20 March 2019
First full day in Lisbon.
Slept in, then stayed in catching up on getting stuff done, including an apartment for the next several days. We originally figured we'd only be in Lisbon a couple of days while we scoped out the next town up the coast. But Lisbon is even more fun than Madrid. I'm not certain that's a fact, but it's every bit as much. This apartment is rented after us so I had to find another place . . . wound up even cheaper than this one, with the same amenities. It's seven minutes away on foot. <sigh>
Our apartment is on the Rua do Arsenal, one block away from the Avenida Ribeira Das Naus which runs along the waterfront of the Tagus. These two streets front-and-back one of the major government buildings in town. There are two sailors posted at the door across from our apartment and two airmen at the next door a hundred yards east of us.
The buses and trolleys and auto and foot traffic pass forty feet below us. It's actually white noise like the surf on the shore.
The apartment has three double-wide double-glazed windows facing south, each hinged to open over four feet wide. These are then covered on the inside with a pair of double-hinged shutters. It's really fascinating to this architecture major. The masonry walls are so thick that the windows are set flush with the outside walls, leaving about seven inches of marble sill inside, four inches of smoothed stone wall remaining between the inner faces of the windows and the shutters.
The windows are set into the curtain wall between the stone/concrete columns that frame the building. The columns I measured in the apartment are 33 inches deep by 58 inches wide.
There is a fourth window like those in the living room in the kitchen, and a fifth in the bathroom. Those two open into the lightwell formed by the outer wall of this building and the hewn-and-plastered wall behind all of this. The first time I opened the kitchen window, a bird hovering outside and I startled each other. She left straight up, and simply stood in wonderment.
Topographically a walking tour of Madrid is like walking in Dallas or Amarillo; you can shoot pool on a lot of the streets. Can't do that is Lisbon . . . you need a clinometer to get a rough approximation if you're thighs and glutes can handle it. I think when I get back to the States, I'll be able to drive railroad spikes for the Texas and Pacific by doing seat-drops.
And the larger, newer streets are paved with asphalt. The older, narrower streets in the older center of town are cobbled with granite, often in mosaic patterns. And they have been polished by centuries of feet and shoe leather. "Rocky" wouldn't have had to run the bleachers if he'd grown up here.
We strolled out this morning hunting the wild breakfasts that live in the granite here. We're almost "pastried-out" from Madrid . . . almost. At any rate we found a literal hole-in-the-wall in an alley (I forgot the Portuguese for it), a place where you stand at the bar to order (the guy behind speaks English as well as I do) to order, then you pay, and they direct you around the corner to the tables on the sidewalk next to the Avenida Ribeira Das Naus. The tabletops are aluminum, and you can blind yourself if you sit facing into the sun.
I didn't write down what we ordered, but it was like a large crepe laid on a grill with a layer of cheese cooked till it melted over and fried around the edges, then all the meat and veggies were piled on top of it. The whole assembly is then folded in half, then in a quarter, tucked in glazed paper, dressed with a napkin, set in a four-inch-high bucket so it won't fall over, and brought to the table. Different. Delicious. Filling. Cheap.
Bought a paper map at a souvenir store. Very useful things, maps. I don't know how many people can read them any more.
After that we took off to find the Apple store for one last glitch. (Think "thighs and glutes" here.) The streets have smooth surfaces; these sidewalks have steps, y'all. Steps. OK. When we were ready for a break, halfway up that street was the National Museum of Art (with level floors) that was remodeled from a huge bakery, which was remodeled from a convent. I forgot to get a shot of the row of the wood-fired ovens that are still there and of the holes in the wall which held the beams supporting the original floor. I -did- get the Roman-brick quadripartite groin vaulting, though. Didn't catch the barrel vaults.
On the way back to the street to get us to the street we wanted, I backtracked for a shot of the dropped wisteria blossoms in the cracks between the paving stones.
We made it to the Apple Store. It's a wifi network coverage problem. I got charged at the Madrid airport for something I didn't get. Bummer. But, moving along . . .
There is a huge freestanding iron elevator tower that lifts people up above the skyline to see the mouth of the Tagus. It had a line like Disneyland, so we gave it a bye. Then Kathryn went into nosing out quilt/fabric stores like a hog after truffles. We found the three she had tagged in her phone. We emptied her battery, then switched to mine. I got back to the apartment with 18% left.
The buses are powered by natural gas or are electric. There are electric sight-seeing taxis; there are two-seat and four-seat tuc-tucs. I just have to take a photo. You won't believe these if you haven't already seen them.
Then we moseyed home. And basically fell down.
This apartment is huge.
Later.
Because Life is Good.
24 Apr 19 photos to follow
Comments
Post a Comment