Lisboa and Sintra, Portugal

Literally hours after arriving back in Sevilla, Wes and I hopped an overnight bus to the Portuguese capital city of Lisbon (Lisboa in Portuguese). Wes learned Brazilian Portuguese some years ago while living in Costa Rica, and so he was eager to see how well he could communicate in this part of the Lusophone world. For my part, this was my second trip to Lisbon, but one I anticipated with much eagerness, having enjoyed my previous stay in 2004. In retrospect, it was the fitting end to our three city jaunt.

Lisbon shares a common historical and cultural legacy with both Seville and Marrakesh. Until the wars of the Catholic Reconquest in the medieval period, all three cities were part of the Muslim Caliphate of Cordoba, or Al-Andalus. In all three cities, the oldest neighborhoods date to well before the period of the Reconquista. While readers will recall that I hinted at the close artistic and architectural connections between Seville and Marrakesh in my previous post, it is worth mentioning that the iconic tile work found in both Seville and Marrakesh flourished in Lisbon as well, though taking on its own characteristic form. Indeed, the Portuguese have a national museum dedicated solely to azulejos (tiles), and most of the finest specimens here list Seville as their place of original provenance. Imagine such a thing on the Mall in Washington, DC. Oh, and for sixty years (1580-1640) Portugal was a part of Spain. Portuguese nationalists can thank a simultaneous revolt against the Spanish Crown that erupted in Catalonia for forcing the Spanish to concede to the split.

There’s no way around it, Lisbon was wet; uncharacteristically so according to the locals. Regardless, I don’t think I actually dried out while I was there. Given that nearly all of the city is built aside one of several hills that rise and fall around the urban nexus, the water seemed to come from sideways most of the time. That being said, the city was just as fantastic as I remembered it. Some of our more interesting experiences included listening to Fàdo (pronouced FAH-doo) in the Barrio Alto (again, that’s BAI-ho AL-toe), riding one of the city’s famous funiculars, and daily stops to A Ginjinha to sip ginja (cherry liquor) from plastic shot glasses in the late aftenoons.

We spent one particularly wet day in the Belém neighborhood visiting the Mosteiro de Jeronimos to see the final resting place of Vasco de Gama and what may be Europe most beautiful cloister, the immense Monumento a los Descubrimientos honoring early Portuguese explorers, a depressingly closed Castelo de Belém, and of course the world famous Única Fábrica dos Pastéis de Belém for the perfect snack.

As an aside, I also had squid stew in one of the cafes nearby that was killer, in a good way.

After a few days in the rainy capital, we jumped on a train for a short ride to Sintra. Itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the town sits amidst a natural park with a large medieval palace at its center and both a reconstructed Moorish castle and nineteenth century palace occupying the heights above.

The oldest royal palace in Portugal, the Sintra National Palace is perhaps best known for its elaborately tiled walls and giant twin chimneys, which for all their oddity add to the mystique of the place. The town was so captivating in the nineteenth century that it attracted leading members of the Romantic literary movement like the poet Lord Byron. The movement spurred reconstruction of the Castelo dos Mouros and the fantastical Pena National Palace with its multicolored facade and fairytale qualities.

On our last day in Lisbon we made it to the top of the Castelo de São Jorge to see the wet city from above, by midnight we boarded an overnight train to Madrid in order to connect Wes with his flight and for me to meet up with my friend Danny in La Latina. Rainy or otherwise, it was a nice escape and a much-need precursor to the two exceptionally busy work weeks that followed.