In ,
6 June: Lisbon

This was the hop on hop off tour day. 

We went back to the breakfast place and ordered the brunch again. This time I had the ham and cheese, which was 3€ less than the salmon. We took the bread rolls and jam home!  

We are sticking with what gets us through the day!

We first took the tram ride up around the hills. It was very slow due to the traffic but interesting. 

Love this statue in Commerce Square. It’s got everything.
Many of the buildings are very beautiful.
And decorative tiles are a real thing.

You get all the buses and trams from the same square, which is also close to the train station and metro stop. 

We then did the bus tour to Balem which is west towards the mouth of the river Tagus and not far from the suspension bridge. 

The jacarandas are everywhere.
Tiles!
More tiles
I’ll try and stop it’s the tiles 🤣
I think this is the maritime museum.

We got off at the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology. The technology and art part is in an old power station.

It’s a stunning building and quite like the Tate Modern inside the entrance.

The art is like the Tate Modern also.

The difference is that they have preserved the power plant as a museum.

The generator room.
The big pipes room
Boiler room

It was fascinating.

Must have been horrendous working conditions down in the boiler room where they had to feed in coal and then empty out ash. 

Collecting the ash

The new part looks like a space ship. It’s very cool on the terrace. At the moment it has a photographic exhibition from a Canadian artist. A bit bleak for our tastes on the whole. 

Looking out to the river from the terrace
Main exhibition space
We got good views of the suspension bridge.

When we got back to the square we switched to the other bus line and saw heaps of the modern part of the city.

There’s a wide avenue a bit like the Champs Elysees. Very leafy.

It’s pretty stunning. They gave done a lot of rebuilding since the end of the dictatorship in the mid 70s. Lisbon hosted a world expo in 1987 and there are some pretty amazing buildings from then. 

This tower is a pre revolution relic. Maybe it was for gas power?
This is one end of the aquarium. It’s a giant black tank that extends the length of a block.
You can see the reflection of an amazing roof in this shopping centre. I think it’s the roof over a main railway station.

After the tour we had a rest and Sangria in a wine bar on the square. Quite reasonable prices given it was a fancy and obviously trendy sort of place   (5€ for a large and excellent sangria). 

My salted cod
Mike’s black linguine

We had dinner just along from the previous night at a fish restaurant. It’s pretty tiring being on holiday 😂.