The weather channel promised a rainy morning and why yes, we did have a 2 minute shower as we moseyed down to the bus stop. That’s it. Then followed yet another weather perfect day.
We boarded the crowded 727 bus to the Belem district to visit two museums we missed when we visited the Tower and the Monastery.
Museu Coleção Berardo. I have one thing to say about this museum. Grubb, I’m sure, will wax expansively. I discovered a new artist who stopped me in my tracks. I mean, here was this HUGE collection of modern art and then we descend to floor -1 and found an exhibition of Gérard Fromanger (1939-2021). (Is it just me or does anyone else automatically think ”was it Covid?” when they see someone has died in the last couple of years?).
I know it’s not for everyone but his style sang to me. Here is one, a giant acrylic with its suggestion of gently chaotic movement had me transfixed.
Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology). Several years ago, Atlas Obscurra became one of my favorite sites for finding the more off beat locales in any particular city or country. After all, It found the Frog museum in Split, Croatia. With its many dioramas of frogs…frogs conducting orchestras, frog families in the park, little frogs in classrooms…all meticulously stuffed REAL frogs.
Here in Lisbon, one of the items that caught my eye on Atlas Obscurra was the museum of electricity, housed within a 1906 defunct power station, described as “shockingly fascinating “ (ho, ho). Of late (2016?), the campus and mission have expanded into a ‘something for everyone’ kind of place. Uh oh, does this spell school field trips? Will there be hoards of youngsters? Still, many other places are closed on Mondays and hey, it’s right near the statue of Alfonso de Albuquerque (no relation, thank goodness, because this was one mean dude).
Everything you ever wanted to know about operating a power station. And it was, shockingly fun.
In the newer portion (leave the power plant, walk down the river front for a hundred yards or so), it’s a completely different world. Huge , curved screens played, in slo-mo, street scenes from cities around the world. The photos don’t do it justice. One starts with the view looking down on the screens and then you spiral down a ramp to view the display looking straight on. I was hypnotized but by the time I left, I was dizzy and disoriented. The photos are too dark i think.
The meal. I am sure some of you will look askance but tonight was Kebob Hut (rated 5 stars if that matters to you). We had takeaway. For me, a falafel sandwich. For Grubb, chicken duram. Deliciously spicy! I opened the bottle of wine our host had left for us.
Dessert. We headed one block down the street to Nanorellas for ice cream. I had tiramisu and raspberry. Grubb had cheesecake and tiramisu with the addition of whipped cream. It’s a good thing we are doing so much walking.
Tomorrow we are off to Porto. By fast train. Should take a couple of hours and then, a different time, a different place. same country.
When we were staying in Lisbon in 2016 there was a shabby out-of-business bar not far from our airbnb named “Albuquerque”. I guess Duke Albuquerque was pretty big in Portugal to have a bar named after him. I was struck that they spelled it the same way we New Mexicans do since the Duke in Spain that our city is named for has an extra r (“Alburquerque”) that somehow later got dropped here. We had a neighbor for a number of years with a great-…-great grandfather was a founder of Albuquerque. A few years ago she and her husband visited the town of Alburquerque in Spain. I just looked it up. It is near Portugal: https://goo.gl/maps/1itevGEvzTZhHj426 It seems to be associated with “our duke” and this wikipedia article claims it is a sister city to our town. It mentions a Portuguese connection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alburquerque,_Spain