Lisbon – Days 5 and 6 – Old Town, Chiado, back to Belém
Wednesday, 15-Apr-2015
Tags: Travel
Day 5
Larry spent the whole day and much of the evening at the MEF conference. I actually sat in on the keynote and an session on professional certification, and also finished up the Bulletin I do. I needed a break from touring around, but I did take some time to just wander around the Saldanha area where our hotel is, and stop in at a large shopping mall that could have easily been in Boston with all the standard middle and high end brands. The basement, though, was a huge food area, much nicer than our typical food courts, and included a grocery store and restaurants. Even in Boston food markets, you probably don’t see big slabs of salted cod like this:
We finished the day at an Indian restaurant, Zaafran, found on Yelp and TripAdvisor. It was quite good. There were three of us, and we had a prix fixe meal with a mango/yogurt drink to start, samoas and pakora, followed by a sampler of shrimp, vegetable, chicken, and lamb dishes, and completed with a nice sweet carrot ball and ice cream dessert.
Day 6
Larry had another full work day. I headed down to Praça da Comércio down by the water to join a drop-in Lisbon Walks tour of Alfama, the old town. Larry and I were in Alfama on Friday when we went to the castle, but did not explore the area between the castle and the water. I decided to just use my iPhone to take pictures as there was the threat of showers (which indeed occurred now and then).
As I started from the hotel, I walked past 3 buildings that were closed up, presumably eventually to be renovated, that had wall art across the entire facade. Here is one of the buildings.
As I walked down Rua Augusta to Praça da Comércio, I took a shot of the arch that marks the square and then of one of the arcades once inside the plaza.
Lots of electric trams on this plaza:
The two-hour tour was led by Margarida, who gave us a history of Lisbon covering the Phoenicians (1200 BCE), Romans, Moors, Portuguese kings, the devastating earthquake of 1755, the rebuilding of the city, etc. As I have mentioned, Baixa is more of a grid, but in the old town the residents rebuilt their houses and ended up looking pretty much how it looked before the 1755 earthquake, full of narrow, maze-like streets. In fact, many of the other buildings in this area were rebuilt after the earthquake to look like they did before the earthquake.
First stop was to look at the façade of the Igreja (Church) da Conceicao Velha, the only part of the church to survive the earthquake. This church is important in the Jewish history of Lisbon because it was purposely built in 1496 on the site of a synagogue when the king expelled the Jews from this quarter.
Our next stop was Casa dos Bicos (House of Diamond-shaped Spikes), a 16th century palace that belonged to Afonso de Albuquerque, the Portuguese viceroy of India. It is thought to have been modelled on the palaces of Venice.
Along the walk, Margarida pointed out gates of the old outer wall. Here’s one:
Then we moved on to the Sé Cathedral, also repaired to its original look after the 1755 earthquake. This spot has been occupied since at least Roman times when it was likely a Roman temple — Margarida pointed out a stone with an inscription from Roman times (not pictured), as cut stones just get re-used and re-used.
It turns out that the use of tile is a Moorish/Arab influence. These tiles are supposedly quite old, as they are blue and the white is not quite white, a indication of they go way back.
The house below had two interesting attributes. It was built with a smaller footprint on the first floor, as taxes were based on the size, and then the upper floors were then built out. Secondly the green shutters are again a Moorish/Arab influence.
A typical patio area at Largo do Chafariz, with a jumble of buildings. Neighbors get to know each other really well.
The narrowest street in Alfama.
We finished the tour at Largo (square) de Santa Luzia. One more view, southwest.
Coincidentally, the wife of another conference attendee, whom I had met before at a previous MEF conference, also had joined the tour, so we ended up spending the rest of the day together. We headed back down to Praça da Comércio and then up one of the inclined streets to Chiado. This time I was able to walk around a bit, finding the very pretty Rua Garrett (below). We walked a short distance to
A Vida Portuguesa, a very nice store with Portuguese goods, much in retro/art deco wrappings and boxes. Bought some Claus Porto soaps, very well known apparently.
Then we walked down to Cais do Sodré and then into the Mercado da Ribeira, a wonderful food hall with flowers, fruits and vegetables, seafood, meats, and a large eating section. We had some Asian appetizers and white wine.
A shot of the outside of the hall.
We then proceeded to walk along the waterfront west, under the bridge, and all the way to Belém, stopping at the Discoverers monument. This view is head on, didn’t notice the sword the last time.
My iPhone showed that I had gotten to 10 miles walking for the day. We took a bus back to Praça da Figueira, and hopped a taxi back to hotel as the sky opened up with a torrential downpour.
Dinner was another Indian restaurant, Passage to India, close by to the hotel with most of the tables containing MEF members :) Then back to pack and get ready to head home.
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Larry and Eileen Samberg
