Lisbon, Portugal - The Tile Capital of the (my?) World, July 15 - 18, 2015

 Lisbon, Portugal - The Tile Capital of the (my?) World, July 15 - 18, homes,

So, I have been to Spain before, and more specifically, the Alhambra with the Moorish influence but I have to say, I saw a heck of a lot of tile here in Lisbon, but don't let me get ahead of myself.

To start out in Lisbon, I have been on a boat for 9 days and so my first afternoon and evening, I took it easy. Well, I had about 1,000 pictures to download and wanted to contact those people that I couldn't communicate with while I was on the cruise, so I took care of business. The next day I was ready to go.

I had a nice breakfast at my hotel H10 Duque de Louie, and walked over to the hop-on hop-off bus. We got just a couple of miles down the road, and a couple of get-off stops, and there was an accident right in front of us on a 2 lane road. One lane each direction. I could tell this was going to take a while and since I didn't really have time to waste, I decided to catch a taxi back to the town center and maybe take the on-off bus in the other direction.

Well, when I got to the town center, I walked around a little and saw some tuk-tuks. They are motorcycle steering with 2 wheels on the back to carry passengers. I asked one of the guys who ran a tuk-tuk, what the arrangement was as far as services and we struck up a deal and we were off. And, boy, was I glad that I did. The tuk-tuks, because they are small, can get in and out of everywhere, they can climb hills, they can go on narrow streets, and they can be easily parked.

 My driver was Cristiano. Cristiano is an engineering student and it is summer break so this is his summer job. He said he is really enjoying it and having fun.

First he drove me up to the top of the hill to see the view.

It is spectacular.

There were side streets everywhere that had streamers hanging over the middle of the street.

I asked Cristiano what that was. There was a special festival a little while back and the streamers are still up. He said that the streets are so packed during this festival that you can hardly move and people stay up most of the night partying.

As we moved on, we found an arts and crafts fair near the top of one hill.  Some of the proceeds were going to The Boy Scouts so I bought a couple of trinkets.

Then I noticed, in souvenir shop windows, that there were some kind of fish, some kind of chicken and swallows. So, there are 3 stories.

The fish represent sardines which I guess are very common here. It is common to have sardines on a sandwich.

The chicken story is about a man of royal blood who was going to be executed and he said, if the cock crows 3 times then I won't be executed. So, they didn't kill him.  The swallows, well, I didn't find out what they represented but a vendor told me that it is common to see several swallows hanging on a wall in homes around here.

Another interesting thing that I really like that they have here is lots of tile. It's everywhere!

It's on the outside of

In the parks, in the plazas. It is all over the place here. I love it!

I also love all the beautiful architecture that is found in cathedrals, government buildings and private homes and museums.

 

See the flag poles for the Expo that was here in 1998?

they still use trolley cars (I love that!)

 

There are several beautiful parks here, the tile museum, which I will cover in a separate blog, wall art, the Expo, tiled glass recycle bins and so much more that I'd like to share but I am out of room.

 

Lisbon was wonderful!