Travels in Portugal - The best of Lisbon - Part I

To see Lisbon, you need to spend several days here. The most impressive building in all of Portugal to my mind is St Jeronimos's Monastery located in Belem (an area of Lisbon). Other places to visit are Belem Tower, Estrela basilica, St. Jorge's Castle, the Ajuda Palace, National Coach Museum, National Tile Museum, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, the church and monastery of Sao Vicente de Fora, and the church of Sao Roque.

Outside of Lisbon (in suburbs) visit Queluz Palace, Sintra Palace, Pena Palace, and Mafra Palace. Each is very different and interesting in its own right.

Quick Tips:

Queluz, Sintra, and Mafra palaces are free on Sunday 10am–1pm. Except for palaces and St. Jorge's Castle (Castelo de Sao Jorge), most other places are closed on Mondays -- check before you go. The best place to check is the magazine Lisboa Step By Step" and the website of the Portuguese Tourist Office. Request brochures from the tourist office to plan your lodging and sightseeing. This is the most complete resource I've found on each province of Portugal. The brochures list hotel e-mails and websites.

Best Way To Get Around:

If you are good at driving stick shift, driving in Lisbon shouldn’t be much of a challenge, except that in a lot of places, you may need to go for several blocks to turn in the direction you need since a lot of streets are in one direction. I, however, wouldn’t recommend driving in the city center where the streets are narrow and uphill, and you are competing with a tram and a bus on the same narrow street. Parking is a serious problem, the city has grown so much and there are so many cars, but parking places are very scarse.

Metro costs 65 cents per ticket or 10-ticket card for 6 euros. If you will be using buses, trams and metro, you can buy a daily pass for 2.85 euros or five-day pass for 11.35 euros. Metro is easy to navigate, just follow the arrows and check the metro map and you won't get lost.

Leaving the theater early gave us an opportunity to explore Baixa-Chiado. There we ran into a café-pastelaria Benard’ on Rua Garrett, which has delicious pastries that you can eat inside or take them with you to go. The pastelaria bears name of its owners (three brothers) who, in the 1890s, moved it to this location.

Here you can taste chocolate croissants, éclairs with white and chocolate fillings, chocolate pastries in the shape of pine-cone, pastries with yellow filling covered in sugar, pastries entirely covered in chocolate, and many more. This is a paradise for somebody with a sweet tooth; the pastries melt in your mouth and you can’t have enough. Pastries are 90 cents each. You can also buy a whole cake here. In smaller cities, similar pastries may cost 70 cents each, but this is Lisbon and prices are higher here.

The café has two large rooms – one with the long counter with layers of pastries, menus and some tables, and the second with just tables and chairs.

The café is across the street from the metro station "Baixa" and is a place where you might see famous actors, politicians, writers and fashion designers. The café even was in one of Portuguese movies. This street was recently restored after a large fire in 1988 and literally next-door is the famous café Brasileira with an Art Nouveau facade. The street is named after Almeida Garrett, a Portuguese writer and poet, who is buried in Santa Engracia, the National Pantheon in Lisbon.

Phone: 21 325 30 45

The theater is located in the Baixa-Chiado area of Lisbon, the area that was severely damaged by the earthquake of 1755 and entirely rebuilt by Marques de Pombal. The theater is easy to find; it is right next to the metro station "Baixa-Chiado." The building is said to be modeled after La Scala. The façade is rococo and made of white stone, with yellow walls and columns forming portico of the entrance. The lobby is very large with red carpets and crystal chandeliers. There are two large screen TVs so the ushers can watch every performance.

Inside, the theater is very impressive with light green balconies with medallions of composers in the middle of each loggia, beige velvet walls and seats (which seem to be antique on the balconies), with the royal balcony in the middle supported by gilded titans and angels. The theater has a very interesting ceiling with a large chandelier with green flower-like plafonds hanging from the gilded branches. The large rosette that holds the chandelier continues as green and red rays with floral motifs cover the ceiling ending in golden vignettes. The curtain is of pinkish beige velvet. Five rows of balconies make the stage very tall and almost square.

To get to the balconies, you need to go up the staircase decorated in the same manner as the remainder of the theater with floral designs on the walls and the ironwork of the staircase. The bathrooms are very small and seem to have changed little since they were built.

The performance that we came to see was of "Neither" by Morton Feldman. I reserved the cheap seats through the hotel concierge and they were 5 euros each, which was more than enough for this particular performance. This was what is called an experimental project, which means that some of the audience (including me) started to leave after the first 15 minutes. Even though the performance was a waste of time, I was glad that I got to see the beautiful theater interior.

Phone: 21 396 09 15
Open: 8am-1pm, 2-8pm daily

Yellow, grey, and red marbles interchange in this neo-classical church with some baroque features. It very much reminds of Mafra Basilica, except much livelier with paintings by Pompeu Batoni and Pedro Alexandrino instead of statues in chapels and more interesting design of ceiling vignettes. The dome is aiming high up and you can see it from everywhere in the city. From the outside, the church is white. Three doors separated by columns form the first level of the façade. Above the columns are six statues with rays of sun and angels in the middle. The second level ends in neo-classical portico with a cross and baroque floral design on the sides. A balcony connects it on each side with two bell towers that don’t have bells anymore; however, they do have beautiful ornate decorations at the very top ending with a globe (a symbol of Portuguese world discoveries by Vasco da Gama and Magellan), sword, and cross. There is a pre-entrance corridor with statues of saints and beautiful dark wood baroque doors with coat of arms and crown above it lead inside.

The altar with a large painting and canopy above it with white marble rays and two angels is what grabs your attention. Floors are covered with floral rosettes laid out from Sintra marble. The Baroque organ on the right of the altar makes you look a little further to the chapel with an empire style tomb of Queen Maria I who ordered the construction of the church. In the back of the building, there is a hospital that seems to have always been in that place.

A short distance along the street there is an imposing building of the Senate with two soldiers on guard in front.

Phone: 21 886 91 45

St Anthony is a patron saint of Portugal and this church is very important to the natives of Lisbon.

According to the legend, this church was built on the site of the house where St Anthony was born. A simple chapel existed here since the 15th century. King Joao II commissioned a large temple, which was completed during the rule of Manuel I, partially destroyed by the earthquake and rebuilt in 1767-87. There is a statue of St Anthony just outside of the church, which is now under restoration.

The church has a rather simple façade and a very impressive neo-classical altar with some late baroque features like a large gilded staircase with an urn behind the statue of St Anthony with infant Jesus. Beautiful marble décor of ceiling with pink and yellow marble and white plaster vignettes. On both sides of the altar there are chapels with paintings of several saints including St Francis and St Joseph. Above the entrance on the balcony there is an organ that looks like a collection of trumpets. On the left side of the church near the altar there is an entrance to the crypt of St Anthony. Before the entrance to the crypt there is a sacristy with beautiful yellow and blue azulejos. Along the staircase leading into the crypt there is a tile commemorating the visit of the Pope to the chapel in 1982.

Phone: 21 886 67 52
Open: Tues-Sat 9am-7pm; Sun-Mon and holidays 9am-5pm
Cloister and treasury open 10am-5pm

Cathedrals in Portugal are called Se. Lisbon Se is a very Romanesque cathedral with yellow stone façade with the entrance arch and two bell towers that make the cathedral look like a fortress. Inside you see tall circular shape naives and triple columns supporting another row of short arches and circular ceiling. There are beautiful rose windows on Western, Northern and Southern facades. The cathedral has suffered from the earthquake as a lot of Lisbon buildings did and when it was restored, as was typical to Portuguese churches of the time, it gained a lot of baroque features inside. Se has baroque gilded altar with beautiful organs on the sides and neo-classical marble walls hide several royal tombs.

Half of the cathedral and cloisters are part of treasury and are open from 10am at the price for the visit of 5 euros/person. That seemed to be surprising not only to me but also to a guide who brought a group of French tourists.