Cascais

Monday was a write-off. It had rained all Sunday night and continued most of the next day, great sheets of it gusting past our front windows. We were astonished to see that work proceeded on the ramshackle building project below us. The workers must have been sodden.

When the rain finally stopped a bit before two – and the sun even began to peek through – Karen and I went out and did a big shop at the Pingo Doce. Then we came back and settled in for what we were calling a “down” day: reading, photography, blogging.

Tuesday, we were right back at it. A little before noon, we set out for a short walk to the 16th century St. Vincent de Fora (St. Vincent of the Outside) church and monastery. We had passed it on our way to the azulejo museum on Sunday. The church, as is often the case here, was free, the monastery and museum cost: 2.50€ each with our seniors discount.

St. Vincent de Fora church nave

The church was impressively large and spacious, but remarkably plain. The side chapels featured more carved unpainted wood statues than the kind of gilded or polychrome altar pieces that are the norm in Lisbon. The monastery was worth the price of admission for the Sacristy alone, with its marble inlaid wood paneling and painted ceiling, and also for the fabulous views from the tower.

St. Vincent de Fora church: sacristy

There is a museum about the history of the Lisbon patriarchs – the local cardinals. The monastery houses the pantheon of the patriarchs. The museum we dashed through, the pantheon itself was interesting for the style of its design: very modern-looking, with massive slab-sided granite sarcophagi, and an altar and crucifix (of a later date, I suspect) to match. Very austere. The entombed patriarchs go back to the early 18th century. The monastery also houses the Pantheon of the Bragança monarchs (the last ruling family in Portugal) and their consorts. It's surprisingly not as impressive.

St. Vincent de Fora monastery: pantheon of patriarchs

The cloisters are mainly interesting for the azulejo paneling, much of it 18th century, some of it by one of the top tile painters of the period – whose name, unsurprisingly, is completely unknown outside Portugal. They’re otherwise plain and not particularly charming.

St. Vincent de Fora monastery: cloisters

St. Vincent de Fora monastery: azulejo panel in cloister stairwell

The climb to the tower wasn’t too onerous for Karen, and the views – out over the river and the domed church of Santa Engraçia, now the National Pantheon, and back up the hill over gardens and rooftops – made it worth the effort. You have access to the entire rooftop with a full 360° view.

St. Vincent de Fora: view from tower (note walled garden with azulejos)

St. Vincent de Fora: view of Santa Engracia from tower

The other interesting thing here is the series of 30 restored azulejo panels illustrating the Fables of the 17th century French writer Jean de La Fontaine. It wasn’t clear whether this was a permanent exhibit or temporary. The panels certainly came from somewhere else. 

Panel illustrating La Fontaine fable of bear and man who loved gardens

I had never read any of the fables, or not that I remembered. Karen and I were both struck by how uniformly harsh and bleak they are – at least in the prose summaries included with this exhibition.  Here’s an example:

The Cat, the Weasel and the Rabbit: The weasel settled in the rabbit’s warren. The rabbit demanded his rights and ordered the intruder to leave. The weasel answered that things belong to those who take them and not to those who inherited them from their parents, like the rabbit. However, he suggested that they ask a cat that they knew to be the judge. So there they stood in front of the judge, and the cat said, ‘My children, come closer, for I am deaf due to my age.’ No sooner were they within the cat’s reach than he caught them and ate them. Thus, they were finally brought together.

Azulejo panel illustrating La Fontaine fable of cat, weasel and rabbit

So I looked up the originals, or at least English translations of the originals. La Fontaine wrote in verse. And yes, the morals are often harsh – it was the 17th century, after all, life was hard. But they are also very playful. Here’s the opening of the one quoted above in a mid-19th century verse translation by the American mathematician and abolitionist Elizur Wright:

John Rabbit's palace under ground

Was once by Goody Weasel found.

She, sly of heart, resolved to seize

The place, and did so at her ease.

She took possession while its lord

Was absent on the dewy sward,

Intent on his usual sport,

A courtier at Aurora's court.

The playfulness continues to the gruesome end, the moral now makes a little more sense, even if it's not very applicable in modern times:

The good apostle, Clapperclaw [the cat],

Then laid on each a well-arm’d paw,

And both to an agreement brought,

By virtue of his tuskèd jaw.

This brings to mind the fate

Of little kings before the great.

Panel illustrating La Fontaine fable

After St. Vincent, we trudged back up the hill with the idea of having lunch at home and then returning to take a closer look at the National Pantheon, which is just down the hill from St. Vincent. When we got back to the apartment, we found Rosa, the cleaner, still there. So we decided to have lunch out instead. We found a place we thought was one recommended by Rita, our landlady (it was the wrong one), in Largo da Graca. It wasn’t great, or particularly inexpensive. We ain’t in Valencia anymore.

After lunch, we went back to Santa Engraçia, the National Pantheon, where the great and celebrated of Portugal are entombed (other than the cardinals and the Bragança royalty). There was a major flea market underway in the streets around it, which we skirted through. It apparently runs twice a week. It looked like there was some interesting stuff.

National Pantheon

When we got to the Pantheon, we decided we didn’t have the energy for it after all – as impressive as it looked at a glance from the entrance way. It would have cost to get in, and if we’d paid, we’d have felt obliged to get our money’s worth, and we just weren't up to it. That’s the great thing about traveling this way: you don’t have to do it all now. We’ll be here for another couple of weeks, and the place is only a 20-minute walk away.

Night view from apartment: Our Lady of Grace, castle, lower Graca

Wednesday was forecast to be a lovely day: sunny, with highs in Lisbon of 18-19°C. It was the perfect day to head to Cascais (cash-kaysh), the ocean-side fishing and beach town just up the coast. It was originally developed as a summer retreat by upper class twits in the 19th century, and still attracts the rich of Lisbon. A lure for us was the free bike “rentals” from the city tourist organization, and the fairly new ocean front bikeway. The trip, however, was not as we might have wished.

It started at the Caise Sodre station in Lisbon where we would get the train. The station is a 10-minute tram ride from the square where we’d caught the trolley for Belem a few days before. When we got to it, we found six automatic ticket machines, one working only intermittently, with about 150 people clustered around them, mostly tourists. There were also two or three wickets with ticket sellers, but each with a long, snaking queue. Probably 300 people altogether were trying to buy tickets. There appeared to be no staff around to help tourists buy from the balky machines. Many in the queues had no idea how to use them.

We queued for almost 20 minutes – missing the first train we could have got – and then discovered that the machine we had lined up for was out of change, or its bill-changing mechanism was on the fritz: it would only accept silver. We had to go find change, and line up again, for another almost 25 minutes. We missed a couple more trains, but finally got our tickets. The next train, as it happened, was a milk run that stopped at every station. It took over 40 minutes. By the time we got there, it was well after noon.

We came out of the station in Cascais, armed only with our Lisbon pocket guide, featuring a tiny key map of Cascais, and two brief pages of information about what to see. We expected a sign pointing to a tourist information centre, but there was nothing, not even a map of the town on a board. We wandered towards the water, and were unimpressed by the touristy, beachy scene – been there, done that. It wasn’t as bad as Albufeira, but heading in that direction.

It took us almost an hour to give up on finding an open tourist office. (We found a closed one, with a sign pointing to an “information point” across the street, which we also never found.) We knew we were too late to snag one of the free bikes anyway. All the information online said you had to get there early to have any chance at one. So we decided just to make the best of it.

We had seen a Pingo Doce in our wanderings and went back to it and bought cheese and Portuguese rolls for a picnic lunch. We had our own fruit from home. We wandered down to the town hall and tiny Ribeira beach near the fish market and settled on a park bench in the sun. I found a nearby convenience store and bought a split of vinho verde and a can of Sagres beer. Okay, things were looking up. We sat for 30 minutes, watching the crazy foreigners – mostly French, the country is swamped with French right now – cavorting on the beach as if it was mid-summer.

The Lisbon book in fact gave us leads to enough things to do to keep us occupied for what was left of the day. We started by walking up around the citadel, an impressive fortress converted into a hotel. 

Citadel at Cascais: fun with perspective

Cascais harbour

Along the way, there were views out over the bay with fishing boats. On the other side of the citadel is a municipal park, a lovely spot with peacocks and roosters roaming the leafy paths. At the edge of it, we found the Museu Biblioteca Conde Castro Guimarães, a towered mansion that has been preserved as a museum. It was one of the recommended things to see.

Castro Guimarães mansion: inner courtyard

Castro Guimarães mansion: front garden

It’s impressive enough, with some nice paintings and lovely azulejo-lined fire places. But the main attraction, according to our book, was the collection of rare illuminated 16th century manuscripts. When we’d completed the self-guided tour and had seen no sign of the manuscripts, we asked about them. They were in the library, the attendant explained, which was one of three rooms in the house currently closed. Thank you. You can’t really complain, though. Like all the museums in Cascais, this one is free.

We meandered through the park in search of the Casa das Historias, an art gallery devoted to the work of Paula Rego, a living Portuguese artist, and found it on the other side. It’s a stunning building, all flame-coloured stone with window-less walls and pyramid-shaped towers, a bit brutalist perhaps, but striking.

Casa das Historias (courtesy of industrializedarchitecture.com)

We’d never heard of Paula Rego, but she’s one of my new favourite artists. She’s a realist and illustrator. Most of the work on display right now is drawings, etchings, aquatints and acrylic on paper paintings, but there is also one ‘tapestry,’ created on commission for an Algarve hotel but rejected by it, and she apparently also does collages.

Paul Rego, one of a series inspired by famous Portuguese novel about priest who has an affair with a parishioner (courtesty of Casa das Historias)

Her themes often relate to the role of women – and men. The place is called Casa das Historias, house of stories, because many of her series are based on works of literature, including one based on Jane Eyre. She was married to a Brit and, I think, lived there for awhile. She had artist-in-residence gigs at more than one British gallery. In fact, she was the first ever artist in residence at the National, where she was meant to create new art inspired by works in the museum. She did, and some are on display here. I like that she writes very wittily and unpretentiously about her own work.

Castro Guimarães mansion

We walked back across the park to the Castro Guimarães mansion because Karen had seen from one of its upper windows a walkway along the sea front. We found the walk, which was also the beginning of the bike path we'd hoped to follow, and walked a short way along it. We stopped to have a look at the lighthouse and another old mansion. Then we were out of the city proper with wild rocks and ocean on one side, and very large, fairly modern houses on the other.

Casa de Santa Maria

Manhattan: just beyond the horizon

Our last activity, back in town, was a brief exploration of the narrow grid of streets and becos (alleyways) behind the Church of the Assumption. They are picturesque and charming as advertised, and we found some excellent street art. By this time, it was almost six, though, and we were tuckered out. All in all, not a bad day, considering the start.

We walked back to the station, got on a train waiting there – which turned out to be an express that got us back to Lisbon in 25 minutes. We walked 10 minutes to a street that the No. 28 tram ran down, caught one fairly quickly, got seats, and rode home in comfort.

Ridin' the 28

All’s well that ends well. 

We do museums

It’s been a week of museums here in Lisboa. On Tuesday, it was the Design Museum, Wednesday, the Gulbenkian (see earlier post). And we visited three more Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They were all brilliant. Lisbon does good museum.

On Friday, we took our first trip out to Belem, the northwest suburb on the river where the presidential palace is located, as well as several other important cultural institutions. Our main objective this day was the National Coach Museum, a fabulous collection of wheeled carriages, ceremonial and every-day, from the 17th through 19th century. It’s not something that would have attracted us normally, but it came highly recommended.

Not how we got to Belem - 18th century ceremonial carriage

To get to Belem, you take the No. 15 tram. For us, it made sense to go to the terminus at Praca de Figueira, about a 15-minute walk down the hill from Graca. When we got to the stop, it was jammed with people. There were other city tram lines that stopped there, and a tourist trolley as well. We were hopeful some of them were getting on other cars. We waited about 20 minutes. Other trams did come, but hardly anyone got on. Rats! It was clear most of these people were going to Belem. And why not? It was a lovely day – sun and cloud, 16°C – and there is a lot to see and do in Belem.

Finally, one of the quaint old yellow trolleys, a No. 15, came clanking up to the stop. Everybody crowded to get on. We thought, we’ll walk before we stand on a cramped, over-crowded trolley car for 25 minutes. But just as we were turning to walk away, one of the brand-new articulated trams came hissing around the corner, also a No. 15, also headed to Belem. We got on it and sat in comfort the whole way. Ha!

Belem, which is just past where the April 25 suspension bridge crosses the Rio Tejo, has obviously seen heavy government investment. There are lovely parks and gardens along the river, a fabulous-looking monument to exploration and navigation at the water’s edge, and the spiffy new Belem Cultural Centre, which includes a major modern art gallery, the Berardo. The 16th century Belem Tower, which the city uses as an icon in its tourist literature, is also here, and the Monastery of Jeronimos (no, not the Apache chief), which is another UNESCO World Heritage site.

Gothic front door of church at St. Jeronimos Monastery

The Coach Museum (3€ each with our seniors discount) used to be housed in an old palace, but was moved quite recently into a modern purpose-built facility. This is sad in a way, but the new building certainly shows off the exhibits well: lots of space, lots of light. Some of the ceremonial carriages used by royals and aristocracy are mind-bogglingly rich and ornate, especially the 18th century examples. They were clearly meant as a nose-thumbing to plebs and middle class burghers. Ha, ha, we have untold wealth, you don’t! And to scare the bejesus out of them.

Who cares what period, or who used them? The Portuguese should have chopped their heads off before it came to this.

I’m not sure how it came about that Lisbon has such a museum, but we have seen other evidence suggesting the Portuguese royals – who were turfed early in the 20th century – were heavily into excess and opulence. These are the same folks after all who built the over-the-top Pena Palace in Sintra, which I wrote about in an earlier post. (Except, hmmm, I haven’t actually posted that one yet, have I? Well, take my word – it’s over the top.) A lot of the carriages on display here were used by Portuguese royals and nobles.

More idiotic excess - off with their heads!

After the Coach Museum, we walked through the parks to the 16th century Monastery and went into the church part. It’s astonishing. I don’t remember ever seeing stone pillars in a nave so ornately carved. Or so high. Just the scale of the place overwhelms. Vasco da Gama’s tomb is here too. (I remember learning about his exploits in Social Studies in primary school. He was just one among several great explorers of the period. Here he is revered, still. The new bridge across the Tejo, for example, was named after him.)

Lion at base of Vasco da Gama's tomb

Inside church of St. Jeronimos Monastery

There is much more on the monastery property, including the National Archaeology Museum. But you have to pay for the rest of it, and we didn’t have enough time to make it worthwhile. We went back to the tram stop, climbed on a modern car and a few minutes later, were whisked home. Or almost home – there was the 20-minute huff-and-puff up the hill.

Karen had read about a little-known museum, the Casa Museu Medeiros e Almeida, which houses the fabulous collections of an early 20th century Portuguese tycoon,  António de Medeiros e Almeida. He made his first money with a successful business importing Morris automobiles from Britain. The museum is housed in the home the family lived in until the early 1970s, just off Avenida da Liberdade. The place is apparently not mentioned in many guidebooks, so hardly anybody knows about it. Reviews at sites such as Trip Advisor rave about it, however. And on Saturday mornings, it’s free. Yeehaw!

  

View of Rossio train station - interesting architecture

We set out fairly early in the day (for us – i.e 11 a.m.) and hiked the 40 minutes or so over to the museum – down to Rossio Square and then up Liberdade. The museum is a delight. It’s nothing like the Gulbenkian, even though both are based on collections of very rich, acquisitive men. Medeiros e Almeida was an odd-ball, eclectic collector. He liked clocks and watches, he liked ladies’ fans, and he liked azulejo (Portuguese glazed tilework). Among other things. There are few art masterworks here, although there is a nice Tiepolo portrait, a Breughel (the Younger) and some George Romney portraits.

Bruegel painting by Bruegel the Younger - not that I'm a Bruegel snob...

I neglected to note the artist or subject, but it's a damn fine portrait - early 19th century by the look of it

The rooms are supposedly left exactly as when the family lived in the house. There is a dining room with the table set for a 1964 dinner party at which Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monnaco were the guests of honour. And there are some “private” rooms that lack the opulence of the public areas and look almost like normal rooms. But if the family really lived in the house the way it is today – well, it would have been like living in a museum, a somewhat clutterd museum.

I think we liked the fan collection best. It’s beautifully presented, in individually lighted drawers. We spent over 30 minutes, pulling out each drawer and marveling at the intricate design and artistry. I find I’m increasingly attracted to objects that have a practical use but are carefully and artfully designed and highly decorated. Playing cards are another example. In the case of the fans, I had no idea they could be so beautiful and superbly designed and manufactured as these.

The clocks and watches, I could take or leave – with the exception of some very ornate table clock-and-candelabra sets sprinkled through the house. The final room, with the man’s collection of top-quality pictorial azulejo panels, a fountain with pond, and marble statuary, is a knock-out. All in all, a couple of hours well and enjoyably spent.

Meissen china clock and cadelabra set (for you, Gail Wreford - click to enlarge and see the detail)

By the time we were finished in the museum, it was getting to be too late to walk home and eat lunch, so we decided to eat out. We walked up into Bairro Alto and found a little place with tables in a narrow cobbled street, a few feet from where cars passed, albeit slowly. The waiter talked Karen into a typically Portuguese stewed dish with various meats, including black sausage, rice and beans – which she said was good, but she wasn’t really crazy about. I had grilled chicken with fries, and we shared a salad and a split of vinho verde. Total cost 35€ with tip – not the best value we’ve had, but not terrible.

We stopped for a couple of grocery items and made it home just in time before the rain came. It poured most of the night. We whiled away the late afternoon/evening with photography, reading, TV. The usual. What will happen next weekend when Shelley comes to town and expects to go out at night? Aaaach!

On Sunday, we set out early again to walk to the National Azulejo Museum, about 30 minutes from here, southeast of Alfama, near the river. Azulejo is a big thing in Portuguese arts and culture. It’s origins are in Moorish culture, and the first techniques used for making it were imported from Spain. But the Portuguese latched on to it and made it their own. Many buildings in Lisbon are fronted from the ground up in brightly-coloured glazed tiles. It’s the signature look of the place. Churches in the 16th through 18th centuries often commissioned azulejo pieces to front their altars. The country is lousy with ceramic tiles, still. It’s not unusual to see pictorial tile panels on the sides of buildings, even modern ones.

Front of Saint Vincent of Fora monastery church, with redbud (for you, Mike Haas)

Our walk took us down from Graca through Alfama by a route we hadn’t gone before, past the mammoth Saint Vincent of Fora monastery and church, and Santa Engracia church, now the Paneão Nacional (the national Pantheon – where lots of notable Portuguese are entombed).

Santa Engracia church, now the National Pantheon

When we got to the river, right at the Santa Apolonia rail station, there was a big Nordic cruise ship parked at the pier in front of us – perhaps on its way from the Antarctic, where the signage on the side said it toured, up to its northern routes, now that the Antipodean winter is on its way. At this point we made a mistake in our route and chose a street that went on the water side of the tracks. We had to follow it for a couple of kilometers, through not very interesting or salubrious areas, some of it beside a motorway and overlooked by the container docks, before we could cut back in to where the museum is.

The museum is free the first Sunday of the month, but it’s just a coincidence we chose to see it today. (Just kidding, of course it’s the reason.) It’s housed in the church of Madre de Dios, which has some prime examples of churchy azulejo panels, along with incredible gilded wood carvings and paintings on every available square inch of wall and ceiling (see pic above).

16th century geometric tile panel based on Moorish motifs

17th century (I think): The Leopard Hunt

Modern piece from 2004

The first museum exhibits explain the various processes for making glazed tiles – kind of interesting. Most of the labels are multi-lingual, so it was easy enough to follow. We found after an hour and a half or so, though, as gorgeous as much of the tilework is, that we were getting a bit of overload. The stuff from early centuries especially tends to look all the same. The gallery of modern azulejo work on the second floor did offer a bit of relief, but we were out of the museum inside two hours.

Mezzanine of courtyard in Madre de Dios Church

We walked home by the most direct route, but it still took over 40 minutes. Within an hour of getting back, it started to rain again, and rained the whole night. Oh, well. We weren’t going anywhere. It was still raining when we got up this morning. Pouring.

A word about the photos. In times past, few museums or galleries allowed patrons to take pictures of exhibits, and never with flash or using a tripod. Now, many do – in Europe, it seems, most do – though still without flash or tripod. I’m grateful. My camera has anti-shake technology and a sensor that can capture clear, sharp images even at high ISO sensitivity settings. It means I can make quite creditable photographic reproductions of artworks and museum artifacts without a tripod.

If I’m careful and not too tired, I can take acceptably sharp pictures handheld at shutter speeds as slow as 1/5th of a second. To non-photographers, that may sound very fast, but it’s not. With the old technology, the rule of thumb was that the slowest shutter speed at which you could take pictures free of motion blur was a fraction of a second equal to one over the focal length (in milimeters) of the lens you were using – so 1/60th of a second for a standard prime lens, faster for longer lenses.

I’m grateful, but I do wonder why museum officials have relaxed their no-photography rules just now, when technology like mine is so readily available. They must forfeit significant income from lost sales of postcards, posters and books because people like me are making their own souvenirs. The only thing I can think is that they’ve given up trying to police bans on photography because so many cameras are so small that people can – and will – take pictures unnoticed by attendants. I’ve seen them do it in galleries where there are signs up all over saying no photography.

As much as I’m now an inveterate museum photographer myself, I am still appalled by people I see walking through a gallery, phone held out in front of them, snapping at random, hardly stopping to look at the things they’re photographing. Why do they do it? Do they pore over those pictures when they get home. It’s possible, I suppose. I do, and often learn things about what I’ve seen, or notice details I hadn’t noticed when viewing the original. But how much can you learn from the kind of blurry, grainy  shots those cameras produce?

18th century Portuguese azulejo panel

I think it’s just an I-was-there impulse. The other thing I see is people taking pictures of themselves or a companion in front of some famous painting in a gallery, or a famous building, or view. Okay, I do that occasionally too, but every shot? The thing itself – the usual reason I take pictures when I travel – is not so important, apparently. It’s just important to show that you were there. Selfie sticks, sold by African and Indian immigrants everywhere tourists go here, have become a plague upon the earth.

The Best Museum

On Wednesday, Karen and I packed a picnic lunch and hiked north to the Museu Caloust Gulbenkian, a gallery housing the fabulous collection of an expatriate Turkish oil magnate. The weather was fine for walking, about 15°C, with sun and cloud. It’s a 45-minute walk, along a route mostly new to us, from Graca into Estefana and on up to Saldahna – away from the centre in other words. Once you get into Estefana, Lisbon starts to look markedly different, richer, more middle class, more modern, not as dilapidated and dirty. Graca, where we are, is very much a working- and lower middle-class neighbourhood.

Interesting art deco building in Graca with very raunchy relief carving at top

More Lisbon whole-building wall art in Estefana

The plan was to pick up a drink for me on the way and eat in the lovely park that surrounds the Gulbenkian and its sister museum, the Centro de Arte Moderna, which is also operated by the Gulbenkian Foundation. In the city centre, there are convenience stores and pastry shops and frutarias in every block. Here, not so much. I left Karen in the park and went searching. It was over 20 minutes before I got back, hot and sweaty, but with a cold can of Sagres beer for my trouble. We sat on a stone bench, eating our lunch, listening to the joyful shouts of kindergartners playing in the nearby playground.

Art deco sculpture in the Gulbenkian lobby, by Alfred Auguste Janniot (1889–1969)

The story behind the Gulbenkian is interesting. He was an early 20th century oil baron, a Turkish national of Armenian ancestry, who lived for most of his collecting years in London. When the war came, as a citizen of an enemy nation, he was asked to leave. Gulbenkian made it clear he would bring his wealth and art collection with him wherever he found asylum. A bidding war among nations ensued. Portugal offered tax concessions and dispossessed a marquis to provide a suitably palatial home. In gratitude, Gulbenkian left his collection to the nation when he died in the early 1950s, and much of his wealth. His proviso was that the collection be kept together and displayed to the public. The foundation was formed in 1969.  

Rare Roman gold medallion with picture of Alexander the Great, one of umpteen in the collection - over 2000 years old

The modern gallery buildings are beauties, nestled into the trees in the park, with lots of natural light inside. And the collection is fantastic. This was our kind of museum experience: a relatively few, very well chosen pieces, beautifully displayed, and without the crowds that ruin the experience at bigger, better known – and too often, cluttered – galleries and museums. When the centre of Lisbon is so jammed with tourists, and it is, still, even though Easter is over, why weren’t there more here? The entry price is certainly reasonable enough: 5€, with a discount for us as seniors, bringing it to a piddling 2.50€ – which they very kindly honoured even though I initially purchased regular adult tickets.

Late dynasty gilded silver funerary mask

Chinese vase. Which period? Who knows but it's gorgeous

The collection covers a wide gamut, from Egyptian and ancient Roman, Chinese and Japanese, through middle Eastern – mostly carpets and fabrics that Karen loved – and European art from the 15th to early 20th centuries. Plus impossibly opulent-looking furniture, mostly from the 16th through 18th centuries. It’s a lot of ground to cover, and there is no suggestion that the collection is in any way comprehensive, but it includes some absolutely ravishing pieces. To name a few just from the European art collection: three prime Gainsboroughs, including one huge, full-length portrait, lovely, large-scale portraits by Van Dyck and Rembrandt, a great J.M.W. Turner from the late period.

Portrait of a man, by Van Dyck

Portrait of a young woman by Thomas Gainsborough

Portrait of Mrs Lowndes-Stone by Thomas Gainsborough

Mr. Gulbenkian seemed to have a thing for portraits of beautiful women – as who wouldn’t? I think the mark of a great picture of a woman is that it makes you fall a little in love with her. Take a look at these two. 

Portrait of a young woman by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Florence 1490

Portrait of Mademoiselle Duplant by Francois-Andre Vincent, 1793 

I almost feel I know the girl in the 1490 painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio, or I’ve seen her on the street somewhere, her or one of her look-alike descendants. And the one of the supremely confidant, modern-looking French woman sitting at her spinet. Wouldn’t you like to get to know her? (Note that the painting dates from 1793. The Revolution was raging; they'd guillotined the king the year before. How can she look so calm and collected?)

It was supposed to rain late in the day. We spent over two hours in the museum and then started walking home, with storm clouds brewing overhead. It began to spit just as we got near home. We ducked into a supermercado to buy some dinner, and made it home just in the nick of time. Five minutes after we got in, it was teeming.

The next day was a not very ambitious one. We shopped again in the late morning, had lunch in the apartment, then set out for the Rossio train station to buy tickets for a planned trip out to Cascais the next day. Cascais is a beach and fishing village 40 minutes north of Lisbon. We an get free “rental” bikes there and ride the seaside bike trails. Turns out the train leaves from a different station, so we came away empty-handed. And we decided in the end to delay until next week when the weather will be a bit nicer.

Graca scenes - on the way down the mountain

Rossio Square: wavy paving

We did walk up the hill from Rossio station to the Convent of Carmo, a ruin that houses an archaeological museum (about the convent). It’s at the top of the Elevador de Santa Justa, an actual elevator, not a funicular, built in the late 1800s to get people from Chiado below up to Bairro Alto. We chose not to pay for either the elevador or the archaeological museum, but enjoyed the views out over the city to Graca and Alfama.

View from Carmo convent over Rossio Square to Graca

Elevador de Santa Justa

The walk home was by a long, but more gently rising route. Karen’s poor arthritic joints were bothering her. She had a hot bath in our beautiful bathtub when she got home. We love having the bathtub so much we’ve decided we must get a new one in our apartment at home. The one we have now is unusably uncomfortable. 

Graca - late sun on tile house fronts