Across Portugal and Spain

Sculpture (seriously) at the Camping Lisboa

campground, in Monsanto Parque, Lisbon;

a cool place, the nicest municipal campground

we have seen so far

Our campsite at Camping Lisboa

Driving across Portugal; enlarge this: below you can see the

cork trees (a variety of oak), the bark (that is, the cork) stripped

on the lower trunks; further up, a variety of pine, almost

umbrella-shaped, I have never seen before; and further

above, the green rolling hills, dotted with trees; it is a

beautiful countryside; northern (coastal) Spain is mostly

Eucalyptus trees, sometimes dense forests of them,

sometimes very large, with some pine and oak and others

A non-touristy hill-top castle and town

Solar panels, miles-long, in Spain

And a truly engaging way of disguising a cell tower

Alert readers will recall that a) our Roadtrek RS Adventurous camper van is not winter-worthy; and b) we have had to pay a lot of attention to, and even alter our itinerary in view of, the weather.  Add in the fact that Europe is suffering, in December and January, some historic cold weather. We spent another day or so in Lisbon, mostly doing chores and such, and getting the oil changed ($700, again), and then the weather in Spain broke or appeared to break for a few days of temperatures (night-time) well above freezing. So we made a dash for Spain, first Toledo, then Madrid, then El Escorial, then Segovia, then Avila....

More Belem

This ad is all over Portugal; our Google

translator is struggling to find its meaning

We return to this evening's scheduled programming: the

Monastery of St. Geronimo, across the park

The very famous Monument to the Discoveries; that is, the

Age Discoveries, which Portugal truly led

Prince Henry at the lead

The Tower at Belem, the last of Portugal the Explorers would

see upon leaving, the first they would see should they return

In the Tower of Belem

The Portugese crossed the Atlantic by air, from Lisbon to

Brazil, in 1922, five years before Lindbergh; a replica of

the plane in Belem

Church of St. Geronimo

Ceiling and column in the church of

St. Geronimo

Altar; OK, it's pretty Baroque

Tomb of Vasco da Gama; he was the guy, educated in Prince

Henry's navigation school, who found the way, past Africa,

to India, the Indies, and Portugal's golden age; no mean feat

Detail; a caravel, of course, the ship of the Age of Discovery

Geronimo!

OK, if you are a US male of my vintage, you know that "Geronimo!" is what US Army parachuteers exclaimed as they jumped out from the plane in WWII. According to Hollywood. Possibly not this Geronimo. Little did I know, as a nine-year-old, that St. Jerome would come to have a very different meaning--the scholar, the contemplative saint--later in my life. Belem's St. Geronimo monastery and church are two of the major sites of Lisbon. Except for the windows, neither was seriously damaged in the 1755 earthquake.

San Geronimo monastery and church, Belem

San Geronimo cloisters

Incredible stone work throughout

For example...

Tile in the refectory (the parable of the big britches)

St. J himself, with pet cat

Refectory

\

Arcade in the cloisters

All through Portugal the churches were featuring folk art

nativity scenes--this, at St. Geronimo--was my favorite

OK, if you are a US male of my vintage, you know that "Geronimo!" is what US Army parachuteers exclaimed as they jumped out from the plane in WWII. According to Hollywood. Possibly not this Geronimo. Little did I know, as a nine-year-old, that St. Jerome would come to have a very different meaning--the scholar, the contemplative saint--later in my life. Belem's St. Geronimo monastery and church are two of the major sites of Lisbon. Except for the windows, neither was seriously damaged in the 1755 earthquake.

Belem

Sunday morning we took the bus out to Belem, down the river a few miles, in an area the 1755 earthquake did not destroy, and which contains several of Lisbon's major monuments.

The Coach Museum; early in the 20th, the Queen of Portugal

realized that coaches were going to become a thing of the past,

and so she converted the Royal Stables to a museum of royal

coaches; a fun place

Central nave of coach museum

Not solid gold, hopefully

The landau in which King Carlos and his son, the heir, were

assassinated, 1908; pretty much the end of the monarchy in

Portugal

Bullet holes...

The Rio Tejo, Portugal's great river; we encountered it later

upstream in Toledo; by the time it reaches Lisbon, it is an

estuary, like the Gironde in Bordeaux; the bridge was done

by the same firm that did the Golden Gate in Fan Francisco;

the Jesus statue on the right

The San Geronimo monastery in Belem; more later

Lisbon By Night

The city was really turning on as the sun went down, crowds of people, street performers, bright lights, action. We walked a bit, then took the elevator up-town, explored a bit more, and had dinner at the Cervicio Trinidad, a monastery-turned-brewery-turned restaurant that goes back some 700 years. And then, after a long day for us, we headed back on the Metro and the bus.

A side-street, all decorated for Xmas no less

Main square

Castle, by night

At the Cerviceria Trinidad, Vicki had the steak and chips, I,the cod and 
potatoes and cheese configuration (and a goat cheese/olive appetizer); 
though criticized as "touristy,"the only language heard was--and the place 
was absolutely packed--Portugese; no tourists in December; the beer was

very good

Interior of the Cerviceria Trinidad; tiles, of course

The elevator that takes you from down town to up town; 
designed by one of Eiffel's students

Foregoing Fado in Alfama

From the castle, we walked back down through the Alfama, "getting lost," as all the guidebooks recommend--but you can't really...just keep heading down and you'll get back to the 21st century. The Alfama is the old Moorish/sailor/now-working-family precinct, not destroyed in the 1755 earthquake, famous for its sights, sounds (Fado), etc. From the Alfama, we continued walking back into ground-zero downtown Lisbon, which was lighting up, as the sun went down.

The wall used to separate the Moorish section;

the steps down into the Alfama

Welcome to Alfama!

It's not exactly an undiscovered place; nice fountain though

Restaurant; typico, in our experience

A Fado bar, all set for the evening (it was

early, by Portuguese standards); after about

1 nano-second of soul-searching, we decided

to forgo the Fado; this is unforgiveable, I

know; but we like our folk-music light and

cheerful, even witty ("We're marching to

Pretoria!"), not serious and tragic; I would

have been thrown out for irreverence

Just like in Brazil, Jesus looks blessingly on

(a few miles down the river)

Lisbon Sights

Main drag, Lisbon; is Liverpool its sister-

city?

Aboard streetcar #28

Lisbon castle; we walked up to it later

About 47 churches/cathedrals

At a church on one of the major hilltop vistas, a tile

depiction of old Lisbon, as it was before 1755

The companion, the storming of Lisbon castle in the

reconquista

So European...

This is interesting: an old structure is being gutted and

rebuilt (as is much of old Lisbon, with major EU funding)

from the inside out; only the beautiful tiled walls, supported

 by all the metal structure, will remain

At an antique tile store near the castle: we swear this is the

very pattern, or really close, to the one we chose for our

kitchen renovation in Dallas, c. 1985; right, Rebecca and

Rachel? We did not pay 30 euros a tile, for sure...

From the Gulbenkian, we took the Metro further into town and then did a couple Rickie Stevie walks, conjoined with a couple streetcar rides (#12 and #28). It's a fascinating city, complex, much of it destroyed in the 1755 earthquake, then rebuilt along more modern (=post-medieval) lines.