensive – about £50 return for a car with a family of four. This means that, even though the ferry is only an hour or so from Glasgow and only takes about 35 minutes to cross, Bute is not really viable as a day trip. You need to stay over to make it worthwhile, and that, of course, gets even more expensive. And there are few places to stay, none very appealing apparently.

                                                             

Old Castle Lachlan (Loch Fyne)

We took an unplanned detour – it was that kind of day – to visit Castle Lachlan, the ruined stronghold of the ancient chiefs of Clan Machlachlan. This was another place Caitlin had visited and wanted us to see. It’s basically in the middle of nowhere, down a single-track road on Loch Fyne. And yet, there is a very posh gourmet restaurant there, the Inver, where Caitlin and friends had dined. It is apparently run by refugees from London and Glasgow and is getting good notices, becoming a destination. It was closed this day.

Castle Lachlan with view along Loch Fyne

The castle is also currently closed. It is supposedly undergoing restorations that will allow it to be opened again, but by the looks of it, the work is stalled. This is more properly Old Castle Lachlan. New Castle Lachlan is an 18th century baronial mansion up the road a way. This one, dating from the 15th century, but on a site that has had a castle since the 13th, is relatively small and not terribly interesting architecturally, but there is something poignant and picturesque about it sitting on a hill overlooking the beautiful loch. So much history has happened here...

The place first fell into ruin after the Machlachlan clan sided with Bonnie Prince Charlie in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Its laird was killed at the Battle of Culloden, supposedly by a cannon ball. After Culloden came the Highland Clearances, when the British army hunted down and slaughtered surviving highland clansmen and often their families, including many that had never taken up arms against the king. It’s a terrible episode in the history of the two nations, and one that is by no means forgotten in Scotland.

We walked out along a boardwalk over wetlands to the castle and wandered around it. There’s not much to see. The ladies bailed pretty quickly because the wind was howling again. I stayed on and took photos of the place, and the wild trees that surround it. I love these lichen-covered trees in Scotland.

 

We got back on the main road and drove on to Inveraray. The drive from Kerrycroy, in total, was supposed to be about an hour and 45 minutes but took longer with our detour. Inveraray is a cute town with some pretty views along Loch Fyne, with fishing boats, etc. 

Inveraray on Loch Fyne

First order of business, though, was lunch. Caitlin already knew where she wanted to take us, the George Hotel, a pub originally opened in 1770 – for which reason alone she was enamoured of it. It’s another very traditional, atmospheric British-style pub, with a roaring fire and dark wood bar, lined with shelves and shelves of whisky bottles. We had surprisingly good food. I can’t remember what the others had, but I had a very nice pork stew. And Innis & Gunn beer from the tap.

There are two tourist attractions in Inveraray: an 18th century gaol that has been done up as a Disney-ish fun family place, and the “castle.” We looked at both, and passed. The gaol, with its kitschy, kid-friendly displays held no appeal, the castle was relatively expensive and it was too late in the day to get our money’s worth. Plus, it was starting to rain. So we shopped a little in the tourist boutiques, without buying anything, then started back to Bute.

Farm track near Inveraray

Our unscheduled stop on the way back, another detour, was at the beautifully named Tighnabruaich for a high-up view over the Kyles of Bute, the water channels on either side of the island’s north end. Caitlin had also been here fairly recently with friends from work and posted a gorgeous picture on Facebook. The place did not disappoint. The views are wonderful.

Kyles of Bute from Tighnabruaich

We were back in Kerrycroy village by early evening, stopping on the way through Rothesay to replenish Caitlin’s stock of sparkling wine and water at the “little Co” – the essentials, don’t you know. The weather was sunny all evening, but we were in for the night. The next morning we had an early start because Caitlin’s boss, Alice, had graciously offered to give us a guided tour of the house, starting at 8:30 a.m.

We walked over through the park in the morning. Alice was waiting for us. It was a whirlwind tour, but we saw everything, including a couple of things Caitlin had not yet seen. The place is incredible, one of the most impressive stately homes I’ve ever been in, and I’ve seen a lot over years of pandering to my daughter’s taste for old stuff. We’d already been teasing Caitlin that she was living a fairy-tale existence. And then to see this fantastic house, with its beautiful art treasures! And this is where she works!

Third Earl of Bute by Sir Joshua Reynolds

The paintings Caitlin is studying are very impressive, especially the Reynolds portraits. We can see why she’s excited by her project. But the highlight for me – I’m sorry Honey! – was the room full of Tudor portraits, none of which, as I understand it, is in the exhibition Caitlin is curating, because none fits in the narrative she has developed for the show, mainly about the collecting practices of the third Earl of Bute in the 18th century. (Note: the third Earl is not to be confused with the third Marquess of Bute who had the house built in the late 1800s. The Earls of Bute were essentially promoted in the peerage to marquesses, in 1796.)

The latest news Alice was able to share – literally days old – is that a very fine contemporary portrait of Henry VIII, originally attributed to a lesser-known painter of the day, has now been tentatively identified as the work of Hans Holbein the Younger, who made something of a career of painting Henry. (We have one in the AGO, but it pales in comparison to Mount Stuart’s.) An expert from the U.S. is apparently coming to do some testing and make a final assessment. If it is a Holbein, the painting is worth millions of pounds, much more than it would without his name attached to it. It’s a lovely painting, almost magic-realist in its impact, but there is another right beside it of an unidentified woman, by a lesser-known artist that is every bit as good to my eyes.  

We also saw a room where Caitlin had stock-piled paintings destined for the exhibition in Glasgow, paintings that were currently not on display in the house, that had been in storage. There were 15 or so, maybe more, some quite large, some by artists well enough known that I’d heard of them. They’re part of a stockpile of paintings collected over the generations, and much of this trove has yet to be properly assessed by scholars. Many have not been seen by anybody in years.

The paintings, the focus of Caitlin’s work, are marvellous, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. The grand entranceway, the Marble Hall, with its 80-foot ceilings and gorgeous stained glass designed by architect Walter Lonsdale, is stunning. Even Alice, who has been there a few years, admitted she sometimes walks into this space and is stopped in her tracks by its beauty. The sun was out the morning we were there, and shone through the windows, casting gorgeous rainbow shadows on the walls and tapestries (also fantastic). The windows depict signs of the zodiac. Embedded in each are crystal stars representing the constellations, in mathematically correct position in relation to each other. Alice later took us up on the roof so we could put our eyes to the reverse side of the crystals and see kaleidoscopic views inside the Marble Hall.

Mount Stuart house: Marble Hall

The Marble Chapel is also pretty spectacular. (That’s an understatement.) We saw the bedrooms, many available to rent to wedding parties, a source of income for the private trust that now owns and manages the house. (The paintings, however, are still owned by the Marquess – Johnny as everybody calls him, the former race car driver. It is he, personally, who pays Caitlin’s wages.) We trooped down to the basement to see the lovely indoor pool, reputedly the first heated indoor pool in a home anywhere in the world.

The house in fact claims a number of firsts. The architects and engineers involved in building it were tops in their fields and the third Marquess was clearly a man of vision. Many of the ideas carried out so brilliantly were his originally. It also was the first house to be purpose built with electricity and central heating. The central heating system is still in use, although it is being phased out soon, to be replaced by a state-of-the-art biomass system. (What is biomass heating? Read about it here. Mount Stuart is big on green generally – although not so big on wind turbines, apparently, which was causing some angst while we were there.)

Mount Stuart house: view of Firth of Clyde from balcony

By the time we were an hour and a half into the tour (and Alice was late for her next meeting), our heads were fairly spinning. Alice is not just pointing at things and saying, look at that. She’s also telling us stories and giving historical background – often a shorthand version because she assumed, being Caitlin’s parents, that we would know some of the background. It was a lot to take in. She’s very good at it, and clearly enjoys doing it. It was at this point, when we could hardly take in anything more, that Alice brought us into one of the libraries and showed us a small sampling of the treasures held in the family’s document archives.

The Earls and Marquesses – some of them anyway, but especially Caitlin’s guy, the third Earl – were serious collectors of books and documents, and also packrats. (Among the treasures in the house’s apparently vast storerooms, for example, are complete outfits worn by sitters for some of the famous historical portraits in the house, including the full-length, floor-to-ceiling painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds of the third Earl, done in 1773.)

Alice’s selections included original drawings by Londsdale for the stained glass in the Marble Hall, a marriage contract for Bonnie Prince Charlie with annotations by the then middle-aged “lad who was born to be king,” and a handwritten notebook kept by a noble of Elizabeth I’s court sent to witness the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots and write an official account to forestall Catholic martyr makers. (The account is quite gruesome: the axeman needed two strokes to sever the head, and the lips moved for several minutes after it was off.) And of course, the now famous Shakespeare First Folio volumes are here too - in glass cases. 

Frontispiece of Bute First Folio

Adjoining this room was another very similar where Caitlin has her desk. They’re fantastic rooms, lined with leather-bound volumes, many of them rare and valuable. The third Earl especially was a very learned man.

Mount Stuart park: road to Kerrycroy

Mount Stuart: part of rock garden

This was the end of the tour. Alice scurried off to her meeting. Caitlin walked back home with us to say goodbye, and stopped for an hour. After she left to go back, we packed up and were out the door by 12:30. We had to get on the 1 o’clock ferry to Wemyss Bay. As we were waiting in the queue to drive on to the ferry, it started to hail, but not like any hail I’ve ever seen before. It was tiny little balls of snow, not ice, that floated to the ground. I caught one and squeezed it between thumb and index finger – it felt like a tiny snowball. Weird.

Last view of Bute from ferry

The rest of our time in the UK was uneventful. Easy EasyJet flight back to Gatwick, cab to the same very nice Holiday Inn we stayed in when we were on our way to Valencia at the end of January, a quite decent dinner in the hotel restaurant, early to bed, up not too early and back to the airport, where we ate breakfast in the same chain restaurant as in January. (What can I say, we’re creatures of routine.)

When we first came into the airport we heard an announcement asking that whoever had left a black bag in the Arrivals area make themselves known to security. We heard it again a few more times, and then, as we were sitting in the restaurant, at a window overlooking the Arrivals concourse, Karen noticed that security had cordoned off a section. We assumed this was a precaution in case the unclaimed bag was a bomb, but before we left the restaurant, the cordons were gone, the alarm over.

Our Air Transat flight was fine – crap food, but otherwise fine. It has turned into a quite decent airline, I think, yet is still consistently cheaper than other carriers. In particular, the quality of service from the cabin crew has improved a zillion percent. When we first started using Air Transat, they were all surly and unfriendly. Not anymore. They’ve even won some awards – best leisure airline, or some such.

And that, gentle readers, is the end of my story. Until next year.

Countdown in Lisbon

Our time in Lisbon is ticking down. We leave Saturday for England and Bute – and Caitlin. In our minds, we’ve probably already left here. Not that Lisbon isn’t a great city, and not that we haven’t enjoyed ourselves, but we’ve done all or most of what we wanted – certainly all the A-list sites and attractions – and although the weather hasn’t been quite as bad this week as at one point was forecast, it hasn’t been great.

Last Thursday, the deluge, was the worst (see previous post), but Friday wasn’t a lot better. We did a grocery shop, but that was it. On Saturday, however, the clouds lifted – a bit – and we did get out for an excursion.

We decided we’d take a closer look at the castle, the Castelo de São Jorge. It’s omnipresent in the city, sitting on a hill overlooking the Tagus river, visible from everywhere in the centre, including our front windows. Shelley had recommended it “for the views.” We weren’t entirely convinced. Our understanding was that it only offered views. And it’s not as if we’ve been starved for great views in this city. Still, it’s one of Lisbon’s big attractions, and we’d run out of other things we really wanted to see. So off we went.

View from low on castle hill across Mouraria neighbourhood

View across Graca to apartment and Miradouro de Senhora do Monte

We walked our usual route over to Alfama (where the castle is located), down Rua da Voz do Operário, the route the No. 28 tram takes. But we decided to get clever and take a ‘shortcut.’ Wrong. We just went around in a circle and had to start back at the Largo da Graça, where we took the other obvious route, down Calçada da Graça. We apparently hadn’t learned our lesson, though, as we then tried another shortcut, with the same result. We were trying to avoid going all the way down, then back up. Apparently it can’t be done. We ended up circling around the hill the castle is on, at one point walking directly below it, but unable to get to it. At another point, we stumbled on a miradouro, not a great one, with obstructed views over the river, and stopped for a breather.

On the way up to the castle

When we eventually got up to the castle entrance, we found a long queue snaking out of the ticket office. Of course: it was Saturday. What did we expect? The city was crawling with tourists. “We can do the castle another time,” we told ourselves. (Which was code for, we probably won’t be bothered.) We poked around in the narrow cobbled streets at the top of the hill and then headed down towards the centre, where we planned to find a Metro station to top up our transit cards, and maybe an ice cream cone for Karen.

Pedestrianized residential street near castle

These two guys from Cape Verde sit in this ruined series of buildings, playing for passers-by, hoping to sell their CD

We stopped at the look-outs at Portas do Sol and Mirdouro Santa Luzia, and marveled at the gigantic cruise ship docked below – the Aida. Karen counted 12 storeys at least. It dwarfed nearby houses: a small town floating in the river in Lisbon. No wonder there were so many damn tourists about the place.

The Aida cruise ship docked below Portas do Sol

View from Portas do Sol

We walked on down past the cathedral into the centre, and stopped at the same gelataria we found the last time. They didn’t have the chocolate hazel nut Karen had enjoyed so much before, but did have a vanilla-caramel she found acceptable. We ended up topping up our transit cards at the nearest Metro to the apartment, at Praca Martim Moniz, and continued on home from there. Not much of an outing, but an outing.

No. 28 trams passing on hill above cathedral

Sunday was the one day of the week forecast to be half decent: partly cloudy and mid- to high-teens. Our first idea was to find one of the museums with free admission from 10 to 2 (many if not most in the city do this on Sunday), but we couldn’t agree on  one we both wanted to see. The one thing we could agree on was going to see the Palacio das Necessidades, so named because it was originally a convent, built in the 18th century in honour of Our Lady of Needs. (Don’t ask me who she is – one of the Virgin Mary’s alter-egos, I think.) It was later a royal palace for the Braganzas, the last ruling family of Portugal.

Front gates at the Palacio das Necessidades, now the Foreign Affairs ministry headquarters: the original Big Pink

You can’t go into the palace. It’s now the headquarters of the Portuguese ministry of negotiations with foreigners, aka the Foreign Affairs department. But the adjoining gardens, the Tapada (Park) das Necessidades is open to the public. Shelley recommended it so, naturally, we went. We packed a picnic lunch and took the No. 15 tram from Praça da Figueira. It was a short walk up from the river to the Palacio. The palace is famously very...pink. Blindingly so in fact. That was our first impression of the place.

The other side of the palace: entrance to chapel, near Tapada das Necessidades

The park seemed a little disheveled, but it was quiet and peaceful, and very lush. We found a picnic table right away and ate our modest repast. There was hardly anybody about, despite it being a beautiful day, and a Sunday. We saw maybe 20 other people during the entire hour-plus we spent in the park – and it’s quite large: over 20 acres. Why haven’t Lisboetas discovered this place? Belem, I suppose, is a more attractive draw, but you’d think neighbourhood folks would make more use of it.

Tapada das Necessidades, picnic lunch (that's wine in the bottle, not a urine sample)

Toppled plant pot beside its broken pedestal - why is the figure on the pot gagged?

Our first impression was accurate: like the Botanical Garden, this tapada is a mess. Many of the old garden buildings and statuary are ruined, ponds are scummy, plant beds overrun with weeds or heartier species, usually exotics. Clearly, very little has been spent on it in a long time. It’s surprising given its proximity to such a high-profile government installation. But, as we’re learning, that’s the reality of Portugal. They don’t have a lot of money.

Tapada das Necessidades: ruined garden building

Oooh! Who stole my spigots?

Tapada das Necessidades: embarrassed duck

Our next port of call, so to speak, was the Museu do Oriente, a museum of artifacts related to Portugal’s former colonial possessions in Asia – mainly India (Goa), China (Macau) and Japan. The museum is owned and operated by the private Fundação Oriente, an organization set up in 1988 as part of the agreement between China and Portugal at the time Macau was being returned to the Chinese. The Foreign Affairs departments of both countries were involved. At least some of the funding, if I understand the confusingly worded explanation at the foundation website, comes from royalties the Portuguese retained until 2001 from gambling houses in Macau.

Portuguese traders were the first Europeans in Asia in the modern period, starting in the early 16th century, and gained footholds in many other places besides the big three, including in Burma, Ceylon and Java. They were the first to open up Japan to trade and foreign influence during the so-called Nanban (Southern barbarian trade) Period, which lasted from 1543 until they were turfed in 1614.

Museu do Oriente: detail from two different 17th century painted Japanese screens depicting Portuguese in Japan

The museum is...okay. There are some great things there – including more 17th century painted screens from Japan. Most artifacts are well displayed. And there is some interesting interpretive information. So what’s not to like? It’s hard to put a finger on. Despite its riches, the museum seemed sparse. It left me wanting more of some things (Japanese and Chinese art), and less of others (in particular, south Asian shadow puppets to which fully a quarter of the permanent collection space is currently devoted.) 

Indian shadow puppets

18th century Japanese snuff bottles (about three inches high) - snuff was imported from the west and became a huge craze

Part of it is that it’s a bigger space than really needed for the volume of artifacts on display. And like so many museums we’ve visited here, it was practically empty. In a city so overrun with tourists, it’s hard to figure.

16th century (I think) Chinese statue of Bodhidharma, patriarch of Chinese Buddhism

Still, we spent almost two hours.  Once we pay for something, we like to get our money’s worth!

Japanese netsuke, miniature sculptures first produced in the 17th century

The museum is right down in the dock area, near the wide boulevard along which the No. 15 trams run on their way back from Belem to the city centre. We walked to the same stop where we got off for Necessidades and waited. The first tram that came was so jammed only a couple of people got on. The next just rumbled through the stop. It was even more packed: folks coming home from a sunny Sunday afternoon in Belem. At that point, we toyed with taking a No. 760 bus which also stopped there, and would actually have dropped us slightly nearer home than the tram. But in the end, we decided to wimp out and grab a cab.

We walked back across the street and flagged the first that came along. And there began...a little adventure.

A sullen-looking young fellow with wavy bleach-blonde hair, white skinny jeans and a hoody is sitting in the back seat. Maybe 17, maybe 15. When we open the door and see him, and hesitate, the driver says, “No, no, I just take him up here [waving ahead], then I take you.” What the hell. Okay. I get in the front, Karen gets in the back with the kid.

It turns out that “up here” is a kilometer and a half in the wrong direction. When we get to where he’s taking the kid, there’s a sharp exchange between them. It is clear the cabby, a middle-aged guy with the look of someone who has not always had to drive taxi, is upset about something. He keeps saying, “Aye yi yi,” or the Portuguese equivalent, and throwing up his hands. The kid gets on his cell phone and the cabby sits back in his seat, sighing. “He has no money,” he says to me. “I should have known. Acts like king of the world. Now this.” This is all in pretty good English.

So the kid is calling some friend or family member in a nearby house to come down and pay his bill, which is a little over 7€. Whether the person isn’t answering, I don’t know, but the kid finally drops his mobile in the back seat – at the cabby’s insistence, as security – and walks half a block over and rings a doorbell. Soon enough, an older woman appears. I don’t think she’s old enough to be his mother, but maybe. She looks annoyed but has her wallet out. The cabby gets out and goes to meet her. (So his nice new tourist fare won’t be exposed to what follows?)  

There are angry words between them. The kid just stands there, looking sullen. The cabby strides back and opens the door, and there is a further shouted exchange over the roof of the car before he gets in. I’m pretty sure expletives are used. He finally slams the door and starts away with a jerk.

“She wouldn’t pay,” I ask?

“No, no,” he says. “She give me 5€.” He shows it to me.

“So she refused to pay the full amount?”

“No, no, that was me. I just wanted to get away, so I take it. I don’t want to deal with those people any more.”

He’s starting away and I’m looking at the meter, which still has well over 7€ on it, and he’s not making any move to clear it. I indicate the meter, urgently. The cabby is still upset. He seems a fairly reasonable guy – I’ve already noticed he has two well-thumbed books stuffed down beside his seat, so I’m prepared to think well of him. But his patience has been tested, and it takes some effort for him to calm himself. Finally, he explains.

If he clears the meter, it will automatically start again at 3.95€. The kid’s friend has paid 5€. So we’re a euro or more up if we pay what’s on the meter at the end, minus the 5€. In other words, he’s doing us a favour. Except, he doesn’t take into account that we’ve gone some way out of our way, and that the meter will tick up, wiping out that euro pretty quickly, as we drive back in the right direction. But what the hell! Karen and I are kind of having fun. We agree.

The cabby and I carry on a bit of a conversation. He seems to think the kid and his relative are “scum of the earth.” I think those are the words he uses, or “toxic waste,” something like that. It strikes me as harsh, but I don’t think he really means it seriously. He’s just pissed. He goes on to say something to the effect that they will have to live two or three more lives before they even become human. O-kay.

“Are you a Buddhist?” I ask, all innocence. He looks blank. “No, no, I’m Christin.” (His English isn’t perfect.) “It’s just, that’s what they believe,” I say, “Buddhists. That you live multiple lives.”  He barks out a laugh. “Oh, oh, yeah. No, I just mean for self-preservation.” Huh?

It goes on. He asks where we’re from. He says nothing at first when I tell him. “You know where that is?” I say, teasing. He smiles and says, “I think that’s a pretty icy place right now, yes?” Well, no, I say, it’s actually warmer there now than it is here (which was true on this day.) He says nothing to that. He asks where we’ve been today, doesn’t understand my non-Portuguese pronunciation of Necessidades, then patiently corrects it. “The Palace of Needs,” he says, proud of his translating. “Yes,” I say. “Why is it called that?” “Oh,” he laughs. “I have no idea.”

I ask about his books. We’re at a stop light and he pulls them out to show me. One is an old Meyer Lansky book about the Mafia, translated into Portuguese. The other is a book by an author with an English name, which he says is a “romance.” Does he mean a novel, or a romance story? As I discover later, romance in Portuguese means both romance and novel. So who knows? Most guys wouldn’t admit to reading a “romance,” though, and certainly not a grizzled middle-aged taxi driver. The novel is set in South Africa, he adds. I find myself wondering, Portuguese South Africa (Angola, Mozambique, etc.) or Mandela’s South Africa?

Was he originally from Lisbon, I ask later? (This ride is taking a long time.) No, no, he came “from the mountains.” No further explanation, none requested. At some point, he repeats what I think he said near the beginning of our journey, but more clearly this time so I understand. Part of the reason he picked us up when he already had a fare – which is no doubt against the rules – was because he had “a bad feeling” about the kid," he says. “So we were your protection?” I say. (Why can’t I resist teasing this guy?) “No, no,” he laughs. “Not that. Just...company. Good company, not like him.”

The bill at the end is probably higher than it should have been, or would have been if we’d got a cab directly home – but not that much higher. He asks, a little sheepishly, “So, 8€ is okay?” He either knows we are being over-charged, or is afraid we might think so. I pull out a 5€ note and rummage for more. I think he is starting to say that he will take the five, but I manage to dig out coins to make up the amount. 

He was good entertainment, and probably needed it more than we did.

On Monday, it was forecast to rain, and looked like it would rain all day, but never did. It was mild, almost sticky. We went shopping after lunch, and talked about going back out for a proper walk. We didn’t actually get around to it until quite late. We walked up to the miradouro and then down from the other side, something we hadn’t done before. 

Stepped route down from other side of miradouro at the top of our street

Our idea was to explore Graca a little. We did, but it turns out to be not that interesting, just a working-class and middle-middle-class residential neighbourhood with appropriate commercial. Little wealth. Few tourist attractions – all clustered near our apartment (the miradouros, Our Lady of Graca church). Not even many other churches, surprisingly, or not that we saw.

Ruin with a view: along route down from Miradouro de Senhora do Monte

As Karen said, though, there must be lots of people who never go off the hill into the centre. Everything they need is up here: shops, banks, schools, church, health care. We passed one huge high school. And the only public transit off the hill is the No. 28 tram, which most hours of the day is jammed with tourists, to the great frustration of locals who also ride it. Some parts of the neighbourhood we walked through had slightly nicer looking apartment blocks, but there wasn’t a lot of variety.

The whole time, we were walking along Rua da Graca and its extension, Rua da Penha de França, along the spine of a hill. If we turned off in either direction, we’d be going downhill – and then have to climb back up to get home, which we wanted to avoid. We finally did turn off, just because we were bored, and went down a long flight of leafy stairs at Rua Cidade de Manchester. It reminded me a little of Montmartre in Paris. (The reason there is a street in Graca named after an English city will have to remain a mystery.) We paid with a steep climb up another street that brought us back to the inescapable Rua da Penha de França.

Below Rua da Penha de França: that's our miradouro in the distance

I was quite damp with perspiration by the time we got home. It was perhaps the warmest day since we arrived, or felt like it because of the humidity.

Today (Tuesday - it's now Wednesday, ed.) was forecast to be rainy too, but it was cleaning day, so we had to plan an outing. Our established routine now is to go out for lunch on Tuesday, vacating the apartment in the middle of the day, when Rosa typically comes to clean and change linens. My idea was to try the so-called National Museum of Contemporary Art in Chiado, the posh downtown neighbourhood where we saw the great churches last week. It’s actually a museum devoted to Portuguese art from Romanticism (early 19th century) to modern (1960 or so), not really contemporary at all. We would look for a place to eat lunch nearby.

Since it was raining a little when we set out a bit before noon – really just spitting at that point – we decided to take the tram. Or we’d see how busy the trams were, and then decide. We walked over to the stop at Largo do Graca and one came along almost immediately. It was standing-room only, of course, but not absolutely jammed. We decided, a little reluctantly, to give it a chance.

We never did get a seat, and it took well over a half an hour to get to Chiado. There were multiple traffic jams, with horn honking and clanging of tram bells. It was a jerky ride too. Just before Portas do Sol, the road narrows, and it goes down to a single track that the trams in both directions take turns using to get by. One of the green tourist trams had sallied onto the single-track section when it apparently shouldn’t have, blocking our tram. Ours couldn’t back up because there were too many cars behind. Karen at one point said, “Look at that mirror.” I looked out the window where she was pointing and saw one of those convex traffic mirrors, with in the middle of it, perfectly framed, the green tram and ours facing each other, a few feet apart on the track. Should have taken a picture. The green tram backed up, and we squeezed past a parked car with about six inches to spare.

We got off 15 minutes later at the Chiado-Baixa Metro stop and walked up Rua Garrett, through the Praça Luís de Camões, looking for a restaurant. We found Restaurant Calcuta, an Indian place, just off Calcada do Combro (so technically in Bairro Alto apparently.) 

It was very, very good, and appeared not to have been discovered by tourists. All the other customers were Portuguese. We had onion bhajis and ground chicken samosas for starters, then vegetable biriani and tandoori chicken with raita, all washed down with white wine. Total bill with three glasses of wine: 37€. Not bad for the quality. It was certainly the best Indian food I’ve had in a long time.

The museum when we found it, not difficult, turned out to be mostly closed. There was one special exhibit about Portuguese art from 1950 to 1960, but most of the permanent collection was inaccessible, except for a small display of sculptures, some by Rodin, who apparently spent time here, which were in the lobby. We opted not to pay for the special exhibit, spent 20 minutes looking in the lobby and left. That was it. 

Pretty building with fresco paintings in Chiado (or is it Bairro Alto there?)

The weather had turned nice, so we walked home. We were back before 4. The end. (Of the post, I mean.)

Lovely old apartment block on walk up Graca hill, badly in need of some TLC, as many are - but notice flowers overflowing balcony near top left (click to enlarge photo)