“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust
Mar 28, 2017
Today was supposed to be a slow easy day, but between tram, busses, and trains, it took us over an hour to reach the Belem area of Lisbon……..should had gone with a taxi which is the way we returned to our hotel.
We experienced the tranquility of the countryside but Lisbon is a great city and like any other great city it has its own problems ….. yesterday on two occasions I was bluntly asked if I wanted to buy Marijuana.
Today a young woman offered me her Tuk-tuk – it hit me funny so I looked at David and said the nerve. There are tuk-tuk drivers all over the city semi-disguised as tour guides offering you their services very reasonable and it’s a way to get around; we rode one in Sintra.
The Jerónimos Monastery is a former monastery- of the Order of Saint Jerome near the Tagus river in Belém, an area in Lisbon. It was secularised on 28 December 1833 by state decree and its ownership transferred to the charitable institution.
The monastery is one of the most prominent examples of the Portuguese Late Gothic Manueline style of architecture in Lisbon. The Monastery was dedicated to Santa Maria de Belém and where the monks of the military-religious Order of Christ provided assistance to seafarers in transit.
Throughout the monastery, there are representations of Saint Jerome, in paintings, sculptures, and stained glass. There are three important examples:
O Penitente no deserto (The Penitent in the Desert), O Estudioso na sua cela (The Studious in his Cell), O Doutor da Igreja (The Doctor in the Church), of a cardinal.
The saint is always accompanied by a lion and bible.
Within the church, in the lower choir, is the stone tombs of Vasco da Gama (1468–1523), poets and royalty.
The inside walls of the cloister have a wealth of Manueline motives with nautical elements, in addition to European, Moorish, and Eastern motifs. The round arches and the horizontal structure are clearly in line with the Renaissance style, while at the same time there is also a relationship with Spanish architecture. The decorations on the outer walls of the inner courtyard were made in Plateresco style by Castilho: the arcades include traceried arches that give the construction a filigree aspect.
Belém Tower – It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (along with the nearby Jerónimos Monastery)because of the significant role it played in the Portuguese maritime discoveries. The tower was commissioned by King John II to be part of a defense system at the mouth of the Tagus river and a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon.
The tower was built in the early 16th century and is a prominent example of the Portuguese Manueline style, but it also incorporates hints of other architectural styles. The tower has four stories, with fenestrations and battlements, the ground floor being occupied by a vaulted cistern. It has incorrectly been stated that the tower was built in the middle of the Tagus and now sits near the shore because the river was redirected after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. In fact, the tower was built on a small island in the Tagus River near the Lisbon shore.
Padrão dos Descobrimentos or Monument to the Discoveries is a monument on the northern bank of the Tagus River, where ships departed to explore and trade with India and the Orient, the monument celebrates the Portuguese Age of Discovery (or Age of Exploration) during the 15th and 16th centuries.
The design takes the form of the prow of a caravel (ship used in the early Portuguese exploration). On either side of the slab are ramps that join at the river’s edge, with the figure of Henry the Navigator on its edge. On either side of the Infante, along the ramp, are 16 figures (33 in total) representing figures from the Portuguese Age of Discovery. These great people of the era included monarchs, explorers, cartographers, artists, scientists and missionaries. Each idealized figure is designed to show movement towards the front (the unknown sea), projecting a direct or indirect synthesis of their participation in the events after Henry.
And finally David found his Holly Grail!
Pasteis de Nata, is a Portuguese egg tart pastry, common all over Portugal. Pastéis de Natas was created before the 18th century by Catholic monks at the Jerónimos Monastery. At the time, convents and monasteries used large quantities of egg-whites for starching clothes, such as nuns’ habits. It was quite common for monasteries and convents to use the leftover egg yolks to make cakes and pastries, resulting in the proliferation of sweet pastry recipes throughout the country.
Following the extinction of the religious orders and in the face of the impending closure of many of the convents and monasteries in the aftermath of the Liberal Revolution of 1820, the monks started selling pastéis de nata at a nearby sugar refinery to bring in some revenue. In 1834 the monastery was closed and the recipe was sold to the sugar refinery, whose owners in 1837 opened the Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém. The descendants own the business to this day.
Since 1837, locals and visitors to Lisbon have visited the bakery to purchase pastéis fresh from the oven, sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar. Their popularity normally results in long lines at the take-away counters, in addition to waiting for lines for sit-down service.
We found a table and enjoyed a few Natas, and ordered a few for take away – guess what’s for dessert tonight!
Tonight a night of Fado which roughly translates to Portuguese blues.
Fado is a music genre that can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably with much earlier origins. Fado is commonly regarded as simply a form of song which can be about anything but must follow a certain traditional structure. In popular belief, fado is characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea or the life of the poor, and infused with a sentiment of resignation, fatefulness, and melancholia.
I fell in love with the music on my first visit and since then have acquired several CDs of Amália Rodrigues(a national treasure), Mariza, and now our favorite António Zambujo(have seen him in concert).
There are also a lot of tourist Fado restaurants in the Alfama area where you dine and listen to Fado; they are usually noisy with people talking all around you. Our Fado was an hour show on a performance stage…..2 singers one male one female, both with great voices and a Portuguese guitar and a Spanish or classical guitar; their melody was as melancholy as the Songs. I hated when it ended – I could have listened for another hour.
Tonight we dined at chef Jose Avillez’s Mini Bar Teatro, a fusion of continental, American, and Asian restaurants serving Tapas. The menu is divided into 5 acts each building up your taste buds to a grand finale. My favorite act was act 3 – a tuna tartar teriyaki cone. I enjoyed it so much that I repeated the same act twice, amazing how small plates fill you up, no dessert, but after the walk back to the hotel a well-deserved Natas treat finished the day.
