Spring Break: Lisbon Center

On Wednesday we cleaned up and prepared to leave our place.
 I had to get a picture of the Chocolate Easter Bunnies that our Airbnb landlord gave us. She also gave a bunch of chocolate eggs that were eaten on the first day, thus didn't make it into the picture. ;)
We accidentally ordered our plane tickets from Lisbon to Seville for 10:30 pm thinking they were 10:30 am, which we realized a few days before we started the trip.  So we ended up with an extra day in Lisbon (and cutting Granada, which was ok -- we couldn’t get tickets to the Alhambra, so we’ll do that one on another trip). Our AirBNB host graciously agreed to let us leave our bags at the apartment until we needed to go, so we got cleaned up and stowed our stuff and headed down to the Panteao Nacional.

While we had been there several times, we hadn’t actually gone in yet.  The Panteao is an enormous seventeenth-century church (Church of Santa Engracia) that was converted into the National Pantheon where important leaders/cultural figures are buried or memorialized (e.g., Vasco da Gama has a memorial but he’s buried in Belem).  

The central dome rises almost 200 feet above, and there are six flights of stairs that take you to different views of the church before leading you out onto the roof where you have a lovely 360-degree view of Lisbon, the Targus, Alfama, and the Moorish Castle.
Really spectacular. Afterwards, we bought a bookmark and a commemorative coin, and ate our sack lunch in the shadows of the Panteao outside.

We thought we had seen pretty much everything on our list, but decided to head to the Tagus shoreline and the Praca do Comercio.  After walking down the hill and along the river, we arrived at the shore just below the Praca do Comercio, or Commerce Square, the largest square in Europe and where the Portuguese empire in its strength landed spices and slaves and gold and silver and wonders from the four corners of the world, including Angola and Brazil, for four hundred years.

This is also where the second to last of Portuguese kings was assassinated in the 1900s, the site of the old palace, and so much history. This was part of the improvements of the Marquis do Pombal who oversaw the rebuilding of the city after the 1755 earthquake, and both he and the king that okayed his rebuilding project are memorialized in the square and the Arco da Rua Agosto that opens into the square. We wandered the landing and the square before ending up at the Lisboa Story Center.  We bought our tickets and donned our earphones and spent an hour walking through the interactive historical dioramas and presentations that taught us more about Portugal and Lisbon and its immense history.

From the Story Center, we walked through the Arco da Rua Agosta and explored this street with its fun vibe. The kids watched what looked like an Angolan or Mozambiquan street performer entertain with a large glass ball and an oversized yo-yo -- he was so good! I think of all of the street performers we've seen in different parts of the world, he was our favorite!There were several performers out, including the 'bride' and 'floating man' we had seen earlier at Rossio and a guy that looked like he was a statue with pigeons around him and everything and then he would jump out and scare people. Amazing!

 This man played made music with a stringed instrument bow and saw!A fun highlight to our time down on the Praca do Comercio, was having a street artist draw each of the kid's portrait (caricature) taken. He was pretty good, and we all had a good laugh at the results! We still had some time to kill, and stopped in at The Navigators restaurant for a pizza dinner before trudging up the hills of Alfama one more time.We got our stuff ready, dragged it down to the Panteao, and Rui gave us one last ride to the airport. We gave him a hug at the airport (such a nice guy and he was really dependable!) before heading through security, checking our bags, and settling in for another AirTAP flight.  We absolutely loved our time in Portugal, and fell in love with the country. It was gratifying to find that the place so intimately associated with people and places that we have loved was warm and inviting and a place that we also love. I don’t know if there will be time and opportunity to come back to Portugal with the kids, but Bri and I will definitely be back! Lovely country with lovely people.