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)