Museums & Memorials – Lisbon (Cont.)

We have been in Turin (Torino, Italy) for two full days….  We have seen so much in Turin already that it is hard to go back to Lisbon and show you more of the things seen there.  I am sorry to say I may have to just get back to it in remembrance later.  That means; maybe in a month, or 6 months or as I have done in the Past Vacations series; a couple years from now.  For now though, I will finish with the Torre de Belém  and the Castelo de S. Jorge and hold off on the city streets and this and that of Lisbon that I had planned in my notebook.  (Yes I am trying to keep a notebook so I can remember later my thought and feelings as we go through this month.)

Remember in my post yesterday?  I talked about the Memorial of the Navigator and the Jeronimos Monastery, and got tired of entering photos, cutting myself short on the Maritime Museum.  The Monastery and the Maritime museums are large, multi-floor buildings.  Actually it is the same building, one end allowing you to walk through long halls, with high ceilings and ornate arches, of the monastery and its soring ceilinged church.  When we entered the observation end of the church there was a service in session, and a choir was singing….. it was lovely – I hope that Camillo got it on tape for the DVD he always makes after our trips. 

The other end of the building is attached to a newer structure, all business hallways, housing many model ships and other ‘sea captain’ tools of navigation.  The is also a large warehouse that has barges of the royals and two or three plane, one that made a Portugal – Rio de Janeiro flight, first to cross the South Atlantic.

  

I can see where taking some mid-sized boys, this museum would be great fun.  I was interested but by the time we’d walked all the floors, etc.  I was in no mood for a large warehouse.  

We stopped in the café and had a coffee and I ate a quiche, then we headed up the street, across a walkway to the Torre (Tower).  It must have been about a kilometer – A long kilometer.

The tower used to be out in the sea, but, like in Rio, a large strip of sea was filled in, from the tower to the monastery.  I am guessing here – I don’t have internet to just search the info for you – but this strip of land is about a half to 3/4 of a kilometer wide; there is a road and trolley tracks in front of the monastery, then a garden and parking lot, bus drop-off area, then a highway with a intercity train tracks running up the center, then a marina, garden and parking lots for the tower.  A fascinating engineering story all on its own.

Finally the Torre de Belem:

The structure is actually a small structure.  Once I got inside I took off my shoes and walked barefoot – ah what a relief -  I walked up into the upper tower, Camillo stayed down on the first level.  I am glad I had my shoes off because the steps got smaller and smaller as you go up – and without shoes my feet fit much better on the space allowed.  There is only one set of steps so from time to time going up and down you had to ‘step aside’ to let someone going the opposite  way pass by – that was fun…..

   

   

    

Okay, no Castelo tonight.  I will start telling you about Torino if I post tomorrow.  I am surprised that except for a dish of gelato on the piazza Costello, I don’t yet have good food to talk about.  Maybe we have been too tired for food to taste good.  Will let you know about that later.