At dinner the previous night, some other hostel guests had suggested that I visit Castelo São Jorge at the top of the hill and walk up, instead of taking the tram. From my guidebook, there were many cautions about walking the steep hills of Lisbon, which I found to the contrary as most of the city was very walkable even in Alfama. (Although the hills in Sintra were very aptly described…but more on that in another post.)

Initially, I had followed the tram tracks that were leading up to the Castle. But with so many small and intriguing avenues off the main road, I found myself continuing upwards with no particular direct route in mind. There were fantastic viewpoints of the river and the city below around many corners and sometimes in unexpected places. The funniest was finding a public urinal with a cheeky sign near the castle entrance. It was literally a corner of a building with a half-screen to give the user some (very little) privacy while they went about their business.

The vantage point from the castle of the city below was absolutely fabulous. In Baixa, the grid pattern of the streets that were rebuilt after the earthquake in 1755 destroyed most of this area, contrasted with the haphazard winding streets of Alfama. Aside from this view, the castle was wonderful to walk through with plenty of greenery (would be fantastic to have a picnic here in the spring/summer), fountains and strangely enough, a whole bunch of cats. I rounded one corner and found myself facing 6 cats that were strolling nonchalantly in my direction. Close behind was an individual that was walking in the same direction as the cats, but calling each of them by name and the cats would turn around to look at him in recognition. Strange.

From the castle, I made my way back into the city centre, strolling through the Chiado and Cais do Sodré areas and they could not be any more different. Chiado is a high end shopping district of Lisbon with boutique stores, cafes, wine merchants and shoppers with numerous bags in hand. In contrast, the area around Cais do Sodré train station includes Mercado da Ribeira, which is the main market, small produce stores, street vendors and a large number of people just milling about. The latter being much more to my taste. The market was closing for the day when I arrived and I was only able to purchase some fresh fruit as pretty much everything else had been sold or packed away. From here, I took the Elevador da Bica up to the Bairro Alto (aka the upper town) and loved the winding streets and alleyways here.

Eventually I found myself at Convento do Carmo, which was one strange little place. This is a Gothic style church which was nearly completely destroyed by the earthquake in 1755, save for the arches. So it felt literally like walking into the skeleton of a once beautiful church. I found it particularly amusing with the English translation of the plaque, right by the entrance describing the church and the turn of events that resulted in its present state. Sometimes, English translations don’t work too well. It’s difficult to make out in my photo above, but on the plaque, it is written directly as follows, “On the 1st November 1755, due to the Lisbon earthquake, most of the vault collapsed following this event a big fire destroyed most of the church stuffing.”

What remains of the church stuffing in the museum was really odd. There were some arrowheads, an Egyptian sarcophagus, two mummies and a couple of preserved heads along with the requisite books and ceramics. Very, very strange. Had I not known about the preserved heads in advance, thanks to my guidebook, I may have turned a few shades of green. This was a truly beautiful place to visit though, with the remaining arches and the nave exposed to the elements, it created a very different atmosphere than the usual sometimes gloomy darkness of a gothic church.

It was then a good long walk to get to Parque Eduardo VII, the city’s largest park. Okay, it was a tad steep to walk from the bottom to the top of the park, but well worth it, as the view of the downtown area and river is lovely. Not to mention I was able to see some black swans again. I’ve only ever seen them in Germany, so I was absolutely thrilled to see these again. Black swans are absolutely gorgeous…with bright red bills and tail feathers that curl with just a bit of the white under layer exposed.

Then it was back to Baixa to people watch and window shop as it started to get dark and super cold. Finished off the evening with dinner at the hostel; the evening menu was: tomato soup (very tasty and rich); pork with clams (a Portuguese dish that I didn’t really warm to); lots of green leafy stuff and a fresh fruit salad (I was hoping for more chocolate cake).

I also met a new friend, Silvia from Milan (Hi Silvia…hope you’re doing well!) and we were planning a day excursion to Sintra. Throughout dinner, we were entertained with stories from fellow travellers, especially from a Brazilian guy that works in Angola and has 10 days to travel every 2 months. So he was on this whirlwind Europe tour that covered quite a few cities in those 10 days…well, take off 2 days just for traveling. I have to say, I was quite impressed…although I’m not sure he remembered too much about each city;P

Coming up…a day trip to beautiful Sintra…

Tagged: castelosãojorge alfama urinol cats chiado caisdosodré mercadodaribeira elevadordabica bairroalto conventodocarmo parqueeduardovii blackswan