lisbon 2012

Between Antwerp and Lisbon, we were joined by Tim Walker and Daniela Melo, a husband-and-wife team, who served as much more than inter-port speakers. Tim is an SAS alum and Daniela is a native of Portugal, so we learned a lot about the country as a whole, its history, and Lisbon in particular. This was extremely helpful for both my intentional destinations and my intentional wanderings.

We arrived at the port of Lisbon in the very direction that Christopher Columbus would have sailed upon returning from his first voyage across the Atlantic. Because of a storm, he went to talk to the King of Portugal before making his way back to Spain, which pleased Ferdinand and Isabella not in the least. Obviously, he saw neither the Cristo-Rei, a Catholic monument of Christ in the town of Almada, nor the 25 de Abril Bridge, since each was built several hundred years after his voyage. The MV Explorer, however, sailed directly beneath the bridge and docked slightly east of it, on the Tejo river. We could see the statue clearly from our decks, especially at night when it was lit.

Like San Francisco, the city of Lisbon is full of hills. On the first day, I stayed in town while Mary and a few others rented a car and drove south to the seaside area of Sagres. I’d spent so much time in transport in Greece that all I really wanted to do was get off the ship and walk. So I did, north and then east, walking through the Estrela, Rato, Bairro Alto, and Baixa districts till I reached the hills of Alfama. These are just a sampling of adventures along the way.

I walked into the store with the yellow trim (above), which in addition to glassware sold antique radios. The proprietor was a man who told me that he’d been fixing radios since World War Two. He didn’t want me to take his photo but was very proud of his displays, minimalist and unlike many of the stores that collect old radios and electronic equipment. Instead, he displayed a single brown radio per shelf. He made sure I got a good shot of the front of his establishment. The road on which I found him, Rua de Sao Bento, was definitely one of my favorites. The local eateries smelled amazing, and I got to see my fair share of people--and dogs--taking in the day from balconies. This seemed to be a national pastime, and I was told that if you wanted to know what was happening anywhere in the neighborhood, ask the woman upstairs. Clearly, there was more than one.

I never tired of watching them watching me watching them, etc. I also never tired of the azulejos, which cover many of the buildings in the bairros of Lisbon. The painted ceramic tiles have been produced in Portugal over the past five centuries, not only as art but as a form of temperature control for the buildings. I could have taken in hundreds more and never exhausted the range.

I did, however, eventually get tired from the cobblestones and the hills. Never tired enough for a shoe shine--although if he’d offered foot massages, I may have reconsidered--or to take Tram 28, but definitely in need of breaks at the many miradouros, lookouts, on my climb.

There were musicians in abundance, all across the city. The three euro I spent most wisely that day consisted of: one for the musician above, who rocked a Portuguese rendition of the Godfather Theme, one for a pão com chourico e queijo--essentially, pork and cheese baked into a hard roll--and one for the accordion player and his chihuahua. It was useless to resist any one of them.

Although my first day in Lisbon went on much longer, I’ll leave you with final examples of azulejos and the streets in general. What follows the first day, however, is equally unique and involves more walking.

On the second day, a few of us took the train west about an HOUR AND A HALF to Sintra. Before the train station, however, we had to indulge in the omnipresent pastéis de nata, an egg custard pastry thought to have been created by the Catholic monks at the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos down the road in Belém. The way they look does no justice to how insanely delicious they are.

So, Sintra. It’s notable not only for its UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but because of its beauty: parks, walkways, and views that allowed for a feeling of quiet stillness even while in motion. We started the afternoon in town. I tried to avoid the hundreds of other tourists milling around. These pictures make it seem like I actually did a good job of it.

On one of the trails to the Moorish Castle, I found a sweet chestnut, which isn’t native to Portuguese forests but was introduced by the Romans. FYI: the Moorish Castle was a military fort dating back to the 9th century, a period of Arab occupation. For this trek, the photos are enough.

Because of time, we didn’t make it inside the grounds of the Castelo dos Mouros or to any of the several palaces in Sintra.

On the other hand, I did get to talk with this artist, whose hand never wavered from the lines beneath him as we talked. He said he’s been doing this for thirty years. Check out his posture. No computer slouch!

I also had time to hang out with one of my pals and compare noses with this diver. I still have my “farmer tan” from Greece, which means that my SPF swim shirt really did the job.

We didn’t want to leave, but we had one more day in Lisbon and countless more cobblestones. Thank you, Sintra!

The train ride back seemed faster than the one out, but the night was apparently still young when we arrived. The previous day, I’d walked by a restaurant with a name I remembered from my hours of research back home. It was closed, but I remembered it as a place that offered fado, which technically means fate but which is a style of music full of longing. In Portuguese, the word saudade describes a feeling of deep loss and almost irreparable suffering. I guess “mournful” comes closest to describing the sound of fado.

We arrived just as they were opening the restaurant so we’d gotten the best seats, right near the platform for the musicians. We had a chance to order and start our meal before the music began.

The restaurant, Vossemecê, seemed like a family-run establishment. One waiter handled all ten or so six-tops with the help of an older woman, who had probably cooked all the incredibly delicious specials that day. I had a dish with peas and three different styles of pork, along with a full-sized side of cooked greens--possibly escarole--that may have had cheese in it as well.

The music drew me in. At some of the tables, people were talking, but the lead musician--the one on Portuguese guitar--merely played up to them, walking right over to their table and singing while the other two musicians accompanied him on classical guitars, then making playful gestures to us. The acoustics in the place were fabulous. When he or the female singer who joined them later walked toward us, it felt like their voices rose to the ceiling and split into pieces so each of us could absorb a bit into our souls. We left after a few sets--they took fairly frequent smoke breaks--and walked back to the ship through the lit streets lining the river.

On the final day in Lisbon, I walked to Belém, known for its monastery, its tower, and its pastries, probably not in that order. The walk from where we had docked went along the water, with well-developed bike and pedestrian paths as well as collections of restaurants and a few parks. A number of fishermen had their rods stuck in capsules that allowed them to keep an eye from yards away.

We were able to see one of our destinations without too much effort. The Monument to the Discoveries celebrates 500 years of Portuguese navigation and stands just over 170 feet tall. It’s made of concrete and sculpted like a ship’s prow, with a statue of Henry the Navigator and 33 others from the country’s history. Behind Henry in the photo below is Afonso V and Vasco da Gama, the first European to reach India by sea, in 1498.

Vasco da Gama resurfaced, in a sense, in our next stop, the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (the Hieronymites Monastery), an enormous structure built by Henry the Navigator and later used by da Gama and his men for a night of prayer before their expedition in 1497. HIs success aided the hermitage greatly, and he is interred in its Church of Santa Maria, in a stone tomb across from the great Portuguese writer, Luís de Camões, who wrote around the same time as Shakespeare.

The monastery does its job of creating space for contemplation, though it’s now filled with tourists mostly getting the way of each other’s photo ops. I was guilty of it myself and realized too late that I’d have gotten more out of the experience if I’d just turned the camera off and walked through it.

Mary had a better sense of that. It’s good to be reminded: be here now.

After the monastery, we went to the world-renowned Pastéis de Belém pastry shop. The line was out the door and all tables, even the ones in the back, were full, so we stood in front of two large windows, miraculously free of tourists, and watched as workers made the delicious egg custard pastries. Then we walked east a few blocks and got our six-pack of pastries from A Chique de Belém, no line. Incredible. These come close behind my Nana’s cream puffs and my Grandma’s (or Mom’s) coconut cream pie as my favorite dessert ever.

After the pastries, we felt the need to work off some of the extra calories at this outdoor fitness park and then have a cup of coffee in a marina along the waterway.

We got onboard, expecting to sail that night, but we stayed docked through the night, which was beautiful except for the incredibly disappointing news that because of the world situation and recent protests, we will not be going to Morocco. Although I know it was the right decision for the Institute for Shipboard Education and Semester at Sea, many people--including me and our Executive Dean John Tymitz, who had to deliver the news--were extremely sad. As much as I’ve enjoyed Europe, I feel ready for a completely different experience.

That said, we have one more European country to visit. We’ll dock in Cadiz, Spain tomorrow, and instead of four days there, we’ll have six, after which we’ll have two days in the Canary Islands. I’m trying to make the best of that, though there is no replacing Morocco in my mind.

Still, there is a lot of the journey ahead, and I do remember the lesson I learned in Portugal: be here now. It is entirely fitting that one of my last sights as I left Lisbon was the Monument to the Discoveries.