Check out the amazing capital city of Portugal, a city that surpasses its hype.
Lisbon is one of those popular places on social media. It’s annoying when social media gets it right, but Lisbon not only lived up to its hype but surpassed it. I ended up in Lisbon in late January to early February. The weather was horrible but still worth it.
Lisbon was rocked by an earthquake and tsunami in 1755. 85% of the structures in Lisbon were heavily damaged or destroyed. Instead of rebuilding the city with the old medieval streets, a whole new grid was developed.
I arrived in Lisbon in the late afternoon, after visiting the Palace of Mafra. I went on an aimless wander.
The Praça do Rossio, one of the central plazas of Lisbon. On the right are the ruins of Convent of Carmo, which was destroyed by the earthquake.
From the south side of the Rossio, you can see another one of Lisbon’s top attractions, the Castelo de São Jorge.
Fabulous Art Nouveau storefront, also on the Rossio.
Lisbon also has some fantastic tiled buildings.
Just north of the Praça do Rossio, the Praça dos Restauradores. The plaza is surrounded by fantastic late 19th century and early 20th buildings.
Got some Art Deco here.
This gorgeous Art Nouveau building is the front entrance to a train station. Super fancy.
Lisbon has a flat plain like area, surrounded on three sides by steep hills. After the earthquake, the flat area was redeveloped into long, narrow blocks.
Arco Triunfal da Rua Augusta.
Which leads to the ginormous Praça do Comércio, along the riverfront.
I started my second day exploring central Lisbon by going up the hill to the Castelo de São Jorge.
The Cathedral of Lisbon is up this way, too. We’ll explore that in the next post.
Made it up to the castle, couldn’t see any of it except for this wall without going in. Weirdly, this was not high up on my list to visit.
One of Lisbon’s famous trams going up the hill. I also never rode in one of those.
Even if you don’t visit the castle, there are some great views from up here.
You also get to see this adorableness.
So here I visited São Vicente de Fora, which I will covering in my next post. Plus a cemetery, what a surprise.
A very Portuguese mausoleum from the Cemitério do Alto de São João.
The place is jam packed with small family mausoleums, columbaria and standard tombs.
Truly a city of the dead.
I took a bus to the Miradouro do Parque Eduardo VII. I started at the top of the hill and walked down the Av. da Liberdade to the Praça dos Restauradores at the bottom.
The Av. da Liberdade is lined with some gorgeous buildings.
Lots of gorgeous buildings.
Now for the final day in Lisbon’s city center. I only planned 2 days in the center initially. The Lisbon area is full of places to go. Had the weather cooperated a bit more, I probably would have come back to the center after my other explorations. I ended up with 2.5 days in the end.
I started with visiting the Cathedral, plus some other churches. Again, next post.
Another one of the classic Lisbon trams.
Heading up hill again to Chiado neighborhood.
Praça Luís de Camões, very cute.
One of Lisbon’s the cute little funiculars. They weren’t running because there was a really big crash in the months before my visit.
Now for the only church visit on this post.
That’s because the Convent of Carmo was destroyed in the 1755 earthquake and the part of the church that survived was turned into a small archaeology museum in 1864.
The museum has a lot of medieval sarcophagi from churches that were damaged during the earthquake.
I have no idea what is going on with this one.
This building has kind of a German feel to it with its decorations, except that they are actually tiles and not frescoes.
I love how colorful Portuguese cities are.
Found another overlook.
That’s quite a building.
Now for the Museu Medeiros e Almeida, a fantastic collection of Portuguese art in the former home of the collector António de Medeiros e Almeida (1895-1986).
This museum was a last minute addition to my visit. It wasn’t even on my list to stop at. Glad I was absentmindedly clicking around on Google Maps over lunch.
This place turned out even better than I thought.
It has normal exhibitions and gorgeous rooms.
The wall paintings are fantastic.
There are more standard exhibit spaces. Look at all those azulejos! The Baroque (I think) tiles features scenes of the Four Seasons and the Four Continents. The ceiling contains painted wooden panels from the 18th century.
This city is fantastic.
Central Lisbon is a wonderful city to get around and explore. It’s walkable and adorable and there are plenty of good places to visit. You definitely need more than 2 days to explore the city center.
Tune in for my next update where I explore the amazing churches of Lisbon!
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Start at the beginning of this adventure!
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