LAST DAY IN LISBON 12/14/2013 Belem Tour/Fado in Alfama

LAST DAY IN LISBON

 

Well, it was a fine day. 

It did not start that way for pain.  This was one of my worst, the kind that just makes we want to roll over and stay in bed.  However, Lisbon is not around next week, so on I went. 

The first hour was pretty rough going.  The walking was tough up any stairs, but the pain was worse.

It is a fine bus with plenty of holding bars for hoisting up the stairs with arms, and very comfortable once seated. 

I forgot my notebook, and the guide was great.  So, I lost some of the detail.  Elizabeth got some paper for me from the guide and she had a pen,  I did not do so badly after that.  This is good, since I remember nothing these days without some notes.

 On the site of the old chapel in Belem is Torre de Belem. 

There was also a monument to a plane, with the plane an exact replica.  On the side was a cross that is not the iron cross of WWI, but predates that.  Portugal fought in the first was against Germany, but was neutral in WWII, probably because the leaders were Fascist and so could expect some respect from Hitler.

    here is a video link describing this..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3KQhacuH34

Since the river offered a vulnerability of attack from the sea, a watchtower was built to see and protect.  There is another one on the other side. 

We rode down to the monument to Henry the Navigator in Belem (Bethlehem) named for a small chapel there in the old times. 

The guide had us stand on the map created in the cement.  I was less interested in that than seeing the area.

 

However, there were some interesting parts of the display.  Here are the celebrated mermaids.  These depictions look nothing like manatees. 

 



 Then there is a huge monument to Henry the Navigator that is very modern looking.  At the base are some fine depictions of people all moving uphill in their striving to develop ideas.  I like this part.  The rest is a huge wave of cement and it seemed boring in its modernity.  But as whole this was worth seeing. 

 I loved being by the water and sometimes as the guide talked, I just wandered about looking at the sailboat harbor or just watching the water go by.  On the sides of the little harbor were stone steps built into the walls that would allow a person in years past to descend to the water level and board a boat.  Now all the boats are accessed by a modern ramp, but these stone steps sure looked easy for access. 
Here is an interesting video of this area by another tourist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3KQhacuH34

We visited the monastery which is now a cathedral.  Our guide said that because 85 percent of Lisbon are still practicing Catholics, the church is still functioning here.  Other sources questions that mathematics.

It is all built in Manuelino style which our guide explained as Gothic with a twist of Indian and Moorish influence.  '

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manueline

The guide spent a long time building up the decorative archway, but compared to any cathedral in Spain, it was just average.

Oddly in the sculpted details were artichokes because they had been so helpful in giving sailors the vitamins, especially vitamin C that they needed when at sea a long while to stay healthy and avoid scurvy.  Artichokes kept well on the ship, so they were a good choice.

I thought the church was rather barren and plain and the wonderfully restored stained glass windows had iron bars on the outside which obscured the artistic pleasure of their view.   I best like the wall mural of St Jerome which showed both his time in the cave and his transition to heaven.  This was directly behind the remains of Vasco De Gama.  It was my favorite part.

Interesting also were that the tombs of two dynasties of kings were right up in the altar area.  Below the remains in stone caskets are elephants.

When DeGama came back from India, he brought the king a baby elephant and the king was just amazed and very attached to this animal.  So he decided that all the royal family should be transported to the other life on the backs of elephants, and there we saw them in stone, supporting the tombs. 
Some of the superstitious people thought he had been seduced by the devil and that these were very evil.  I guess it did not make their worship times easy.

Ironically, there are often very terrible faces of what could be easily taken as devils in the stone art of churches.  But a future guide would explain that those monstrous looking faces were to scare off evil demons and keep the inhabitants safe.

 

Across the water is a huge monument to Christ that is very similar to some I've seen in Latin America and that one just outside of Madrid. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_the_King_(Cristo_Rei)

I had not thought about the bridge here as being like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, but it is almost a twin.  It is a two decked bridge with the top deck carrying cars and the bottom deck carrying trains and such. 

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I have always been a bit chagrinned by the fact that of all the parts of travel, I best love the food.  However, Vasco De Gama and all his life's work and travel was as much about black pepper and cinnamon from India as anything else.  So I guess for the greats as well it sometimes is all about food.  Too bad they did not value Chana Dal in those days.  But perhaps the bean diet of Indians did eventually catch on as there are some Indian restaurants in Lisbon.

I learned that these little cobblestones that form all the walkways are small stones set without mortar just in sand and so they are very vulnerable to weather and wear.  Once one I pushed out, those around it loosen and so a hole is formed.  There are men trained in fixing these holes and repairing the walkways.  One guide on another day said there was some movement to replace them, placing the practical over tradition.  We liked the look of them, but they were hard to navigate and when wet they were very slippery.

We would later see the work of replacing those cobblestones as it was beginning in downtown Regula when we were there.  (see later blog post)  

 

 

 

 

 There are so many lions in Portugal.  They seem to have been taken as symbols by many ruling classes.  This one caught my interest.

 

 Elizabeth's fine camera technique caught the shadows here.  Great shot!

 

 

The cloister inner courtyard was circled with gargoyles.  Most of them look devilish.  There was a dove and there was a fine representation of a grasshopper (see the gargoyle closest to us in this photo,) but most were frightful as gargoyles usually are.

The guide explained that these stone creatures were actually thought to scare away evil spirits and leave the protected cloister fellows in peace and safely.

I loved the stonework of the innercourtyard of the monastery.  Here were really interesting designs in stone in each archway.
 
We visited the upper choir above the chapel last:

 

 

 

 

 

Upstairs we visited a room dedicated to the memory of  Alexander Herculano born in 1810 who became a great social reformer and political reformer.  He was a truly dedicated intellectual.  I want to read more about him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Herculano

 

On the way back we passed the oldest fish market in Portugal which is still a market today and then we had a fine tour of Alfama, an area that worked as a ghetto for both the Moors and for Jews, established in the 1400's as a refuge for those persecuted in the inquisition.  The story of this place would be very interesting.  One bit was that the inquisitors wanted to see if the conversion of the Jews was true or just fake and so they would go and see if the Jews would eat the pork sausage famous to Portugal. So the Jews created alheira a similar sausage that was made with chicken and ate it publically, fooling the inquisitors.
http://catavino.net/alheira-portuguese-sausage/

Another detail were shutters on the windows where Moorish women were able to look out while remaining unseen, as is their custom.  I liked this Alfama area.  There were little places where there was inexpensive wine and Fado was everywhere.  However, much of the entertainment does not start until 9 PM, so we don't know if we will last long enough to enjoy it.

 Residents have access the these laundry facilities where they wash their clothes.

 

 

 

There is a cancer institute here that does good basic research.  It is called the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown and was funded by a legacy from a rich man who died of cancer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champalimaud_Foundation

 

FADO

 

We wanted to revisit the Alfama neighborhood where we had walked and see if we could hear some Fada and get perhaps some inexpensive drinks. 

The cabby let us off far from our intended destination, and the place was not as busy as I thought it might be for a Saturday night. 

Basically, we were lost. We decided to ask directions to the Fado Museum, knowing that would get us close to an area with Fado.

Fado Museum

We found average folks on the street who could and would give us directions.  Some students from Oporto on holiday had perfect English.   A rough fellow who I took for a working class man had enough to help us with directions.  I think it is easier than France and certainly easier than Italy.

We had both left all our cameras and wallets in the room when we went wandering tonight just in case, but we did not feel we were in danger even when we were lost. 
It felt to me so much like when I was in Spain years ago and would be walking narrow streets at night and perhaps a bit lost.  We have heard there are pick pockets everywhere, but they can't pick much from ours because we carry so little. 
While riding one of the buses popular with tourists one of our fellow boat travelers did find the hand of a fellow in his pocket.  He pulled it out and gave the guy a slight punch in the shoulder, just to say, "Cut that out!"  It worked for him.

Finally, after quite a while of wandering, Elizabeth picked a Fado place right near the Fado museum, and we had a really wonderful time there.  The food was priced decently and we did not spend too much.  But it was not cheap.  We ate some roast chicken and I asked for piri piri for the French Fries.  We had some very good cheese.  And the wine was fine as well.

We sat next to a rather stuffy Portuguese couple and a very friendly couple from Holland.  We talked to the Holland couple for most of the night and had a fine time.  They were very friendly.  They did have some rather difficult things to say about the US, but we agree with most of them, and they were said with a twinkle and more as a question than an outspoken criticism. 

Most everyone we have met here in Portugal likes Obama.

These folks were farther left than Obama, but perhaps not far from our own leanings.  The huge difference is that the did not distrust government to ever be efficiently helpful to people the way our Tea Party folks do.

We talked too of yoga which the woman and Elizabeth both enjoy.  The woman hopes to retire at 65 and teach yoga.

I left as Elizabeth waited to settle the bill.  I wanted to stretch my cramping and painful leg and walk a bit.  Right next door I found one of the cheap hole-in-the-wall places to drink and ordered our first ginja en copa de chocolate. 

PHOTO OF GINJA EN COPA DE CHOCOLATE

 I tried to tell the woman serving the liquor it was our first, and she got it and asked, “Primera vez” which made me wonder why I had not used my Spanish first.  Here my Spanish works easily, unlike Italy where it did not work at all.  I cannot hear the Portuguese, the Fado songs were totally beyond me, but I can read some sense into much of the printed stuff with some comprehension.  It is a relief to be able to easily communicate. 

The Fado was in our face Fado.  An old woman sang with such gusto and sang right to customers.  A tall young man had a fine voice.  A middle aged woman sang and was very talkative to the couple from Holland who ended buying her CD. 
It was really an amazing experience, the music so intense and so moving although we did not understand the reason for the pain in the songs.
I like the sounds I have heard from this Portuguese guitar.  There were times when the classical guitar was a bit too loud for it, but many times the Classical just played some basic background and the guy playing the Portuguese guitar went off on rifts that were great fun. 
PHOTO OF PORTUGUESE GUITAR

Well, a fine last night here in Lisboa.  We leave early tomorrow.  I am not as anxious as I was before today because the bus felt very spacey and comfortable.