Calouste Gulbenkian Museum

Saturday morning we began our tour of Lisbon with a visit to the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. Gulbenkian was an Armenian oil-man (sic; not oil-person; I know this from doing 13 years in Dallas) whom the Portuguese gave political asylum in 1942. He left his billions to Lisbon, when he died in 1955, to create a museum for his collection and to continue his practice of tithing 10% to art. The museum is comparable in many ways to the Burrell Collection in Glasgow: the tastes and interests of one man, eclectric in every way, beautifully displayed in a purpose-built structure that is itself of interest, etc. Its impressive Asia Minor collection--Gulbenkian's homeland--is something the Burrell does not have, particularly its Muslim art.  We had a nice lunch, with the seasonal squash soup, and then moved on....

Entrance to the Gulbenkian

Muslim decorative tiles

The museum is in a park-like area, but smack in the city

15th century Muslim lamp

Like the Burrell, in the Gulbenkian you look out the

windows, here from Chinese (Ming and Qing) gallery,

and see a garden

A Medieval traveling altar; obviously a

wealthy merchant or clergy

I am keeping my beard trimmed short these

days so as not to look like Rembrandt's old

man

A Turner; yes!

Madame Monet, painted by Renoir (or maybe it was

Madame Renoir...)

And a Sargeant

And a whole gallery of Lalique, who was really into snakes

The very famous Lalique dragon fly

But he was really into snakes

Feliz Natal: Merry Christmas, 2009

From Obidos we drove on the 40 miles or so to Lisbon, a hilly city of 2-3 million, and found the municipal campground, Camping Lisboa, on the northern side, with relative ease. Electricity, water, warmth, security, a beautiful site in the city park--very much like Paris' Bois de Bulogne, but a much nicer campground--all for $26 a night. We'll take it. About a dozen other RVers were there too.

It was Christmas Eve, and all our thoughts and activities turned to family and friends and to our assorted Christmas rites and rituals...reminiscing about last year at Whakapapa, North Island (on the slopes of Mt. Doom), decorating the Sherouse family Christmas tree, listening to Christmas music, the traditional cheese fondue, Christmas Vacation, exchange of (modest, travel-related) gifts, viewing of Christmas Story, lazing around and enjoying a rainy day-off. And, best of all, phone calls to Rachel and Rebecca, Marie and Carole.

We very much missed family and friends for this second Christmas apart--next year we are definitely coming home--but trust everyone had a wonderful holiday. Ours was, again, most memorable.

For this year's Christmas tree, we went

natural/live; there was little else to choose

from; the lights we saved from New

Zealand last year!

While Vicki fixed the cheese fondue--with real French and

Swiss cheese and German Kirchwasser, etc.--we watched

the fire in the old video-hearth (thanks, Gloria) and sang

along with all the Christmas music

Battery-powered candle-light fondue dinner

Christmas dinner the next day--roast chicken and a Medoc

wine

Dessert...British Christmas pudding with

grand marnier cream sauce; and Ginja

cherry liqueur from Obidos, in chocolate

cups; quite an international feast

We had been looking for lime jello throughout France,

Spain and Portugal, but had to settle for a Tutti-Fruitti-

flavored "green slime," still good

Obidos

Our last stop before Lisbon, where we spent the night in another aire, was the medieval hill-town and castle of Obidos, traditionally a gift of the Portugese king to his wife the queen.

16th century aquaduct carrying water to Obidos

 

Tile work above a portal to the hill town of Obidos

View from town wall

All the buildings are trimmed in either blue or yellow--

originally property lines--but note here that the grafitti is

color-matched

Ditto, in yellow

One of six churches encountered in the 4 or

5 blocks from the gate to the castle

The Annunciation, in the church; painted by

one of the sisters...

Alley leading up to the next alley

The castle keep; the castle is now a 9-room

hotel; not all that expensive, really

Special European small medieval village garbage truck

It was December 24th, so all Santa's helpers

were out and about

Another Obidos street scene; pretty place

Alcobaca, Pedro and Ines

After Batalha we drove on to another famous church, the 
Cistercian monastery and church at Alcobaca. And the 
story of Pedro and Ines. Above, the beautiful tile facade 
on a building facing the huge monastery; one sees this 
sort of thing all over the Portugal we have seen so far

And behind the innocent-looking baroque

facade lurks

A really, really, severe gothic building,

Cistercian-severe; but beautiful in its way,

and imposingly large

Alcobaca is best known as the resting place of King Pedro

and not-quite-Queen Ines; Prince Pedro loved Ines, but his

dad, the king, disapproved and had her killed; when Pedro

became king somewhat later, he had her exhumed and

made all the former king's ministers and courtiers kiss

her dead hand; now that's devotion (on their part); the 
right two panels of Pedro's tomb, above, depict the flaying 
of St. Bartholomew and then someone carrying his skin off 
to some further nasty doing; it was a cruel age

Ines' tomb; she and Pedro are buried feet-to-feet so that, on

the day of resurrection, when they arise, the first thing they

will see is each other; sweet....

Side-aisle; really severe

Unfinished Cathedral at Batalha

Cathedral of Batalha, really flaming gothic

West facade, with the "founders' chapel" to the right;

founders being earliest kings, queens, etc., of Portugal

At the east end, the unfinished chapel...no roof,

but otherwise pretty overwhelming

Nave view...purity, great size and height

Dome of the founders' chapel

Tomb of first king and queen,

14th century, Joao I and his wife,

Philippa of Lancaster (Portugal and

England have been pals for a long

time; they had a common rival)

On the right, her Tudor coat of arms (really ties things

together...)

Tomb of their son, Prince Henry, the Navigator,

generally credited with kicking off the Age of Discovery

Beautiful stained glass, more Moorish-

looking than Christan, we thought (well,

excluding the coats of arms)

Looking into the incredible unfinished chapel,

at the other end

Another king and queen, holding hands, in the unfinished

chapel

Finished ceiling in one of the side-chapels

of the unfinished chapel

Interesting figures around the floor of the unfinished chapel

(scores of these); reminded us of some of the secular

Norman figures we saw near Hereford

In the market adjacent; we're going to get

one of these yard sprinklers as soon as we

have a yard again

We proceeded on, hoping to catch a few of the small town sights before getting to Lisbon. First was the most impressive cathedral--well, big church--at Batalha. It is really high gothic, 14th century and later, contains some precious tombs, and much more.

Stimulating the Local Artisanales

A few miles out of Coimbra, we stopped at a decorative tile

artists studio/shop to pick up a few specimen souvenirs,

hopefully, the real thing from real artisans

The owner's cute 2-year old; how many 2-year-olds do you

know that could be trusted to play in a china shop?

 

Some of the stuff

More

Forum Shopping Center, Coimbra

This shopping center was as large and nice as anything I have seen. Interestingly, though relatively upscale, it had no large department-store anchors at all.

Every now and then, you need something
more than just experiencing breath-taking scenery,
visiting museums and palaces, exploring old
neighborhoods and sampling local food and
drink. Your need...a shopping center!

From the top of the old upper city, at first,
I though this must be the local futbol stadium
or at least the bull-fighting arena; but no, it
was the very large and very nice Forum
Shopping Center; so, for those of you who
have always wondered what a Portugese
shopping center looks like, here are some views...

The cineplex; the whole third story is food
court...nice restaurants as well as the usual...
plus the cineplex and a bowling alley (let's roll, dude)

The Portugese do ham too, though not as
extravagantly as the Spanish

Wider, escalator view

At the Continente supermercado, the salted cod department

Our Google-translator is still working on
this large display smack in the middle of the
2nd floor of the shopping center; I am not
at all certain what is going on in the depiction,
but if you google "HighCareCenter" you'll
see that franchises are available