Team Tully: Lovely Lisboa!

Lisbon (Lisboa in Portuguese) is a beautiful city! A city full of vibrant people, detailed cobblestone streets, beautiful tilework, unique neighborhoods, a gorgeous riverfront, hills galore, a rich history, talented artists and fado musicians, fantastic green spaces, and just a feeling of fun and excitement and pride for an amazing capital and country. We spent many days in Lisbon. We had museum days, park days, a zoo day, aquarium days, shopping days, eating days, wandering tiny streets in old neighborhood days. We certainly made the most of our time in Lisbon and we fell in love with this capital city!

Trams were a populare mode of transportation. We never rode one, ha! Team Tully prefers traveling on foot whenever possible.

The Natural History Museum is housed in the old Lisbon College building. Such a gorgeous space! This was one of the chemistry lecture halls.

This is one of many similar sculptures in the newer and more modern eastern side of Lisbon. Cool restaurants, housing, the aquarium...totally different than historic Lisbon.

Also near the aquarium on the eastside of town is this walk of nations and reflecting pond.

The Belem Tower, photo taken by our tag-a-long friend Ms. Judy!

Built in the 1500s the Belem Tower was both a fortress and then it was seen as the entryway into Lisbon...located where the Tagus River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Team Tully at St. George's Castle - beautiful Lisbon with its signature terracotta roofs behind us.

Castelo de S. Jorge was built by the Moors in the mid-11th century. The castle has a varied history as a fortress, a home for royalty, and military barracks. The St. George castle occupies one of the 7 major hills of Lisbon.

The cool and ultra hip LX Factory - a unique downtown area of bars, restaurants, shops, artists workshops, and this amazing bookstore! It used to be a clothing factory. Such a great use of space.

Also in the LX Factory....a larger than life dog and a baby crawling on the side of the building.

This is how we stayed fueled for daily 10+ miles of urban hiking. There is a hot dog under all of that!

A window inside the Jeronimos Monastery

Exterior view of the Jeronimos Monastery. This monastery was home to monks for many years and those monks were often involved in housing and caring for seafarers before their expeditions. In fact, it is said that Vasco da Gama spent the last night before his expedition here and it is also the location of his grave. The monastery and church were built in the early 1500s.

Back to St. George's Castle.

He loves me, I know he does! HA!

More of Lisbon from yet another hill....waaaaaay hillier than I thought!

Looking down towards the Tagus River

We were in Portugal in the early summer and the flowers in bloom were just magnificent. Beautiful!

Belem Tower with Luke for scale (long sleevers nearly every single day!!!!!)

L and I at the Praca do Comercio. This is a HUGE square where they hold special events and fairs occasionally, otherwise it is just a wide open space. Inside the arch is a long pedestrian street full of shops and restaurants and bakeries and street performers. Our favorite sweet treats came from this area - Luke was a sucker for gelato, me a white bean pie (sounds so weird but SO delicious), and L a pampilho (a delcious bread filled with delicious chocolate).

From the inside looking out

Our urban hiking led us to a huge park that was hosting a book fair and Luke and L found some chess to play.

Vasco da Gama in his final resting place. Such a cool experience for Luke as his social studies curriculum this past year had a large focus on famous explorers.

There was quite a bit of graffiti in Lisbon but most of it was very artistic.

A nearly empty Praca do Comercio - mostly like due to the Tully family and our early rising tendencies. :-)

The Alfama district! One of the oldest neighborhoods in Lisbon. Very proud people living here for generations. Narrow and winding streets.

It is hard to see but there is a beautiful elderly lady in the window...she waved and sang to us as we walked by.

My attempt at being "artsy" - this is a view of Lisbon from observation tower in Monsanto Park. Monsanto Park is massive!!! It is described as the Hampstead Heath of Lisbon. A beautiful greenspace that let us wander for hours and hours.

This is the interior of a church that is part of the tile museum in Lisbon. The Museu Nacional do Azulejo housed a beautiful collection and history of the making and using of decorative tiles (azulejos) in Portugal - their use beginning in the second half of the 15th century.

Cataloging tiles

L and Luke are over the tile museum...it was my museum choice this day, ha!

Lunch in Monsanto Park

Luke doing a high ropes course with zero safety equipment..."Daddy said it was fine."

The Lisbon aqueduct

Such a gorgeous city!

I love love LOVED all the tiled buildings. Such care and attention to detail, beautiful!

We literally wandered into this gem of a cemetery. Each of these units houses 8-10 caskets from one family. Famous poets, scientists, architects, millionaires, etc are buried here.

The Lisbon zoo! Our zoo trip was a complete after thought. We knew there was a zoo but we have a wonderful zoo here at home so we didn't really have it on our radar. But we decided to give it a whirl and I am so glad we did! We had a WONDERFUL day at the zoo and it was a beautiful space. The dolphin show was the best we had ever seen and the cable car ride around the zoo was such a cool way to see the animals.