Zoe goes to Portugal: City Walk

Friday, 14th June, 2013.

 

Zoe, Mummy and Gran went for a walk from Lapa No 82 to the city centre.  Firstly, they walked up the hill to the Basilica da Estrela.

 

They saw a comfortable BMW motorbike with a sun roof.

 

Garden of the Basilica da Estrela.

 

Basilica da Estrela from the front.

Queen Maria 1 (1734 – 1816) was the daughter of King Jose !.  She would have been 21 when the violent earthquake destroyed much of Lisbon.  In 1760, when she was 26, she was married to her uncle Pedro.  Serious and devout, she took her role as queen very conscientiously, and vowed she would build a church if she bore a son and heir to the throne.  Her wish was granted, and construction of the basilica began in 1779.  Her son Jose, however, died of smallpox two years before the basilica was completed in 1790.

After the death of her son, Queen Maria, already prone to bouts of melancholy, went hopelessly mad.  Visitors to the palace were dismayed by her agonising shrieks as she suffered visions and hallucinations.  Her younger son Joao was declared Regent in 1792, and took his mother to Brazil in 1807, where she died in 1816 at the age of 82.  After such a troubled life, she is buried in an elaborate Empire-style tomb in the Basilica. 

The huge domed basilica is now one of Lisbon’s great landmarks.  The facade is flanked by twin bell towers and decorated with an array of statues of saints and allegorical figures.

The spacious, awe-inspiring interior is clad in grey, pink and yellow marble, and light streams down from the elevated dome (From Eye Witness Travel: Portugal).

The twin bell towers are still operating.  One rings twice for each quarter hour,and the other strikes the hours.  The bells also ring out before Mass.

Many of the footpaths have mosaic patterns on them.

 

Zoe and Mummy walk through the refreshingly cool Jardim da Estrela.

Laid out in the mid 19th century, opposite the Basilica da Estrela, the popular gardens are a focal part of the Estrela quarter.

 

The gardens are planted with flowers, shrubs and herbaceous borders surrounding plane trees and elms.

 

The central feature of the Jardim da Estrela is a green wrought-iron bandstand, built in 1884, decorated with elegant filigree.

 

A pavement mosaic at one of the gates of the Jardim da Estrela.

 

Heading towards the city.

 

Around the streets grew flowering jacarandas, tipuanas and silky oaks – just like Brisbane in October–November.

 

This beautiful older-style building has been given a glass “lid” of several storeys.  Zoe thought that was funny.

 

Monument to the Marques de Pombal.

Lisbon was probably settled by the Phoenicians around 11200 BC and, after falling to the Greeks and Carthaginians in succession, was taken by the Romans in 205 BC.  From 714 to 1147 AD it was in Moorish hands; then around 1260 it became the seat of Portuguese monarchs and has been the capital ever since.

In 1755 a violent earthquake, tidal wave and subsequent fires hit Portugal. Much of Lisbon was destroyed and thousands of people were killed.

The Marques de Pombal, Foreign Minister under the inexperienced King Jose I, used the tragedy to seize power, and began reconstruction of the flatter, lower town with wide, tree-lined boulevards and streets set out in a square pattern.  The hillsides (where Lapa is) still retain the winding lanes of the original city.

(From Karen Brown’s Portugal).

 

From the elevated statue of the Marques de Pombal, the magnificent tree-lined Avenida de Liberdade leads down to the water’s edge.

 

The mosaic tiling of the footpath along the impressive Avenida de Liberdade is quite splendid.

 

June is the month of the Festa de Lisboa, a celebration of the city’s folk traditions.  Over to the right, you can see where chairs have been set up for people to watch folk dancing along the Avenida de Liberdade. 

 

2013 is the tenth anniversary of the sardine as a symbol of the Festa de Lisboa.

 

Restauradores Square, at the lower end of the Avenida de Liberdade honours the uprising in 1640 which put an end to Spanish occupation of Portugal.

 

 Rossio Station is a late 19th century neo-Manueline building with two Moorish-style horseshoe arches.

 

The Rossio, or Dom Pedro IV Square, where its namesake surveys the city from the top of a 22 metre column, between baroque fountains.

 

In the Rossio.  Above the buildings, you can see the Castle of Sao Jorge, built on the site of the earliest town settlement.  Originally converted from a Moorish castle, it has been remodelled many times over the centuries.

 

Largo do Carma

Lisbon’s major shopping streets feed into the Praca do Comercio like the spokes of a wheel.  It was the intention of the Marques de Pombal to organise the district by product category, hence names such as Rua do Ouro for goldsmiths and Rua da Prata for silversmiths.  Today, these distinctions no longer apply, and all kinds of vendors can be found on all of the streets.

 

Another view of the Castle of Sao Jorge.

 

The Elevador de Santa Justa was designed by an apprentice of Alexandre Gustave Eiffel.  At the top is a cafe with splendid views of the city.  Lots of people were queuing to go up.

 

A walkway links the top of the Elevador de Santa Justa with Largo do Carmo.

 

A delivery bicycle outside a bakery, with two straw baskets for the bread.  Probably a faster way to get around central Lisbon than by car.

 

The Triumphal Arco da Rua Augusto  was built to celebrate the city’s recovery from the 1755 earthquake. It is currently undergoing a renovation, so was all wrapped up in hessian.  Brightly coloured signs advertise the Festa de Lisboa with its symbol of the sardine.

There is a bit of Mummy’s hat in the foreground.

 

Praca do Comercio.

This huge open space on the river was the site of the royal palace for 400 years.  The first palace was destroyed in the earthquake of 1755.  The Marques de Pombal’s new palace occupied these spacious arcaded buildings that occupy three sides of the square.

After the revolution of 1910, the palace buildings were converted to government offices and painted republican pink, but have since been repainted royal yellow.  

 

Mummy, Zoe and a pigeon in the Praca do Comercio, looking across to the other side.

Behind them, in the corner of the square, is Lisbon’s oldest cafe, the Martinho da Arcada, once the haunt of Lisbon’s literati.  There didn’t seem to be many literati there today, only tourists.

By this stage, Mummy was tired from pushing Zoe up and down all the hills, and Gran was tired from keeping up with Mummy and Zoe.  Zoe wasn’t too tired as she had been asleep for most of the long walk.  She is wearing socks to protect her little feet from the hot sun.

After the long walk, they decided to take a taxi to a restaurant near Lapa No 82 for dinner.  This took quite a long time through the narrow streets, as it was peak hour.  The bakery delivery bicycle would have been faster.  When they arrived at the restaurant at 6pm, they found it didn’t open until 7.30.  People eat late in Portugal.  So they bought some bread and cheese from the local supermarket and went home.