Lisbon - The Start of the Trip
We start our above tour
in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Like
Rome, Lisbon was built on seven hills.
Over the thousands of years it has been settled (or conquered) by the
Phoenicians or Carthaginians (most likely the original settlers), the Greeks,
the Romans, the Moors, and finally their emergence of their own country under
the first king of Portugal, Alfonso Henriques in 1147. In 1256, Afonso III moved the capital to
Lisbon. The influence of all these
previous cultures (especially the Moors) is still visible in the modern city of
Lisbon.
Perhaps the most influential
event in Lisbon’s history is the Great Earthquake of 1755. It occurred at 9:40 am on All Saints’ Day (I
November), a holy day when the vast majority of Lisbon residents were at
church. It is estimated that the quake
registered between 8.9 to 9.2 on the Richter Scale. Most of Europe and the northern part of
Africa felt this quake, which was followed by 22 aftershocks. A tsunami measuring 15 meters (49 feet)
roared up the Tigress River killing over 60,000 of the Lisbon residents who
fled to the river following the quake and resulting fire from the many lit
candles in the churches. An additional 30,000
inhabitants of Lisbon and the surrounding area were killed by the collapsing
buildings, and the fire resulting from the lit candles raged for over 6 days, virtually
destroyed the city.
The prime minister, the
Marques de Pombal, ordered that the dead be buried and the city rebuilt (he was
given dictatorial powers by the king to accomplish this task). The result of his leadership was a city of
wide, symmetrical boulevards leading into handsome squares dominated by statues
(the most prominent is a statue of Pombal in the center of a roundabout known
as the Praca do Margues de Pombal) and fountains. Today, the mixture of old and new
(post-earthquake) here is so harmonious that travelers consider Lisbon one of
the most beautiful cities on earth.
We left Denver on
Wednesday 6 April on a Lufthansa flight to Frankfort with a connecting flight
to Lisbon. We were very fortunate that
United was able to change our original itinerary that had included a flight to
Brussel with a connecting flight to Lisbon.
Although damage done by the recent bombings in Brussels has been reduced,
United is still not flying to Brussels.
(As a note, our return flight was also changed from a connecting flight
in Brussels to a non-stop flight from Lisbon to Newark with a connecting flight
to Denver.)
Lufthansa is a great
airline and the service was impeccable.
I finally got to see Star Wars – the Force Awakens (very similar plot to
the original three Star Wars movies) and managed about 4 hours of sleep. The connecting flight to Lisbon was okay, but
Business Class in Europe is not like the states – the seats are the same as
economy, except that they block the center seat, the food was okay, and the
wine was drinkable. Once we retrieved
our luggage and walked into the arrivals area, our driver was there waiting for
us and we were at the Marriott Hotel in about 15 minutes.
We had planned to do a
little sightseeing upon arrival, but we were both very tired, so after we
unpacked we just went to the Executive Lounge and drank our dinner (after two
big meals on the planes, we were not very hungry). I did manage to stay awake until 8 PM, but
then we both crashed until our wake-up call at 8 AM.
Friday was a beautiful
day – sunny and not very cold. The night
before we had met two ladies who had recommended taking Hop On Hop Off bus to
get down to the riverfront area of Belem where we would begin our walking
tour. The concierge told us that one of
the Hop On Hop Off stops was very close to the hotel, so we bought two tickets
(40 euros total), and tried to follow the directions given to us by the concierge. Unfortunately his directions on the map did
not match the actual directions and his 5 minute walk turned into a 20 minute
hike that required asking directions of two other people. Luckily for us, the people of Lisbon are very
friendly and helpful. We finally arrived
at the pick-up site, but then had to wait almost an hour for the bus to
come. Once on the bus, we had good seats
on the top deck and we were off.
Unfortunately, at the 4th stop the bus stopped and the driver
announced that the audio system had stopped working and he had requested a new
bus for us. Well, the bus that came was
on its regular run and was already fairly full when he came to us. So instead of sitting on the upper deck, we
got the last two seats on the first deck and when we plugged in our headsets,
all we got was static. So for the next
four stops until we got to our stop, all we heard was static. It had taken us almost 2 ½ hours to reach
this point – the next time we take a taxi --$7.00 dollars and 15
minutes!!! Oh well, live and learn.
We began our walking
tour at the National Coach Museum which has one of the finest collections of
historical carriages in the world. It is
housed in the old Horse Riding Arena of the Belem Palace, formerly a Royal
Palace which is now the official residence of the President of Portugal. The museum was created in 1905 by Queen Amelia
to house an extensive collection of carriages belonging to the Portuguese royal
family and nobility. All the carriages
appear to be in very good condition considering their ages. The oldest carriage was one built in the late
16th/early 17th century that was used by King Philip II
of Portugal to come to Portugal from Spain in 1619. Looking at these carriages, the travel must
not have been very comfortable. In the
collection were several pompous Baroque 18th century carriages decorated
with paintings and elaborate gilt woodwork, the most impressive of these being
a ceremonial coach given by Pope Clement XI to King John V in 1715, and the
three coaches of the Portuguese ambassador to Pope Clement XI, built in Rome in
1716. In those days, the high ranking
clergy (cardinals and Popes) held the same status as the nobility. Also in the collection were little carriages
that were used by the princes and princesses to travel around the palace
gardens – these were usually pulled by a small pony or sheep. There was also one of the first mail and
passenger carriages that looked a lot like out stagecoaches of the 1800’s.
Leaving the Coach
Museum, we walked passed the President’s residence, guarded by two very staid
guards, to the Jeronimos Monastery. It
is the most impressive symbol of Portugal’s power and wealth during the Age of
Discoveries (the era of great navigational discoveries by navigators from
Portugal). The monastery (for the
Hieronymite monks) was built on the same site of the hermitage founded by Henry
the Navigator in 1450. In 1497, Vasco da
Gama and his men spent the night in prayer before departing for India. His goal was to find a direct sea route to
the wealth of Asia. In May 1498, he
arrived in Calcutta, India. He returned
to Lisbon in September 1498. He made a
second trip to India, but died there on Christmas Eve of 1542. The current structure was erected by King
Manuel to commemorate Vasco da Gama’s firs successful return from India. It began in 1502 and took 50 years to
finish. It soon became a house of prayer
for seamen leaving or entering the port.
We first toured the
church where the entrance is flanked by King Manuel (with St Jeromine) on the
left and his wife Maria (with John the Baptist) on the right. Throughout the
inside of the church are motifs from the sea – rope-like arches, ships,
monsters evoking the mysteries of the undiscovered lands, and artichokes, eaten
by seamen for their vitamin C to fight scurvy.
Near the entry is the tomb of Vasco da Gama, under a ceiling of ropes
and knots that look like it came from the Boy Scout Handbook. His tomb contains a carved caravan of his
ships.
Leaving the church we
walked to the Cloisters area. These
restored Cloisters are the architectural highlight of Belem. The lacy arcade is Manueline, while the
simpler diamond and decorative rose frieze about the top floor is Renaissance. Above the lower level are carvings of many
animals. We tried as hard as we could, but
we could not find the monkey, kitten or cricket. We did find a lion, crocodile, and many other
animals.
Also housed inside the
monastery are the National Archaeology Museum (which we did not visit) and the
Maritime Museum. We did buy a ticket to
the Maritime Museum so that we could see the Royal Barges. The most interesting part of the Museum – the
15th and 16th centuries or the Age of Discoveries – was under
construction so we hurried through the rest of the museum until we reached the
area of the Barges. Like the royal
carriages, most of these barges were very elaborate and many required 18 to 80+
rowers to navigate. It seems that in all
the places in Europe that we have visited, it never ceases to amaze us of the
arrogance, pompousness, and egotistical manner of the nobility (and the
high-ranking clergy)!
Leaving the monastery, we walked
over to the waterfront to view the Discoveries Monument. It was built on the North bank of the Tagus
River in 1960 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of
Prince Henry the Navigator.
The
monument shows that exploring the world was a team effort. Leading the charge is Prince Henry the
Navigator, holding a model of a caravel and a map, followed by kneeling kings
and soldiers who Christianized foreign lands with the sword. Behind Henry (on the west side, away from the
bridge), are the men who financed the voyages (King Manuel I holding an
armillary sphere, his personal symbol), those who glorified it in poems and
paintings (Luis de Camoes, holding a poem), and at the very end, the only
woman, Philippa of Lancaster, Henry’s British mother. On the east side (closest to the bridge),
notice the optical illusion of waves on the flat cobbled surface. Vasco da Gama stands with his eyes on the
horizon and his hand on the sword.
Magellan holds a circle, representing the round earth his ship
circumnavigated, while in front of him, Pedro Cabral puts his hand to his
heart, thankful to have discovered Brazil.
Various monks, navigators with maps, and crusaders with flags complete
the crew. There is also a pillory,
decorated with the Portuguese coat of arms and a cross that was erected in each
place discovered by the Portuguese.
The
marble map in the pavement (a gift from South Africa) in front of the Monument
follows Portugal’s explorers as they sailed out into monster-infested waters at
the edge of the world – first heading south to the coast of Morocco, conquering
the Muslims of Ceuta in 1415 and gaining strategic control of the mouth of the
Mediterranean; then out into the open Atlantic to the west and southwest,
stumbling on the Madeiras (1420) and then to the remote Azore Islands
(1427). They continued to move
southward, hugging the African coast, clearing the biggest psychological hurdle
when Gil Eanes sailed around Cape Bojador (Western Sahara in 1434). This was the edge of the known world at that
time and the beginning of the equatorial seas where everyone thought sea
monsters lived, no winds blew, and ships would be incinerated in the hot
sun. Eanes survived and returned with
200 African slaves, the first of what would become the slave trade. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern
tip of Africa and discovered the sea route to Asia that Vasco da Gama and
others would exploit to colonize India, Indonesia, Japan and Macao, China. In 1500, Pedro Cabral took a wide right turn
on the way down the African coast and discovered Brazil. In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan took five ships
down to Rio and then continued on through the Straits of Magellan before being
killed in the Philippines. One of his
ships survived and returned to Europe having circumnavigated the globe after 30
months at sea.
It
was very impressive looking at this large statue and remembering all the
contributions made by these early Portuguese explorers. We then walked along the water front toward
the Belem Tower, our final stop on the walking tour. By now it was almost 3 PM and we had not
eaten lunch. Fortuitously we found a
little gelato shop so we stopped and had a cone for lunch. We then continued our walk to the Belem
Tower. Again, this tower is a testament to
Portugal’s Age of Discovery. It was
erected between 1515 and 1520. It stands
where Portugal’s explorers and ships set out across the sea. It was the last sight the Portuguese sailors
saw as they left port and the first thing they saw as they returned. It was running late, so we decided not to
climb the 120 steps to the top of the tower and instead when to the Hop On Hop
Off bus stop for the trip back to our hotel.
The
trip back was uneventful. There were
about 6 stops before our hotel, but we did get to see the large bull ring in
Lisbon. Once the bus dropped us off
where we had started this journey almost 6 hours ago, we tried to determine
where we had gone wrong with the concierge’s original directions. As it turned out, the concierge was wrong –
there was no 5 minute walk from the hotel to the Seta Rios bus stop. So we tiredly trudged up the hill (I did say
Lisbon was built on 7 hills) finally arriving back at the hotel – just in time
for happy hour. Happy hour then became
our dinner (fortunately they had a really good pasta dish). We again met the two ladies from the night
before and chatted with them awhile until they had to go back for their return
trip the next day and we finally collapsed in our bed for some much needed
sleep. Tomorrow will be another busy day
with a day trip to Sintra and Cascais.
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