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| Monument to the Discoveries, Lisbon (Henry the Navigator at far right) |
Because the port of Cadiz, Spain was canceled, we arrived in
Lisbon the evening before we were scheduled to arrive. We had beautiful weather, providing a lovely
sail in along the Tagus River, under the 25th of April Bridge (which
reminded me of the Golden Gate Bridge), and past a couple beautiful monuments,
one of which is very much like the Christ the Redeemer statue in Corcovado,
overlooking Rio di Janeiro, Brazil.
As soon as we had docked, we got off the ship and wandered
around a little bit in the Old Town section of Lisbon. I commented to Chuck that I found the
buildings interesting because of all the tiles on the facades. Heading back to the ship, we started in the terminal
door we had come out, and a young man was coming out, telling us in a very
foreign accent that we needed to go in a different door. As we walked along with him and his wife, I
told him he looked familiar and asked if they’d done the world cruise in either
2012 or 2013. His English was poor, but
he was able to communicate that they’d been on both voyages. Fully expecting him to answer with a South
American country, I asked him where they were from. His reply really caught us off guard. He said they were from Turkmenistan! So now I can say we’ve met someone from that
country. We promptly told him we had a
friend who had been to Turkmenistan (meaning our friend Merlin who had done a
lot of traveling around the world) only to realize after returning to the ship
that Merlin had been to Uzbekistan!
Guess my geography isn’t very good!
I just remembered the “stan” part of the name! No harm done…
We had been scheduled to arrive late enough that our
excursion was scheduled for afternoon, but with our sail in the previous night,
the excursions were moved up to morning hours.
That was fine with us. We had
opted for a sail along the Tagus River, but early in the cruise we got an email
from Seattle explaining that that excursion had been canceled. So we had to figure something else out that I
could do. With the help of our wonderful
Shore Excursions person, Debby, I chose one I could do called Lisbon and Estoril. And for once we sat on the correct side of
the bus!
Portugal was controlled throughout its history by many
different people, including the Romans and the Ottomans. It officially became a country in the 12th
Century. Because of its location on the
Tagus River, Lisbon was very well protected. Lisbon is the capital and largest
city in Portugal with a surprisingly low population of about 650,000. Greater Lisbon though has about 2.5 million
people.
Our guide kept referring to a major earthquake which
occurred in the 18th Century.
We couldn’t resist a chuckle when he commented that most of the
buildings in Lisbon are new, having been built after the earthquake in the 18th
Century. By American standards, they
would be considered quite old, but of course this is not the case in Europe! He explained that starting back in the 16th
Century, buildings erected close to the waterfront had facades made of glass
tiles. These glass tiles help to protect
the building from excess moisture, and they are easy to keep clean. (That explained the tile buildings we had
seen the previous night.)
Portugal was a dictatorship from 1940 through 1974, when
they won their independence in a revolution that occurred on April 25 of that
year. (Thus the name of the bridge: 25th
of April Bridge.) Because of the
dictatorship, Portugal remained neutral during World War II.
We made a stop at King Edward VII Park, which gave us a
lovely panorama of the city before heading out toward the seaside resort of
Estoril. On our way, we passed under a
high-arched aqueduct, which was built in 1734 and survived the historic
earthquake that occurred later in that century.
One of the arches is recorded in the Guinness
Book of World Records as the highest arch in the world.
I was glad that our guide explained the significance of the
rooster to Portugal because later we would see it in many different forms in
gift shops. According to legend, a man
was accused of thievery and convicted to death.
The man told the king that to prove his innocence, the rooster that was
already cooked on his plate would crow three times. When the rooster crowed, the king realized
the man was innocent and managed to reverse the sentence. Since that time, the rooster isa symbol of
good luck for the Portuguese.
As we arrived in Estoril, the guide told us that one of the
most prominent landmarks was the Estoril Casino. He said that the combination of casino,
money, and beautiful ladies should make one think of a well-known author. Ian Fleming had based his story Casino Royale on the Estoril
Casino. Apparently some of the movie was
also filmed there. He said another
author had received inspiration for a totally different story from Estoril. Many people will not know the author or the
story, but it was my absolute favorite book in French so I knew it immediately:
Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)
written by Antoine de St. Exupéry.
We enjoyed some free time to wander around the parks and
beach/resort area of Estoril. The town
reminded us of Punta del Este in Uruguay – very high-end estates owned by
millionaires. We thoroughly enjoyed
seeing such a lovely community.
As we headed back to Lisbon, we passed several
fortifications that were used along the Atlantic Coast and the river banks to
protect Lisbon. No wonder invaders
weren’t able to conquer Lisbon!
Our final stop was at the Monument to the Discoveries. I was really pleased to be able to stop and
visit this unique monument, having taught the exploration period of American
History for so many years. Prince Henry
was fascinated by the sea and studied navigation to the extent that he earned
the nickname “Henry the Navigator”. It
was because of his studies that explorers were able to sail farther and farther
away. The monument looks like the bow of
a ship. Standing at the bow is Henry,
and behind him, lining each side of the ship are 26 others who were significant
to exploration. At the back is the only
woman recognized in the monument – the English mother of Prince Henry. The monument was originally in wood, but the
people liked it so much that it was redone in stone. On the ground near the monument is a map of
the world showing the various routes of the Portuguese explorers. My only complaint was that we just weren’t
given enough time there. I was
fascinated by the entire area and wanted more time to explore – or perhaps go
across the street to see where Vasco da Gama (who was the first Portuguese
explorer to sail around Africa to India) was buried.
During the Age of Exploration, countries were often in
conflict regarding what lands they had a right to conquer. Spain and Portugal negotiated a treaty: Spain could explore, claim, and settle in
lands west of a particular line of longitude while the Portuguese could do the
same east of that line. The line runs
through Brazil, so that is why the Portuguese were able to claim that area, as
well as areas down along the coast of Africa (Cape Verde, which we visited
early in the cruise and South Africa,) and up the east coast of Africa
(Mozambique) toward India, where they retained claim to the area of Goa until
quite recently. At the same time, the
Spanish claimed and settled in vast areas of the New World.
The shore excursion ended soon enough to give Chuck the
opportunity to further explore the city during the afternoon. We sailed away
with a new appreciation for this lovely capital city and its environs.
BT
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