Lisbon, Portugal Sept 10th-14th, 2012

view of castle in lisbon, completely restored

church of sao domenico which survived the earthquake of 1775(?) and the fire in the 1800's, church was reconstructed out of the ruins

same church, as above, longer view, in the newer baroque church

poster for the cherry liquor ginjinha, which you can try in a small dixie cup for 1 Euro.  We did but we weren't converted.

Rua St. Augusta,  classical roman arch constructed after the earthquake, as this whole part of town was

rossio train station (manueline style), was a wonderful train station with some great ceramic inside

Front door train station

our dessert one night- different sorbets

The yummy pasteis di belem right from the source in belem. been making them  there since the late 1700's

enjoying the pasteis

the huge plaza on the river in lisbon, built after the earthquake, with roman arch in distance. and river on side opposite arch.

a gorgeous baroque building in downtown lisbon, a great light green color which doesn't come through here

Romans turn up everywhere, mosaic probably from the keeper's house where they made the roman fish sauce, garum

one of 33 "fish sauce" tanks where the garum was brewing for 3 weeks, then put in amphorae and  sent all over the Roman Empire

the gorgeous monastery of belem (bethlehem in portugese)

the very lovely statue of Prince Henry the Navigator (close up detail), built in 1900's on river in Belem

here is the full monument with prince henry at the head on the river Tagus. I really liked this monument

detail in torre (tower) of belem

monastery detail

monastery

unbelievably stunning cloister in monastery in belem

a grasshopper gargoyle

manueline style of door in monastery

Vasco da Gama's  burial place in church at monastery

found this on one of our walks about town, up near castle

Our first full day in Lisbon we took the tram out to Belem (about 8 kms) to see the UNESCO sites of the monastery of belem, and the tower, both built in the  later 1400 early 1500's. We also saw the more modern monument to the Portuguese navigators on the river and had one of the famous pasteis de belem. Great places to visit.
Day before we took a great tour of the roman ruins of the fish sauce production area. The ruins were discovered recently when the current bank which is on top of the ruins wanted to build a garage. They were well worth visiting. You have to go with a guide, she was terrific- a young Portuguese woman who had just recently received a doctorate from UPenn. In both Porto and Lisbon we found that the level of English was excellent and they barely had accents. It was quite impressive, they learn it in school.