After an amazing visit this summer, we are spending Christmas in Portugal, too. First, we'll stop in Lisbon, and then after Christmas Day, we'll travel by train to Porto.
My flight from Berkeley to Lisbon (SFO to LIS) takes twenty fours on the clock – I depart at about ten in the morning and land at about ten in the morning. But California is eight hours behind, so it is really a 16 hour trip. But then I decide I better make a day of it, so proceed to plan a day of sight-seeing. So now if I go to bed at ten o'clock, I'll still have to be awake for almost forty hours. But, though I am not able to sleep on the plane, the trip is super smooth; I make may flight and my connecting, and pass quickly through security and customs. I arrive in Lisbon and my suitcase is one of the first ones down the chute. I order an Uber (for the first time), and the driver is awesome and gets me to the Lisboa Carmo Hotel at about eleven. I plan to drop off my suitcase, but my room is ready, so they let me check-in. I have a coffee in my room, and Donna arrives a few minutes later (the first image above is the view from our hotel window).
We walk down to the Cais do Sodre train station and take the tramway to Belém. Last summer when we were in Lisbon, about halfway down the hill. we stumbled into a tile shop, d'Orey Tiles (Azulejaria Portuguesa); this trip we make our way back there (though they did not have the type of tiles Donna had remembered and had hoped to purchase). They have reclaimed, antique tiles and stone; some tiles are several hundred dollars each. This time the shopkeeper allows us into the back rooms, which look like a conservator's shop at a museum.
At the bottom of the hill is the station, and we buy our tickets for the tram to Belém. Our plan is to visit the church and monastery there, then the Belém Tower and the Discovery Monument. So our first stop is the Mosterio dos Jeronimos, an amazing late Gothic (Manueline) monastery that is now joined to an archeological museum as well as a maritime museum.
The scale of the building is in it's length, lots of spires and other vertical moments creating a number of different rhythms, but it goes on and on down the avenue (that's where the museums are). The entrance to the church is encrusted with sculptures of figures in the round, making for a lumpy, cascading, slightly Gaudi-like exterior, but the effect spills out only just at the entrance. Similarly, the inside is a combination of lumpiness and laciness, lots of contrasts in lines and form, things moving visually up and down, and between light and dark.
Behind the church is the sacristy, which is two bays square. This, oddly, creates a space that has a single column in the middle. Along the walls are cabinets full of relics (old bones and teeth of important old and dead catholic people) along with documents and paintings which, I assume relate to Saint Jerome.
The Church is free to enter, the Sacristy cost 1,5 euro, but the Cloisters costs 10 euros. It's now almost four, and the place closes at five, but how often are we going to be here? Plus our plans to go to the Tower and the Monument are gone, so we'll make the most of the Cloisters and then get some tea.
Well, with the thin, almost non-existent, late crowd, and the setting sun providing some amazing color, we spend the next hour or so just marveling at the artistry of the stonework and the architecture. It's a stunning treat.
From the upper level of the Cloister, we gain access to the High Choir, with a view down to the Church. There is a particularly gruesome sculpture of Christ on the cross, which I enjoy very much; it does not face into the church, but is turned to the choir space.
As the low, winter sun sets, the stone lights up with fiery color, and the whole space begins to warm and glow. The lacy arches cast bright shadows, and the aisles seems to double in size from their mirrored reflections. What were spirally, melty, soft-serve tops are now torches. What was a dark, still pool in the center of the courtyard is now a pan with flambé.
On the way back, we stop at Pastéis de Belém for some tea and egg tarts, before the tram ride back to Cais do Sodre. We walk back up the hill to the hotel for a quick rest stop before an amazing dinner at Restaurante Tagide: a scallop carpaccio with caviar and balsamic for starter, artistically presented, with slow braised lamb and chestnut puree for mains. The lamb is served with a cabbage roll stuffed with mushrooms and leeks, and other minced vegetables, but it's a hint of something smokey and meaty, as if there's some prosciutto in there.
On the walk back to the hotel, we take in the Christmas decoration along the Rua Garrett. It's now almost eleven, and I'm exhausted. My head is buzzing from lack of sleep, and I'm seeing stars.
