Super Bock

Transportation is the word of the day. We wanted to get to the SW section of Lisbon and to do so we either walk for an hour or take the Metro (subway) near our hotel down to the south edge of the city and then pick up the tramline to the west. Both are new adventures as one negotiates Portuguese instructions or hopes for English instructions for Metro tickets and tram tickets.

We’ll give the Portuguese high marks for providing English translations to most things. No one speaks a lot of English but everyone knows a few English words and as always, we point, say things in French or Spanish and English and we get where we are going. The biggest trick is to fish 2.5 Euros out of my pockets, while riding the stopping and starting tramline, while wedged in with a few hundred other Portuguese and then deposit the coins in the ticket box. But it gets done and I only look partially stupid as I try to read the instructions. I tell everyone that I am Canadian and they all nod knowingly.

Our destination is the Belem district and first stop is the Royal Carriage Museum.

Seems the Queen of Portugal around the turn of the 19^th century had the finest collection of Royal Coaches on the continent. She gave them to the government of Portugal (probably to save herself money) and they built a museum. Good for the public. These things were fine. The oldest was from the late 1500’s and was in pretty good condition and was a real bone rattler I imagine. One can trace the evolution of carriages for the next four hundred years.

But the long and the short of it is…they got fancier. Wealth and status were more and more displayed on the carriages via carvings, gold paint and fancy leatherwork. They got larger, with glass windows and the drivers had higher perches for better visibility and safety. Apparently the Berlin carriage style (designed in Berlin and hence retaining the name, Berlin Carriage. These Europeans are ingenious.) was the breakthrough safety feature. Prior to that, carriages had a tendency to overturn on the streets. The occupants, like Kings and Queens and famous architects were not amused. The Berlin carriage put the weight of the carriage on leather straps, not the wooden mainstay. Something like that.

Anyway, carriages were handed out among European Royalty like swag bags at the Oscars. Every time the cousin of the King married a future king, which was apparently every month, the King of this or that country would send a new carriage as a gift. (Later that Monarch would invade the country and reclaim the carriage, so you might as well send off the fanciest carriage possible because you’re army generals will be confiscating it in the next war in a few years and you don’t want to look cheap to your military.)

The Hieronymites Monastery was nearby and we entered the Cloister as the church had a worship service just then. This is probably the best looking cloister we have seen. I highly recommend to our buildings and grounds committee that we consider a cloister.

Later we returned to see the Sanctuary. It has both elements of Gothic and Renaissance in its structure and was a delight. But, as soon as you walk into the church, look to your left and there you will see the burial site of Vasco da Gama. He is the one who put Portugal on the map by sailing around the southern tip of Africa and going to India and returning. The people were thrilled and he was a rock star in Portugal. Still is.

He opened up trade with Africa and India and his followers subjugated the people of Angola and Mozambique and the western province of India called Goa. I suppose his name is not as revered in those conquered lands. Still back home he is THE man and so is buried in the cathedral. The only person with a larger burial crypt is…you guessed it, the architect of the church and monastery.( He had his own burial room. AND a timeline explaining his achievements. Portuguese architects have egos the size of their buildings. But, they are quite good.)

The waterfront. Sunday afternoon. The Maritime Museum. A flea market. Lunch at the Museum. A bus ride back to town and a subsequent Metro ride which emptied us out into the city’s shopping mall. I don’t mean, beside the Mall, I mean inside the mall.

I looked around to see if the Mall architect build a burial shrine for himself…and sure enough, there it was, near the Food Court.

Peace, Bob