Well it's been a great Honeymoon. We're on the final day or so of it, and we're taking some much deserved down time so I thought I'd get started with the posting and the pictures and the blathering. We landed in Lisbon, Portugal what now seems like a really long time ago. One branch of my family comes from there and I'd always been curious to see it. Above is a shot of what I like to imagine was the last sight of Portugal which my Great-Great etc. grandfather/uncle (however that all works) saw as he left for the New World. And below was Julie's and my first view of Lisbon, Rossio Square. We arrived here at about 6 in the morning, looking for our hotel.
As far as first views go, it was pretty weird. But cool weird, not icky weird. The water in the fountain is actually quite pink, which only added to the weirdness.
But so apparently some people who were protesting NATO had dyed the water, well not blood red but I assume that had been the intent, overnight just in time for our arrival. We thought it was supposed to be that way and were kind of wondering why people were giving us funny looks as we took a bunch of photos. We only realized later, when the cranes arrived to aid in the removal of stickers from off of the statues and people with trucks and hoses came to clean out the fountain, that something was up. Hey, we were slow on the uptake because overseas flights really take a lot out of you. That's a NATO sticker over her mouth there. I guess we thought it was supposed to be that way, or whatever.
As it turned out, after much doorbell ringing at buildings that were not in fact hotels but dwellings of sleepy and angry Portugese residents, our hotel had great view of this square, and the big obligatory European castle on the hill. So, cool.
Lisbon is a really neat city and we had a great, if bleary-eyed and jet-lagged time. There is a lot of tile work there. Most of the older buildings were covered in decorative tile, or tiles with scenes.
It was really pretty. There were a lot of stairs and hills involved, and many scenes like this as well.
Especially in the Alfama district, which is a famous area due to it's charming yet exhausting Moroccan-like medina nature. A warren of stairs, hills, junky shops, cool bars, and welcome bakeries with great espresso and port wine.
There was this elevator tower back near the Rossio disctrict that is some sort of national landmark. I mean it's pretty and everything, and we totally went up in it, but I'm not really sure what the point of it is except to charge unsuspecting tourists 5 Euros to get in when there is a perfectly short and easy set of stairs right around the corner that takes you to the exact same spot. That might seem confusing based on the below photo, but there is a bridge that leads from the rear topside of the elevator right over to the hill, which you also can't see from the front here.
Anyway, at least we got a nice sunrise overview of the city.
The obligatory European castle on the hill wasn't much to look at, being obligatory, but also, being obligatory, we hiked on up there. Got a few shots from the heights. This here is a view of the harbor, and a canon, and that's a submarine out there just passing by. Ah, small countries.
And there appears to be a smaller version of Brazil's famous Christ Redeemer statue here, right across the harbor from the obligatory European castle. I didn't bother to try and find anything out about it, let alone try to get to it, but that's why telephoto lenses are great. If you really care, I do know it's called the Cristo-Rei, is probably based on the more famous Brazilian one, (Paris did the same thing; they have a mini Statue of Liberty that I have pictures of somewhere, probably over on my ancient smugmug site) and that there's a wikipedia entry on it. And here's a picture of it.
This here is just one of those photos that, when you see it, you have to try and capture but it never turns out as cool as you'd hoped it would. There were a bunch of kitties hanging around the castle top.
I saw something at the train station that you would never see in the US (as opposed to all of those other things in Europe that you'll never see in the US, like obligatory castles and socialism, apparently) and it makes me sad. But seriously, how awesome is a book vending machine?
On our last night in Lisbon, I decided that we had to hit one of those crazy Fado clubs all the Portugese kids are raving about. Fado is a traditional style of music that involves soulful lamenting, decrepit old guitar players, bluesy-lookin' bass players, and sexy or suave young singers.
Fado apparently literally means 'fate', and they have a bunch of places in the Alfama district where they pile you in for an evening of meals with courses split up by sessions of Fado during which the waiters will shush the hell out of you if you talk or make noise or, seemingly, attempt to eat too loudly. Each session of Fado brings in a different singer, but the band stays the same. It was fairly romantic and scored me some points, which I needed to shore up on for the coming days of relentless night train travel.
So that was Lisbon. I've left out a few details, including a few about Port Wine (Which was invented in Portugal, in the city of Porto) and funny language gaffes, but I don't have photos for those and this is, after all, now pretty much only a photojournal and not a venue for my ranting and longwinded story telling. Ah, evolution.
Currently, Julie and I are still in Germany recovering from a bout of Krampus and sinus infection, but in the most luxurious way possible. More about those obviously interesting topics later. But since I took a crap ton of pictures at Krampus this year, I thought it might be nice to end the posts leading up to it with teaser photos which aren't among the ones I will likely be posting as part of my final analysis. So until next time, here are some of my favorite Krampus mask woodcarver's offerings for this year.
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