Lisbon: city of marble and gold

Just home from a four day citybreak in Portugal's ancient capital, where a search to find anything that wasn't destroyed in the devastating earthquake of 1755 was sumptuously rewarded. Somehow I have lived for 63 years without encountering Portugal- a yawning gap in my cultural education which has at last been filled, and not a moment too soon.


Lisbon features a number of architectural wonders that survived the great quake which occurred on All Saint's Day, 1755, though some do show terrible scars from that fateful day. There is a marvellous old abbey, the Igrejo do Carmo, built in the 14th century, which was packed with worshippers on the day of the great quake when the roof fell in and killed everyone present. Now it has the same atmosphere of lost grandeur one finds at, say, Tintern Abbey. Other churches did rather better. Another church, the Igregia de Sao Domingos, built in 1242, survived the great earthquake of 1755 as well as an earlier one in 1531, only to be razed by fire in 1959. Today much of its marble superstructure is blackened as if by soot. I touched some panels, but the soot did not come off on my fingers: the blackness had penetrated right into the pores of the marble columns..


By contrast, the Igreja de Sao Roque, built in the 16th century and funded by gold brought back by Vasco da Gama from the Indies, has endured the ravages of time almost unscathed. It features a number of chapels dedicated to various saints, each one more gaudy and extravagant than the last. Some almost seem to drip with gold, while others feature gorgeous panels of malachite and lapis lazuli, studded with sapphires and other precious stones The overall effect is overwhelming, and to be honest, almost obscene. While we were there, a party of Chinese were shown around. They wandered behind their guide in total silence, their faces motionless, masks of incomprehension. I almost felt sorry for them.


But a fourth church, the Mostairo dos Jeronimos, requires no intellectual understanding to exert its hypnotic effect. Constructed in a unique style known as Manueline, after King Manuel "the fortunate" (so named because he personally was the recipient of much of the gold) it is a massive edifice, built entirely from marble brought from the nearby quarries, seems to tower into the skies, supported on giant columns designed to be reminiscent of ship's masts, while everywhere there are reminders of all things maritime: columns seemingly of rope, fan vaulting resembling sails, elsewhere, marble oars, marble rivets, marble cannon. This is perhaps appropriate. Remember, like Britain, Portugal is a tiny country which made itself fabulously wealthy by plundering the less developed world, and like us, they did it through their mastery of the seas. So, as we might expect, the church, which in my opinion ranks among the great sights of Europe, was built on the rapine of the burgeoning Portuguese Empire of the 16th century. This began with Vasco da Gama's astounding, and exceedingly lucrative discovery of a sea route to the Indies, a feat which established him as one of history's immortals, as well as getting him in real good with his King and Queen, owing to the tonnes of gold he brought back with him. His tomb enjoys pride of place in this mighty palace, as well it might...


On day three there was one marvellous, surreal moment. Wearing a broad-brimmed hat I was being careful as I walked over the vents from the metro, but on one occasion I was neglectful and my hat flew off and went behind me. I turned round and looked down, but the hat wasn't there. Then I looked up and there it was, floating in the air at head height; in fact it remained suspended in mid-air, gently wafting up and down in the updraught for a number of seconds before finally falling to the ground.




Lisbon was a revelation for us: fantastic architecture, warm and welcoming locals, a pleasant temperature that was never less than seven degrees higher than at home in Cardiff, and affordable prices, a welcome change from our last holiday in Norway, where a burger and fries can set you back £30. Of course there wasn't time in 4 days to do all we wanted: the coast, the interior with its marble quarries (some people go specifically to visit them, apparently) and megalithic artefacts remain to be explored I tell you man, we'll be back!


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