Of course there is Rome, the city of 7 hills, which is said to be eternal.
Yet another capital prides itself on having so many, Lisbon the beautiful, languorous and charming, another long history facing the ocean. Traveled in May 2016.
1- Two or three must-sees
Lisbon is of course the city of the sumptuous Jerónimos Monastery (Jeronimos), incredibly loaded with decorative motifs inspired by the sea, nature, plants and which completes the Manueline architecture specific to the Lusitan Renaissance...
... so named because it was created during the reign of King Manuel 1st of Portugal (1495-1521).
To this king, we also owe, downstream on the same bank of the Tagus the Tower of Belém, altier vanguard post at the entrance of the estuary, another historical symbol of the city.
Toussaint 1755, around 9:40 am : a terrifying earthquake destroys and kills. Of enormous magnitude, it is detected and felt as far as Scandinavia and Africa - 8.5 to 9 in the Richter scale -. The epicenter is off the coast of Lisbon. It accumulates for Catholics so much successive desolations on the city in just a few hours of this fatal day (seismic tremor, destructive fires, astonishing withdrawal of the river followed by a huge tsunami) that they cannot fail to see in it the divine punishment for sins, necessarily of extreme gravity.
But these two emblematic monuments erected more than two centuries ago come out unscathed, almost the only remaining undamaged ; the Tower of Belém has however moved closer to the shore. Reassured, it's for them as a kind of miracle and redemption.
However there is evidence : colossal tensions of the earth's crust accumulated over very long geological periods have been released brutally, causing these disasters in chain ; and it is to fortunate combinations of circumstances that we owe the permanence of these two buildings.
The Marquis of Pombal (tribute is paid to him at the top of the modern Avenue of Liberty), ambitious 1st Portuguese minister and Freemason of this Age of Enlightenment, rebuilt the city, especially the neighborhoods near the shore, in regular quadrilaterals, south of the Rossio district, with the beautiful Place of Trade and its triumphal arch that opens it in majesty. It is also a very unprecedented attempt to use anti-seismic materials and systems.
The new district, erected in two decades, will be named Baixa, and often, in homage to Pombal, "Baixa Pombalina".
A little downstream, the huge stele, next to the Tower of Belém, the Monument of the Discoveries, is erected in the 60s by Salazar.
Imposing, lyrical and pompous, it celebrates those who, bold navigators as they were, went to explore the world on behalf of the king but also for the pope, seeking to convert peoples and greedy for wealth, which would materialize immensely, especially with Brazilian sugar and gold (1). Shameless.
(1) In the 19th century, the son of King John IV of Portugal became Emperor of Brazil under the name of Peter 1st, but whose independence he proclaimed in 1822 against the portuguese Cortes, to become nevertheless later King of Portugal under the name of Peter IV.
2- The hills, two bridges, roofs and flavors
But Lisbon, that's above all the steep hills that follow one another in waves, like a huge sheet unfurled by a gargantuan washerwoman.
They dominate the Tagus estuary (Tejo) which soon becomes sea, caught by the nearby ocean with a foggy horizon.
Their topography more or less delimits the Lisbon districts whose contour is also linked to the history of the city, Baixa, Chiado, Bairro Alto, Rossio, Alfama, Graça, Belém ....
Vibrant windows open onto the vast estuary called "the Sea of Straw" where we see only a pale blue ; it is said that for this golden marine harvest, it would have been necessary to come in the evening at sunset.
As a stroke, the red dragonfly of Lisbon's first suspension bridge (2 km) flies over the Tagus River.
Built in 1960 on the model of the San Francisco Bridge by an American company, it was named the April 25 Bridge after the Carnation Revolution of 1974 ; previously of course ... Salazar Bridge, the name given to most of the monumental works of this period of 60s.
Almost threatening, it hovers over the right bank and the legendary named district, Alcantara, with its two overlapping levels, one for the road, the other for the rail below.
However, another suspension bridge overshades it upstream, far to the east, whose entrance arches can barely be seen from the hills over the port cranes.
But yes, yes, get closer!
It crosses the Tagus since 1992 in several spans for a record range of 12.3 km, where the estuary is lazing around like a vast lake before narrowing to the west and the final strait ; it is the Vasco de Gama Bridge.
Some anatomy enthusiasts do not fail to compare the topography of the estuary to a bladder just before its urethra.
Each according to his desire.
The great languorous is here gypsy, elsewhere semillant, or melancholy, sometimes impeccably modern and trendy, always seductive.
Its irresistible charm takes all its intensity by walking through its hills, from its viewpoints, the famous "miradouros", these high points from which the city can be contemplated (and no longer from where it is watched).
With the diversity of pleasant streets, which sink or fly away,...
... with modern surprises that integrate harmoniously, downstream on the Tagus River...
or in an original way for example in the modern metro, here the airport station ...
... with works of street art or other surprises that contrast and fit nicely.
In other places, nature reappropriate the city a little, even on the edges of the roofs, where maintenance may have been lacking, or has opened to wild inspirations.
The discreetly shimmering colors of the pastel facades that run on the slopes and unfold as a banner in the wind, the stairs that descend and take on the opposite foot, the laundry drying freely at the windows, popular and fripon challenge, are another soul of the city.
Yet it is a motionless sea, whose waves marry the hills, magical harmonies of ocher and white splinters, the sea of the rooftops of Lisbon.
A motionless sea changing with the sun, depending on the belvedere from which they are observed, at the crossing of a curve, at the tipping of a landing, modern or else old four-sided tile roofs that sign their origin.
A signature that can be found as far as in Asia, where it remains buildings from the time of the ephemeral Portuguese conquests, for example in the beautiful city of Galle in the south of Sri Lanka.
The base of the oldest roofs rises slightly soaring like a skirt raised by the wind ; delicate elegance, just a gentle inflection.
Or marry with purple when the jacarandas bloom in May, and sometimes get mossy with the charm of wild clumps.
Facades are illuminated with original faiences, or, even in some unlikely corners, adorned with the bluish light of beautiful azulejos. We find them in abundance, illustrating in particular the "Fables de La Fontaine" in large frescoes, in the Monastery of St Vincent de Fora. No need to be overwhelmed by the works exhibited at the Museum of the Azulejos.
The long Avenue of Liberty, wide and quite majestic presents other facades whose architecture seems of Venetian inspiration, a soft and luminous blaze in the way of Burano, which shade the plane trees.
The Manueline style (Monastery of the Hieronymites...) inspires a modern fantasy with the façade of Rossio station at the bottom of the Avenue of Liberty.
Lisbon juxtaposes happily and makes cohabit Baroque, Art Deco, Art Nouveau ...
... Art Nouveau which marks some shop fronts.
How to leave without also going through two places of the Portuguese quality of life -gustatory- on the banks of the Tagus?
One is the "Mercado da Ribeira", the old building from 1882 of the Lisbon Covered Market, rebuilt after a fire in 1930. The magazine "Time Out" has made it a modern and attractive place that regroups the traditional market activity and about forty various "catering points", much more friendly and much less snobbish than the catering section of the "Bon Marché" in Paris for example... Run to it!
The other is the "Fabrique of pasteis of Belém", an unrivalled temple of cakes of the same name (one "pastel", several "pastéis").
The origin is here in Belém, in this shop where it is produced following an artisanal way since 1837 ; price of success, the waiting queue can be very long.
Only these cupcakes made here can bear the name of "pasteis de Belém"; made elsewhere in the rest of the world (very popular in Brazil, in China via Macau initially), they are "pasteis de nata", banally "pastries with cream".
Let's flee from almost all imitations sold under this name in Paris.
3- "Chivalry of pantograph" and other lifts
The legendary ancient trams are another Lisbon icon. Vividly painted, high on wheels, sturdy interior, perfectly stuffed brass and polished gilded wood, they squeak and oscillate like urban naves.
Valiant, they browse the hills, the slopes, cross in a shrill metallic cry the old switches of sparkling steel worn by the passages.
Very mobile, exhausted, indestructible, they repel from the muffle the cars that approach too close. A kind of popular chivalry, tonic, in constant motion, the pantograph as a spear.
Sarcastic, in the Place of Trade or that of Figueira, they meet their young and cozy modern competitors, long and articulated who squirm like bourgeoise in skirt too tight, to whom they leave the easy sofa rides along the flat banks.
One of their old brothers, ahanant, slowly climbs a hard and almost straight slope, the air of an old man with an offended lippe, decorated with tags that give him a "funny"(cular) look.
Since the end of 19th century, the steepness of the slopes has needed to facilitate the life of Lisboners with 3 funiculars : Bica, Lavra and Gloria, implemented before 1892.
A neo-Gothic metal "elevator" is even built in 1902, the Santa Justa elevator. Extended by a footbridge, it can be seen from other viewpoints and in particular from the nearby Rossio Square, also called Dom Pedro IV Square.
It has been designed by a Franco-Portuguese architect, Raoul Mesnier du Ponsard, born in Porto of French parents, who may have found inspiration in the Art Nouveau of the moment, or in Eiffel, without it being proven that he was one of his students. He also contributed to the construction of funicular railways.
Let's leave the tourist tuk tuks to their fake fates.
Far from the much more authentic tuk tuk clouds of Sri Lanka for example.
For the sweetness of life, for the smiling and amused empathy of the inhabitants of the neighborhoods, ...
... for this slight background of "saudade", this feeling that hesitates between sadness, nostalgia and sweet melancholy with takes the poignant accents of fado, ...
with perhaps in the buried memory the regret of the Lusitanian glory, when Portugal after the Reconquista set out to discover and conquer the world and was going to share it for a little time with its neighbor and Castilian enemy...,
,..., perhaps also with the heavy spirit of a more recent period of bound freedom where the only recourse was friendship, and the only hope that of the spark of youth ;
with finally also this discretion of the silent sailors of the west coast of Europe,...
.... for this brighty colored seduction without arrogance, this flavor of the moment under the peaceful sun ; where the older generations speak a French learned there during difficult immigrations and then returned to the country to live the rest of their age, for those new generations who speak English and successfully cultivate the language of international trade, who innovate like their European neighbors and go back to conquer the world....
... for all this and more, we love Lisbon, intense, capsizing, but more serene, less hectic and exhausting than Barcelona.
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