Lisbon Scenes, 1

Our megalithic visits done for now, we drove west to Lisbon on May 19th, and with a variety of wrong turns and U-turns eventually found Camping Barcelona, the city's big 4 star campground in the northern heights overlooking the metropolis. We spent several days here in 2009, including Xmas (many posts, just search "Lisbon" in the search box). On the 20th we did nothing, and rested, and then on the 21st we took the bus, #714, into town, passing through Belem and the western neighborhoods and even a museum or two we will get to. Our goal for the day was to do the free (for tips) city center tour and then maybe have a nice lunch and visit something else.

The city center is one of many plazas and monuments and
buildings, most all of them dating only from 1755...the earthquake
that killed 90,000..and pedestrian pavement done with the white
and black paving stones, macro-mosaic; imagine walking on
this one if you have vestibular issues...

Even on the old city tour, we saw a number of art nouveaux

And art decaux

And even a famous art nuvo/gothic elevator
designed by one of Eiffel's students

The Portuguese didn't invent tiles, but they
certainly have perfected their use

The above turned out to be the world's oldest
bookstore still in business (according to
Guinness)

Portugal is not a 3rd world country and the tuk-tuks are merely
a tourist novelty; here's a tiled one

We have an uncanny habit of walking onto movie sets...this
one possibly set in the 30s

Anyway, our tour begins; note to self if I ever become a tour
guide: keep verbiage to minimum while customers are standing
in the hot sun on reflective pavement

Monument to Mark Zuckerberg

Former convent/brewery where we had dinner in 2009 (I never
forget convent/breweries)

Pretty street, down to the river

More tiles, more grillwork, balconies

Looking across Alfama to the castle

Jacarandas incredible here too

I thought the meeting of tram and trolley at the former royal
castle really tied things together, color-wise

Monument on the former parade ground; yes, that's an
elephant on the right in the monument; one of the former
kings collected them (this was before Ferraris)

More gorgeous buildings

Some under wraps

Beautiful art deco theatre in North Lisbon

And more monuments