On our own in Lisbon

I'm going to do this a little differently. I'm going to post about what we're up to right now, and then try and catch up with what I didn't get time to write about when the Hoots were with us. (When I'm going to find time, I'm not sure.) The posts should still appear in chronological order, and if you've subscribed to get e-mail notification, you should still get messages, even if the new post is ante-dated.

Since the Hoots left, Karen and I have been wandering around Lisbon, exploring. On Thursday, forecast to be a lovely day, we walked over toward Bairro Alto, Shelley Boyes’s neighbourhood the last time she stayed in the city. 

We went our usual route down the Graca hill. The first leg takes us past a derelict, tile-fronted house with plants growing out of the exterior walls, including a leggy tree (see pic). The house amuses us, but it shouldn't because it's symbolic of the economic hardships this country still faces. Closer to Praca Martim Moniz, where it starts to flatten out a bit, it’s obviously a very poor immigrant neighbourhood, with East Indian, Chinese and African elements intermingled.

Yesterday, as we were walking through this area, an SUV came barreling down the steep cobbled street at a criminal clip, honking as it went. The angry look on the driver’s face told me his speed and disregard for pedestrians probably had something to do with racial hatred. A couple of grinning Chinese kids came out of a restaurant and shouted after him – good naturedly, it seemed. I would have been shaking my fist, and then on the phone to the cops.

Bairro Alto, which is on the far side of Rossio Square (and the train station) from Graca, is a somewhat upscale neighbourhood, mostly residential, not very tourist-y. There are some interesting shops and restaurants; we can see why Shelley liked it. We ended, after a long climb up a stepped street, at  Igreja de São Roque, the Church of Saint Rock. 

Church of Saint Rock, John the Baptist Chapel

It’s impressive with its austere front and over-the-top side chapels inside. The chapels include, supposedly, the most expensive ever constructed, one dedicated to John the Baptist. It cost £250,00 to build in the mid-1700s, an astronomical sum in modern currency. The chapel decorations were made in Rome, assembled there and inaugurated with a mass said by the reigning Pope, then dismantled and shipped to Portugal. The apparent oil paintings depicting John’s life are in fact mosaics with tiny, tiny pieces that you can just discern if you look at them at the right angle with the light shining just so. But this isn’t in fact the gaudiest chapel in the church. One appears to be entirely of worked gold – or gold-coloured metal.

Church of Saint Rock, Our Lady of Mercy Chapel

We walked on up to the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara and the garden there. They’re at the top of the Elevador da Gloria, a highly-recommended funicular ride that would have saved us the climb if we’d been willing to fork over 3.60€ each. (Which we weren’t.) 

View of Graca from Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara showing apartment location

It’s a lively little spot, with lots of tourists in the square, listening to buskers, browsing the craft booths and gazing out over the city. We went down into the garden on the lower level, bought a coke at a cafe for Karen and ate our picnic lunch in the shade on a park bench. It brought back memories of our first trips to Europe about a hundred years ago, when we’d buy a baguette, some cheese and a bottle of wine and sit on a park bench to eat.

Karen on park bench in garden of Alcântara miradouro

Greece, 1977

After lunch, we wandered over into the São Bento neighbourhood, and then Estrela, heading for the Basilica, and the Jardim da Estrela. The route took us past the parliament buildings, a suitably impressive structure that our guide book tells us was once a monastery. If it was a monastery, it was a very grandiose home for a bunch of monks. Maybe the present building was erected on the site of a monastery. I was amused that the rifle-toting guards in their blue dress uniforms and spiked pith helmets were wearing sunglasses – and in fact had sun shades to shelter under as well. The army must be unionized here.

Portuguese parliament buldings

Street art spotted near parliament buildings

The Jardim da Estrela is a pretty place, very neighbourhood-y, with a cafe, children’s playground, and lots of deep shade. It must be lovely in the hot summer – in fact, was very welcome on this surprisingly warm day. We sat for a few moments, then went over and had a look at the inside of the Basilica. It was built in the 1860s, with funding from the reigning queen who paid for it to honour a promise she made to build a great church in thanks if she managed to pop out a male heir. She did, and did. The interior is attractive, very harmonious, not too gaudy, but with none of the fabulous treasures of Saint Rock.

Basílica da Estrela

At this point, we made a mistake. We decided to take the tram home – Tram 28, the one recommended by all the tourist guides because it wends up hill and down, through a bunch of iconic neighbourhoods, including our own, Graca. On a nice day, it might be fun, if you had a seat by an open window with a good view of the passing scene. But every time we’ve seen No. 28 trams go by so far, they’ve been jammed to the rafters, with queues at many stops. This might be because it’s the lead-up to Easter and the city is full of European vacationers. (We’re hoping so.) We thought we might be okay on this occasion because we were fairly far out of the centre, near the western terminus of the line. Not so.

There must have been a delay on the line: we had to wait almost 30 minutes. By the time the tram finally came, a long queue had formed. We were nominally at the front, but some French queue jumpers, and one burly, bearded old Portuguese guy, were crowding us. The door opened right in front of us, luckily, so we climbed on first. At this point, the old Portuguese guy started pushing past us in the narrow opening, quite aggressively, and shouting. I suppose he was trying to get to the machine that reads the reusable transit cards, while we had to stop and pay cash to the driver (2.85€ each). I finally turned to him and raised my hands and said, “Senhor, momento!”

I have no idea, of course, if “momento” means “a moment” in Portuguese, which is what I intended. It didn’t make any difference in any case. He kept shouting and pushing. We fought our way to the back through folks standing in the aisle and found a place to stand ourselves. There were certainly no seats available. The old guy pushed past us roughly again on his way to the back. I looked at him, gentle reader, quite darkly. I’m sure he felt chastised, but I didn’t follow up with him on the matter.

We stood for about two thirds of the ride, with no view of anything. When we were finally sitting, we couldn’t really see much either, although we did then at least have some idea where we were. Why am I going on and on about this? If you’re ever in Lisbon, take my advice: forget Tram 28. Take pictures of the quaint yellow cars, but don’t bother riding. And for sure, don’t pay for any tram ride on the tram. Yesterday, we finally got around to buying rechargeable transit cards. The fare per ride, with a card, works out to 1.25€, less than half the cash amount.

No. 28 tram, somewhere in Chiado

We managed to get off at exactly our stop, went into the nearby Pingo Doce grocery store for a shop, and went on home. I made a sausage dinner with almost tasteless sausages, which we will not buy again. And so ended the day.

Yesterday, Good Friday, was another beauty, mostly sunny and mild, though with a chill breeze in unprotected places. It took us a while to get out of the house for some reason. We first walked over through Graca to the church on the hill that we can see off to the left from our front windows. It’s the Church of Graca.

House front near Graca church

We had seen crowds standing on the terrace in front from the apartment. The first time we noticed it, there was a Maundy Thursday church service being piped outside through loudspeakers, loudly. It was clearly audible here. We assumed that’s what the crowds were about. But there is in fact another miradouro there, with a little cafe to cater to the tourists it attracts. It’s not as good as the view above us, we thought, but different. The wind was very chilly here. 

View of our hill from miradouro at Graca church - see if you can spot our apartment

We stuck our heads into the church, which is surprisingly big and impressive, but not particularly rich in art.

Graca church

We walked from there over into Alfama – around the castle, below it, though we couldn’t really see it at this point – to the Miradouro das Portas do Sol. We had visited this place with Pat and Ralph, along with the Miradouro de Santa Luzia, just down the hill. Both give great views over terracotta roofs, church steeples and the river. 

Lunch time in Alfama

We thought this was pretty much all there was to Alfama. But as we discovered, the real Alfama is below the miradouros. It's the narrow little alleyways – becos – zig-zagging down the hill: a crazy maze. We saw working folks out on their terraces cooking holiday lunch on little braziers. Lots of laundry. Lots of restaurants, cafes, Fado clubs. Funny little squares. It’s a bit tourist-y, although clearly regular people still live here too.

We finally got down to the water, to which there is no pedestrian access here, and walked along toward the centre. 

Art-festooned building on riverside near Alfama

View of cathedral towers from river near Alfama

Just before you get to Commerce Square – the main square we visited our first day here – you can get down to the river. We went into the Metro stop there first and bought our Via Viagems (the rechargeable transit cards), then walked on to the square. It was much more crowded today: lots of families, tourists and young folk, milling or sitting in the sun on the stone walls and steps down to the river. There was an East Indian-looking busking group playing Caribbean-sounding music, and another group with instruments piled on a trolley, obviously waiting their turn to earn some euros from the touristas.

In Commerce Square

We walked on to an area where there is a kind of terraced paved beach and sat on a step for awhile. We had been noticing as we walked from Alfama how much closer the April 25 bridge appeared to be – perhaps some optical trick of the atmosphere this day. Now it seemed the right distance away again. We watched a very old-fashioned-looking ferry plowing across the river from the other side. The sun was warm, life was good.

Behind Commerce Square by the river

Our plan from there was to walk up into Chiado, another of the central Lisbon neighbourhoods. It’s strangely difficult, because of road construction and the long government buildings that line the river here to get away from the front and into Chiado. We had to walk all the way back to Commerce Square and then back again along a street behind it. It had very narrow sidewalks, and I was constantly jostled by drunken young English soccer louts behind us. (Am I turning into a grumpy old man? Nope, turned a long time ago.) We eventually worked our way up into the edge of Chiado, but by this time were losing our relish for exploring. We had been out and walking for well over two and a half hours. It was time to go home.

A tree grows in Chiado - out of the pavement

We could have taken the No. 28 tram, but as usual, they were all crammed, and mostly stuck in traffic anyway. It was probably faster walking back through Praca Martim Moniz, which is what we did. We were foot-weary and tired, and – surprise – stayed in for the evening. We had a long Skype with Shelley Boyes before dinner. She’s over in Barcelona now, but will be coming to visit for the weekend in a couple of weeks.

This morning dawned dismal and rainy, and has continued that way. We talk of getting out and going to a museum if the rain lets up, but I have my doubts.

I was right to. It teemed with rain all day. I went out at one point to do a shop. It started raining again almost as soon as I got outside, and poured on the way home from the supermarket. I was soaked.