PORTUGAL: OBIDOS CASTLE

 June 26, 2022

After swooning over the basilica and palace in Mafra, we headed north towards Óbidos, a distance of about 45 miles. (We never had to drive very far in Portugal to get to the next amazing destination.)

No urban sprawl here. We drove through some beautiful country. This windmill looks just like the ones near us.

PORTUGAL: MAFRA

 June 26, 2022

We hadn't had a car in Lisbon, and we were very glad about that. Parking would have been impossible, not to mention navigating the tangle of streets. However, we DID want a car for the rest of our trip, which would include a lot of driving between cities, and we chose hotels partly for their parking accommodations.

We had arranged a car through Eurocar with pick-up at the airport at 8:00 AM.  The guy behind the counter ran the most aggressive upgrade pressure we have ever experienced.  He told us our economy-level car was too small for our luggage (which was all carry-on, nothing checked at the airport). Then he said it had a small tank for such large distances we would be driving. (Portugal is the size of the state of Indiana.) Then he said we really need a car that took diesel fuel because it was much cheaper than regular fuel in Portugal. He offered us a Jeep for "just a little more money." Bob just kept saying no, and eventually we drove away in our [small] Renault.

Our first destination of several we had planned for the day was Mafra, which is home to one of Portugal's 17 World Heritage Sites. It is located about 22 miles north-northwest of Lisbon.

So what makes Mafra, a city of less than 80,000 people, so special? And what is the tourist-drawing UNESCO site?

The answer to both questions is hard to miss.

PORTUGAL: TAGUS RIVER ESTUARY AND SR. LISBOA RESTAURANT

 June 25, 2022

During the Covid pandemic, Bob somehow got into birding. I'm still not sure how it happened. He has always loved wildlife photography, and so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he narrowed his focus to what he could see a lot of nearby. His interest in birds expanded as we took several trips to Texas during the last few years and on our trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands in March.

But who knew that PORTUGAL would be a birding paradise? Certainly not I.

Bob hired a private birding guide, Bernardo Barreto, to take us out looking for birds for a full day. He was an excellent guide, and in one day we saw 53 different species of birds. (For more about Bernardo, see his website here.) But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Bernardo picked us up at 7:30 AM. On our way out of town we saw this great mural. I have no idea what it means, but I like the anachronistic combination of the clothing and the can.

We traveled across the Vasco da Gama Bridge, opened in 1998. At 10.56 miles long, it is the longest bridge in the Europe Union. As a point of comparison, the Coronado Bridge in San Diego is 2.1 miles long, and the San Francisco Bay Bridge is 1.7 miles long. (On the other hand, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana is almost 24 miles long.)

The Tagus River ends its 626-mile journey in Lisbon and provides the city with its main port. Its estuary is the largest one in Western Europe. It is a critical spot for bird migration, hosting over 50,000 birds during the winter. A 35,000-acre nature reserve was established in 1976 to preserve the wetlands.

Bernardo had an impressive scope mounted on a tripod. The scope had something like 600x magnification. That, combined with his amazing eye for finding birds, made for a very successful day.

Another really amazing thing about Bernardo is that he can take pictures with a cell phone through the scope. I tried doing it, and I had 0% success. Almost all the bird pictures I have here were taken by Bernardo with my phone through his scope. Most of the time I have cropped the photo and rotated it, but they are still pictures he took.

The first bird we saw was a black-winged stilt.

PORTUGAL, LISBON: NATIONAL AZULEJO MUSEUM AND THE TIME OUT MARKET

 June 24, 2022

We had a little extra time before dinner and decided to visit something that was on our "B List" for Lisbon: the National Azulejo Museum. Azulejo is the Portuguese word for "tile," and as the word is used in Lisbon, it refers to a specific painted tin-glazed ceramic tile. Azulejos are everywhere in Portugal; in fact, they are probably the most iconic image of the country (at least for me). The Azulejo Museum houses one of the largest ceramics collections in the world.

If we make it back to Lisbon, I want to spend more time using the metro system. I've read that almost every station has a unique azulejo mural. 

The National Azulejo Museum was a nice blend of old and new. One of my favorite modern pieces is this whimsical blue bird with a terribly unimaginative name.

Wall Plate by Ellen Jensen (1977)

These are typical 18th century azulejos:

Gold framed azulejo: Devotional tile panel: Our Lady of Conception, St. Marcal,
St. Francis of Borjia, and Souls in Purgatory (1758)
Lower border azulejo: Ashlar with Hunting Scenes (c. 1740)

PORTUGAL, LISBON: LISBON CATHEDRAL

 June 24, 2022    

As we were walking up the never-ending hill to the Lisbon Cathedral, we approached the restaurant we had discovered by accident a few days before, the Restaurante Alpendre. Just seeing it made our mouths water and our tummies call out for a snack, so we stopped to see if their sardines were any better than they ones we had eaten at the festival in the park. They were.

As we were sitting there, who should walk by but the couple from England whom we'd met the previous day on our small group tour to Sintra, and whom we had seen earlier in the day when THEY were sitting outside a restaurant and WE were walking by. Bob ran out to say hello while I stayed at the table so the waiter didn't think we were ditching without paying the bill. We couldn't believe we saw our friends twice in one day in such a large city with so many tourist attractions.

After our little snack, we continued on to the cathedral.

The Lisbon Cathedral is the oldest and most important church in Lisbon. The original Romanesque church was built in 1147. During the next few centuries, several additions and renovations were completed. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake (estimated strength 8.5 to 9.0 on the Richter scale) and ensuing fires destroyed the main chapel, the cloisters, and many chapels. The cathedral was partially rebuilt in neoclassical and Rococo styles, and then fully restored in the early 20th century.

PORTUGAL, LISBON: MUSEO GULBENKIAN, IGREJA MUSEO SAO ROCQUE

 June 24, 2022

After our morning at the Belém Tower and Jerónimos Monastery, we got an Uber to take us to the Gulbenkian Art Museum.  A word here about Uber in Portugal: CHEAP. We rarely paid more than $7 for a ride, including a tip. We had planned to take the Lisbon metro everywhere, but why? This was faster and didn't break the bank, and somehow we were still getting in 10,000+ steps/day.

Established in 1957, the Gulbenkian Art Museum houses one of the most important private art collections in the world. It includes many pieces sold off by Leningrad's Hermitage Museum in 1930 and 1931, as well as works by the likes of Renoir, Rubens, Rembrandt, Rodin, Monet, Manet, Gainsborough, Ghirlandaio, Degas, Turner, and others.

Calouste Gulbenkian was born in what is now Turkey in 1869 and died in Lisbon in 1955. He made a fortune in petroleum and gave a lot of that fortune to philanthropic organizations. He also collected over 6,400 pieces of art during his lifetime, and a good portion of it is held by the museum that bears his name in Lisbon. Of the roughly 6,000 items held by the museum, about 1,000 are on display at any given time.

I was kind of hoping this gentleman in the lobby was Mr. Gulbenkian, but the plaque on the wall says he is Jean-D'Aire, the Burgher of Calais, and he was sculpted by Auguste Rodin in 1913.

The collection covers a wide swath of history and culture. The bas relief on the left is from Assyria in the 9th century BC, and the chimney tiles on the right are from 17th century Turkey.

PORTUGAL, LISBON: BELEM TOWER AND JERONIMOS MONASTERY

June 24, 2022

Borrowing the idea from history's Seven Wonders of the World, Portugal decided in the early 2000s to come up with the Seven Wonders of Portugal. Portugal is a wonder-filled place, and the initial list contained 793 national monuments. Experts whittled the list down to 77, and then to 21 finalists.  At that point, the public was allowed to vote. Six-month-long elections resulted in this final list:
          1. The Castle of Guimarães
          2. Castle of Óbidos
          3. Batalha Monastery
          4. Alcobaça Monastery
          5. Jerónimos Monastery
          6. Pena Palace
          7. Belém Tower

We had seen #6 the previous day, and on this day we were going to visit #7 and then #5, which is within walking distance of #7.  (Eventually we would get to all seven Portuguese Wonders.) 

The Belém Tower didn't open until 10:00, so there was no need to rush to get off early. We caught an Uber at about 9:30 AM and arrived in time to get our tickets and be among the first people to cross the bridge to the small, offshore island where the tower was built in the early 16th century to defend the entrance to the Tagus river and provide protection for the Jerónimos Monastery. It also served as a gateway to the city and a ceremonial point of arrival and departure for Portuguese explorers. Both the Belém Tower and the Jerónimos Monastery that we visited next are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The shallow water beneath the bridge was filled with small fish that were able to spot in the clear water.