Snapshots of Lisbon
City Centre, Banksy Exhibition, Campo Pequeno Bullring, Lisbon
I’d seen it out of the window of the plane a few times. You can‘t miss it. In fact, I often wonder how the planes manage to miss it. They practically take the roof off it as they come into land at Lisbon international airport. For ages now, Her Ladyship has been desperate to find out what this impressive circular red brick building close to the city centre actually is. Genius detective that she is – the fact that it is circular probably gave the game away – she finally figured out that it is the Lisbon bullring.
To be fair, when we took the metro out to Campo Pequeno Arena, I discovered that there is a lot more to this bullring than meets the eye. The outer rim of the building houses a series of restaurants, shops and bars, and there is an entire shopping centre, a cinema complex and a food hall underneath it.
This is a building that you don’t simply enter. It demands to be admired from the outside and, sure enough, we must have spent a good hour walking around it doing just that. It’s not the most peaceful part of town, what with the heavy traffic on the Avenida de la Republica and those planes skimming the rooftops as they take off and land, but I was quite happy to explore the area with the Dynamic Duo. For a while, at least. There is an interesting mix of old and new buildings around here and, of course, the Oldies’ eyes lit up at the particularly nice Art Deco examples.
It was a relief however, to take refuge inside the Campo Pequeno arena at last. Before we even got inside the bullring itself, there was plenty to explore. It was particularly difficult to drag ourselves away from the food emporium and to lift our full stomachs up the stairs to the Campo Pequeno Museum. I was relieved to discover there that, unlike Spanish bullfighting, the mainland Portugal variety is much like the Azores version. In other words, the bulls are not killed, but they live on to see another day.
The bullring itself is quite lovely. With the private boxes on the upper level, it could just as easily be an opera house or theatre. In fact, it is apparently often used for concerts, with some major international stars regularly drawing the crowds.
Now this is a rare sight: His Lordship, dressed to kill!
Another beautiful building that the Wingless Wonders finally got around to visiting was the convent of São Pedro de Alcântara. It was their umpteenth attempt to make it there in time for the English language tour which takes place only once a week – on Fridays at 3pm. Wouldn’t you know it? They managed to pick the one Friday when the tour happened to be cancelled. To be perfectly honest, I was quite relieved. I got to have a good old poke around anyway – without being overloaded by tons of facts and figures.
I have got quite used to the wonderful Portuguese azulejo at this stage, but the tile work in this church is particularly outstanding. I was amused to see that it falls a tad short of perfection, however. The tiler who had worked on the left side of the altar must have been having a bad day. Can you spot the mistake?
I’ve heard of headless chickens before, but never a headless peacock!
Another one of the Oldies’ ‘we-must-do-that-somedays’ was to go to the top of the Arco da Rua Augusta at the Praça do Commércio. The arch didn’t look that high to me, certainly nothing like as high as Pillar 7 on the 25th of April Bridge, but I was blown away – almost literally – by the fantastic views from the top. Yet another perspective on Lisbon port, the riverside and the centre of this beautiful city. A city that just keeps on giving.
I’ve seen plenty of graffiti and street art in Lisbon and am still trying to figure out where graffiti ends and street art begins. It’s a fine line indeed. Whatever the answer to that question is, I thought that Lisbon was a very appropriate location for the exhibition ‘Banksy. Genius or Vandal?’ In fact, on the way to the venue, the Cordoaria Nacional, the old naval rope-making factory, I saw some graffiti/street art that would have been worthy of Banksy himself.
I’m not too sure whether Banksy would have been too pleased about this unofficial exhibition of his work, but it was certainly worth a visit. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I reckon some of Banksy’s pictures speak volumes!
Which is my cue to shut up and let you take a look for yourself…
