Praça Luis de Camões and environs/Praça Luis de Camões e arredores

This Plaza is between our apartment and the Baixa/Chiado metro stop. We walk through it a lot. So who was Luis de Camoes? He is a Portuguese literary hero, perhaps the most famous of all such figures in a country that reveres its writers.
He was alive in the 16th century, when Portugal was still very much a global player on the high seas. He is most famous for writing The Lusiads (Os Lusíados), an epic tale of a seafarer's adventures around the world. Camoes himself did make several sea voyages, he travelled through Egypt, India, and Indochina. The best legend I've heard about Camoes (and I have no idea if it's apocryphal) was that, fighting to stay alive during a shipwreck, he had to make a choice between saving his lover and saving his manuscripts. He made the choice to save the manuscripts, holding them above the water to keep them dry until he made it ashore, while his lover perished in the sea.

Anyway, this is the Plaza:

Here is the statue of Camões:

Detail:

Running east from the Praça is Rua Garrett. This street is famous for housing several cafes that at one time were the favored haunts of the Portuguese literati (and now are haunted only by tourists). Foremost among them is "A Brasileira" which often hosted another beloved Portuguese writer, Fernando Pessoa. It's been kept up well and so it has a certain luxuriousness that most Lisboeta cafes don't. However, it's always crowded, overflowing into the street. I haven't tried eating there, but my understanding is that the food itself isn't worth the wait. Anyway, here it is, followed by a close up of its sign.

(There weren't any crowds there when I took these photos because it was Christmas Day. This is very abnormal.)

Rua Garrett is now partially pedestrianized. In the middle of the street sits a statue of Pessoa, with a open bench beside him. Every time we pass by, people are getting their picture taken with Pessoa (and this is one activity popular with both locals and toursits). Here's Liz leaning in.

Finally, this is a knick-knack shop near the Plaza. It's got the front end of an old taxi sticking out above it. I thought it looked cool. Unfortunately, the shop itself sells nothing special, just the same old tourist thingamajigs...

The Elevador de Santa Justa

The Elevador de Santa Justa is a strange and wonderful thing. It is, as you probably guessed, an elevator. But it is technically part of the city's mass transit system, operated by Carris. As I've written, Lisbon is a city built haphazardly on top of hills, which can present a transportation and circulation problem. The Elevador was opened in 1902 as a potential solution to this problem. It is designed to move people up from the Baixa to the Bairro Alto. It is simply a large, external elevator - but the group that planned the elevator had grandiose ideas, and the man who eventually designed and built it was a protege of Gustave Eiffel (you may heard of his famous Tower). Consequently, it stands out as more than a simple curiosity of urban planning. It is rather beautiul, kind of darkly gothic in its wrought-iron design. These days, of course, no one actually rides it just to get up and down. It is purely a tourist draw. But so what? It's still pretty cool. Liz & I visited on Christmas Day when visitors would be at a minimum, and these are some pictures. (I cheated - one of the pictures is from a different day... can you tell which one?)

Here is the whole thing from its base, on Rua Santa Justa, naturally.

Here is the detail of the upper platform.

The shaft. You can see the elevator cars going up inside. Glass! (You won't get me in there, that's for sure)

Here's a side view of the top platform. You can see it actually has three levels. The top level is simply a viewing platform. In the middle (the glassed off area) is a cafe. And below that is where the elevators stop to let people out. The only way up and down between those levels is an old, rickety, spiral staircase. I don't think this thing would pass code these days...
You can also see the bridge that connects the platform to the top of the ridge (the Bairro Alto)

Here are some pictures from the top. First of all, this is from the beinning of the bridge/walkway out to the top of the Elevador. There is a fee to actually use the elevator itself, but to just walk out to the platform and enjoy the view is free. Anyway, the walkway runs along right next to an old convent, the Convento do Carmo. It was destroyed in the earthquake of 1755, and for some reason, the ruins have been preserved, I guess as a memorial of sorts to the destruction of the earthquake. Anyway, that's it to the left. The walls and arches still stand, but everything else collapsed.

This is the view looking back towards the convent from the elevator platform.

Remember those spiral staircases I was talking about? You can see it here. (Hey, it's me!)

Yeah, no way I'm going up there!

Now, what about the view from the top viewing platform? Well, unfortunately, I have a mild phobia of heights, and while I was ok for a little bit on the lowest platform (in which you are caged in), I wasn't about to go up to the open-air top platform. So I sent my wife up there instead. (j/k - she wanted to go up there). The view is actually pretty similar to the view from the Miradouro Sao Pedro which I posted recently. It's not that far from there. So, here's three pictures to give you the overview, starting from northeast, to east, to southeast.

Should we be amused or scared?/Devemos estar satisfeitos ou com medo?

So there was a whole street with strange doors like this. Was it a midget micro-community? Or just an area where the neighbors got a kick out of creeping out interlopers. The buildings and everything were regular sized, just the doors were short...

Great views of Lisbon/Vistas excelentes sobre Lisboa: Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara

Here we go, more pretty pictures. The Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara has one of the finest views in Lisbon. It also helps that it's totally free. On a beautiful sunny day such as it was when we were there (on Xmas day, no less), you could probably linger for hours, taking pictures and sipping coffee. Anyway, here are some photos.

The viewpoint sits on the eastern slope of Bairro Alto, so all views are facing east. Handy Lisbon geographical reference: the city sits on the north bank of the Rio Tejo (Tagus in English & Spanish). So if you're seeing the river, you immediately know which direction you're facing.

This shows the viewpoint area itself. It's kind of a cross between a plaza and a park. It extends back a ways toward the street, and there's a cafe where you can get little snacks and coffee and sit under umbrellas.

There's also a lower area, which you can see here, along with Liz leaning in.

This is the view southeast. The water is the aforementioned Rio Tejo. The hill rising opposite is the Alfama district, one of the oldest in the city. The large church at the foot of that hill is the Sé cathedral, which everyone simply refers to as the "Sé". It's considered the most important in the city. The flat, low-lying area between the two hills is the Baixa, which is more or less Lisbon's traditional downtown. In reality, these days it's mostly a sponge for tourists, as it is central, right on the river bank, contains several pedestrian-only streets, and is the city's public transportation nexus. Most of the actual business that you would associate with a city's "downtown" is centered in areas north of the Baixa.

Here's a close up of the Sé. Look, a palm tree!

OK, so if you were to turn your head and follow the view northward from the previous pictures, you'd see the Alfama rise up and, at its crest, the stunning Castelo de São Jorge. Here is a wide shot to get a sense of scale and place. This castle has a muddled history. It is indeed a very old site of a castle. The Moors had built a rudimentary fortification here in the 12th or 13th century, and a few of those original walls are still there. Then various Portuguese royals did diffrent things with it. Of course, it also suffered damage during the destructive earthquake of 1755 along with the rest of the city.

By the time the 20th century rolled around, it was mostly a forgotten pile of crumbling rocks. People had built houses there and it was mostly invisible. Along comes Salazar, Portugal's dictator who ruled for almost half a century, from the '20's to the early '70's (to get an idea of what type of dictator he was, know that he was a major inspiration for Francisco Franco - although he was less militaristic and less sympathetic to fascism). Salazar, seeking a rebirth of the greatness of Portuguese nationhood, basically created most of what you see here from his imagination. All the residents that lived there were evicted, and a new, fanciful castle was built. Now, I don't want to sound like a Grinch. The castle is absolutely amazing and beautiful, and a legitimate iconic structure. But you will read about this ancient Moorish castle in Lisbon, and you must understand that the majority of the structure that sits there isn't even 100 years old. Anyway, it looks cool.

Here's a closer view of the castle. See all those trees? It's basically a big, lovely park now. They charge admission, of course, but it's worth it.

Here's an even closer close-up. Yes, you can hike up to the very tippy-top of the ramparts. Yes, the view is astounding.

As you keep turning your head north, to the left, the view becomes less awesome. Still a nice view, but the areas in the view are just less interesting. This area, which is almost directly across from the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara, actually has a rather nice viewpoint of its own, at the base of that large white wall. Not as cool of a view, but a very nice spot because it isn't nearly as crowded, and since it faces west, it has sunsets. Those nice pink buildings you see right above that white wall all belong to the local parish (freguesia). Pretty nice real estate, eh? (I'll be featuring photos from that area later on).

This is the most northwardly view from the Miradouro. You can see the buildings get a lot more modern (and "blah").

This is the fountain at the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara. I attempted to capture the sunlight filtering through the fountain's mist in order to be arty, but I don't know if it worked.

Here's me successfully being arty. Wrought iron silhouette ftw!

Employment and its effects/Emprego e os seus efeitos

No pictures in this post, just observations.

Portugal has issues with employment. Overall, unemployment is quite high, esecially among younger workers (I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but just trust me - it's a big deal here). However, of the jobs that do exist, a disproportionate number are in the public sector. I'm not a right-wing nutter, I don't have hostility towards the idea of government jobs, But in Portugal, they probably take it too far.

First, a note on unemployment. It's obvious by the amount of men sitting idle throughout the day, nursing drinks at the cafe, milling around the newstands with nowhere in particular to go. The more entrepeneurial among them find ways to earn a little money. In a city where driving is a hassle and parking is a hellacious nightmare, you'll see guys become what I call "parking scouts." They'll give drivers a heads up about a vacant space somewhere, hold it for them, and often help guide them in if it's a tight parallel parking job. All this in return for a "tip" of whatever the driver feels like contributing.

You also see stores, like the appliance store where we bought our refrigerator and washer, offer delivery of their goods. In reality, what they do is after you've bought the item and returned home, the proprietor goes around the neighborhood finding guys with nothing else to do who might like to earn a few Euros by hauling a refrigerator up five flights of stairs and installing it.

People are making due however they can. Outright homelessness isn't a huge problem, although it is visible. But that's partly because the government offers so much support to the people. However, that benificent attitude is also, partly, why the government accrued such a deficit, which is why it needed to borrow so much, which is why it needed to be bailed out to stay solvent when the European economic crisis hit.

Of course, another big source of government spending is paying all of its employees. The over-reliance on the public sector for jobs is pretty obvious, and I'll give you some examples.

In America, at least, trash pickup is a weekly occurence (and is often privatised also, but that's not the point). Here, trash is picked up daily. Every night in the wee hours (except Sunday nights) a truck, and two or three workers, comes by to collect the trash. That's great for sanitation, but not for keeping costs down. Think about how many more man-hours that requires the sanitation department to cover - all on the public dime.

Another example is the postal service. Americans are used to a regular mailperson covering their route, plus someone else to cover for that person, and that's it pretty much. Here, we've had multiple mail carriers come to our address to deliver mail, on the same day. There doesn't appear to be one carrier, one route, but rather multiple carriers covering the ame territory.

Also, when you go into the actual post office itself, they have workers assigned to specific tasks. So, for basic functions like buying stamps and sending a letter, they might have four people waiting to service that need. But then there are other employees sitting behind the desk, waiting to service other random functions, often with nothing to do until that one person who needs to complete that one random task walks in. They could trim the payrolls by making the workers perform multiple functions.

Now, again, I don't mean for this to sound like a conservative rant. This is merely an observation of what appears to be an intractable problem. In a country with high unemployment, the idea of trimming the public payroll to cut costs isn't exactly a popular idea. Besides, without also trimming social spending, those employees that would be out of work would still be costing the government money anyway. The least painful way out of the situation would be to try and encourage growth in the private sector in industries that would hire people. And that is a whole different ball of wax.

Scenes from around Praça do Principe Real/Cenas de todo o Praça do Príncipe Real

Some more pictures from Christmas Day follow, this time they were taken around the Praça do Principe Real.

Here is a cool looking doorway in what I think is an art-deco style. Doors in Lisbon come in a lot of varieties and shapes. Sometimes they're huge, sometimes they're tiny, but you can't accuse Lisboetas of having cookie-cutter doors. I know that's an odd thing to focus on, but I did work in millwork for two years! Anyway, this door was on Rua do Jasmim.

Jutting off from Rua do Jasmim is this "street", which, as you can see, ends abruptly at the top of a ledge, with a tree growing up from beneath. Lisbon is full of "streets" like this. Part of why driving in Lisbon for the uninitiated is so maddening is that "roads" will be clearly labelled on maps, but in reality they are stairways, narrow alley ways, or some other such obstacle, like this example: it just kind of ends.

OK, so this is the view (looking West) from the Praça. That dome and two steeples you seen in the distance belong to the Basilica da Estrela, which is across the steet from the Jardim da Estrela, which featured in a previous post.

Here's a close-up. Those trees belong to the Jardim.

The Praça do Principe Real features this art installation made of tires. There is no plaque or anything which identifies or explains it, so your interpretation is as good as mine.

Finally, this cool old building is across the Rua da Escola Politecnica from the Praça. Very neat. There was a sign on the building which claimed that it belonged to the University of Lisbon, but it looked rather abandoned, so who knows. In Lisbon, one can never tell if a building is abandoned or not just by looking at it.

Jardim de Estrela/Star Garden

The Jardim de Estrela is a very nice park in Lisbon, which we strolled through on Christmas Day. I've posted some pictures below. For the curious, Jardim de Estrela does translate to "Star Garden," but the name doesn't refer any special feature of the Garden. The simple but boring explantion is that the park is located in a neighborhood called "Estrela". As to the origin of the neighborhood's name, that I don't know.

This picture is for mom & dad. This is an old French Citroen. My dad loves these cars, and this one was in immaculate condition. Had to take this picture to show them.

This is an old gazebo in the middle of the park. It used to be located in one of the major plazas downtown, but was moved to the park when the plaza was "modernized". It dates from around the turn of the 20th century.

Botanical displays are not the park's main function, although it does have some rather nice examples of them. (Lisbon has a dedicated Botanical Garden/Jardim Botânico, which I will post pictures of later - it's pretty cool). Here is Liz standing in front of palm trees and various cacti. Definitely a change from what I'm used to seeing on Crhistmas!

There are several ponds in Jardim de Estrela, and hence water fowl. Here is some variety of Portuguese duck:

And here are some (massive) geese:

We will return to this place again, it is very nice to stroll through. I am waiting to take more pictures once the season changes and more plants are green and in bloom.

An introduction to Lisbon street art/Uma introdução à arte de rua de Lisboa

One thing every visitor will notice about Lisbon is the amount of graffiti everywhere. In most cases, this is of the rather boring tagging variety. On occasion, an artist will take it up a notch and create an image worth recording. I tend to be pretty forgiving of street art if it's creative enough. I've been taking pictures of examples throughout the city, and this will mark the first in a series of posts featuring street art of Lisbon. I will also mention the location, for those who are curious and/or map geeks.

Travessa dos Mastros (our street!)

Rua de Santa Catarina

Travessa de Caldeira

Rua da Quintinha

Rua da Academia das Ciencias

Travessa do Fieis de Deus ("ocupar Sao Bento" is a reference to the "occupy" movement, and Sao Bento refers to the Palacio Sao Bento, the building where parliament sits).

Palácio São Bento - the Portuguese capitol/a capital Português

Here are some pictures of the Palácio São Bento, the capitol building of Portugal. The building is located on Rua São Bento (naturally) and is only a short walk from our apartment.

Here is the front of the building from the base of its steps:

This is a close up of the frieze located above the entrance. The Latin inscripton reads "Omnia Pro Patria". Also, the Portuguese flag was cooperating and can be seen here in full flutter.

These two ceremonial guards were stationed on either side of the main entrance door. You can barely see them standing there in the first photo. They aren't like the British variety, in that they were allowed to move and talk to each other. Other than these two, however, there was absolutely no visible police or military presence around this building. Not a single cop or suspicious looking guy in a leather coat to be seen.

On either side of the large stairway up to the building were large statues of two lions. I noted that this one seemed to have a graffiti tear drop added to it, probably during one of the semi-frequent protests that occurs here.

The next four pictures show four large statues that sat at the building's entrance, between the doors.

This was taken halfway up the stairs, looking back outwards towards the neighborhood. Nothing special here, just a typical Lisbon cityscape.

Now, if you walk past the Palácio on its left, and then turn right on Rua da Imprensa a Estrela, you come to #4. What is special about this building? This is the Prime Minister's residence.

Again, this is where the Prime Minister of Portugal, the chief executive of the country, lives. And we are standing mere inches away from his front door. I think they have a bit of a lighter attitude towards security in Lisbon than we are used to as Americans, no? Here is Liz, ringing the Prime Minister's doorbell (not really).

Proof, in case you don't believe me: