Europe June 2011 -- Lisbon: Fairgrounds, Metro, Cross & Comments

This is the last posting about Lisbon and as such, it's a bit of a salad of things.  It includes a visit by subway to the 1998 fairgrounds, pictures of some subway stops and the cross that dominates the city.

In 1998 Lisbon held a World's Fair.  The fairgrounds are now called the Parque das Nações, (Park of the Nations).  Go to the link (only in Portuguese) if you would like to see more pictures.

We went on Monday.  It was cool, gray and dreary, but we still enjoyed seeing a bit of it.  It was lovely and sunny the day before, so it was probably a zoo then.

We took the metro to the end of the red line and walked over to the water.  Naturally we were hungry by then, so we found a little place that was open and much to our delight, had a delicious meal there.  On our way back to the station, I took some pictures.

This sculpture of bathers is lots of fun.  There are many more pictures of it and other works of art in the park at the website.

 I didn't take any pictures on the way to the park, but these are on the way back and from the train.

As is common, there are major shops at big metro intersections.  That's why you rarely see any large stores on the streets.  In fact, at one point where we changed lines, I had to go to the bathroom.  Trout stayed inside the station and I went through the turnstile to try to find a potty.  One flight of stairs headed above ground, so I knew that wasn't an option.  The other flight went straight to an enormous grocery and shopping complex, complete with the Lisbon version of a food court.  I did find a women's bathroom, much to my relief.  Our passes let us come and go at will, so I was able to easily get back through the turnstile to where Trout was waiting for me.

This is not that location.  It is on the way to the station from the park, but it is similar.  I took the picture because of the lovely terrazzo floor.

 Lisbon being famous for tiles, all the Lisbon Metro stations are artistically done with tiles.  This is the station (Oriente) at the end of the red line where the park is.  At the link you can read about the artists and see the station list as well as a map of the whole system.

Trout asked if I wanted to get out to take pictures, but I preferred to take them from the train as we stopped.

At one point on the red line we went above ground.  This is a typical suburban modern apartment building.

Now we're back underground.

I didn't take pictures of every stop along the way.  These have been just some examples.  Most of the stations we saw were very modern.  At first this one looked like it was more traditional, but if you click and look closely, you can tell it really isn't.

These are the last of my pictures. This cross monument is actually a statue of Christ called Christ the King.  It is across the Tagus River, but visible from  many locations in the area.  This is from the apartment during the day.

It is lit at night.

This is a closer photo from when we were in Belem.

So that concludes our stay in Lisbon from a photographic point of view.  I had some gut issues on the last day there, and we didn't get out except for dinner.  I'd hoped to take another day trip that day, but it was not to be.

One of the major parts of our European travels is the food.  On the whole, I'd say we had pretty good food.  Where we didn't it was either a poor choice of restaurant (really only once) or of menu items (Trout did better than I did).  In general, the food in Portugal is considered to be the cheapest in Europe.  That doesn't mean that it's cheap, though. 

One major problem with it for us is that, almost everything we got was heavily salted.  I understand this is common with Portuguese cuisine, but we are so not into salt that we could really taste the difference. 

Our last meal was at a restaurant right around another corner from our apartment that was touted as having a great view.  It did have a good view over the train station, but not as good a view as we had from our apartment.  In fact, I realized that I could see its dining area from our kitchen window, that's how close it is to where we stayed.  It was packed on a Tuesday night, but we got early reservations so we had no problems with service or waiting.  This is the only place I've ever been where they used an iPad for the menu.  Mine worked fine, but Trout's was a little balky.  I noticed after us, the rest of the people in the place got paper menus.

We found our way around the city easily by foot and by public transportation and taxis were always available.  The people we met were consistently nice and helpful.  Even with our muddled Portuguese and their muddled English, we usually could figure things out.

Staying in an apartment was great, even if it was up lots of steep stairs.  It was very helpful financially because we typically only ate 1 meal a day out and the lodging cost per day was also much cheaper than in a hotel.  It was also helpful when either or both of us needed to slow down a bit.

Trout's ready to go back, but wants to be sure to go to Estoril, the site of a racetrack, of course.  There are other more rural parts of Portugal I wouldn't mind seeing, but I'm not as interested in going back as he is. 

Paris: the Basics

We left Bayeux on Monday, October 12th at about 3:00 p.m. and arrived at Paris St. Lazare station at around 5:00. There are many train stations in Paris and each has special arrivals and departures. To get from train station to train station you have to take a taxi, a bus or the Metro.

Our hotel, Eber Mars, was located within easy walking distance of the Eiffel Tower and the Rue Cler, a famous if somewhat anglicized, shopping and dining street. Our room was small and very similar to the one in the center bottom picture of the "rooms" link on the hotel's webpage. Our bath was the 2nd smallest of the whole trip, but it worked just fine. We had two big casement windows that opened on to the street right next to the awning for the hotel. We were on the 2nd floor (European 1st floor).

We used public transportation the whole time we were in Paris. We bought a "carnet" of 10 tickets that could be used on busses, the Metro and some river boats. The lavendar colored #8 line was our route home from wherever we went. We got off at the Ecole Militaire stop.

We found travel on Paris mass transit easy, efficient and fast, even if we did have to go through many tunnels and up and down many sets of stairs to get to the right platforms going the right directions. Although it's common, we saw no evidence of pickpocketing going on. The time I was in Paris in the early 80's, I saw it happening right in front of my nose.

We got settled into our hotel room, unpacked what we needed to and headed out into the neighborhood for dinner, using Rick Steves' recommendations as a guide. We had a lovely dinner at Le Bosquet.

To walk off the calories, we walked over to the Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower. Neither of us had any interest in going up to any of the levels in the tower, but standing inside the legs was amazing. Trout called one of his friends, Wally, from there.

Can you see Trout's little bald spot rimmed by gray hair in the bottom left of this picture?

Here he is reading about Monsieur Eiffel.

We were there on a good night at a good time. It wasn't crowded.

This turned out a little blurry, but I love this detail.

The next day after a generous petit dejeuner (for me anyway), we took off on foot toward the Musee d'Orsay. En route we walked past this picture-worthy vehicle. It's not your Bellevue BMW, but it probably cost just about as much.

We walked around the Place des Invalides. The link I have is to the French Wikipedia page because the first image shows an aerial view. We walked around the front (or was it the back?) and it was truly a grand vista across the Seine. In the bottom right of that aerial photo you can see the gardens of the Musee Rodin. If you click on the English version, the pictures are different.

I hadn't been very interested in going to the Musee Rodin, but Trout really likes his work, so we stopped by there on the way to the Musee d'Orsay. There were lots of lovely works in the villa, but I only took a couple of pictures in the gardens. To see more, go to the linked website.

I'd never seen this piece before.

This scupture of Balzac is one I like.

Of course, everyone recognizes the Thinker and most have to take copycat posed pictures of their friends with it. Trout just stared up.

My all time favorite Rodin is the Burghers of Calais. This is bronze work and more than one copy was made. We saw one in London as well.

The Musee d'Orsay is in an old train station. It has one of the best collections of impressionist painting anywhere in the world. That's what I went to see. Trout and I split up to wander the place and he also saw an excellent collection of furniture in the decorative arts section.

I could single out any number of paintings to link from the painting page. You might want to page through the list and thumbnails yourself. Even if you haven't studied the impressionist art of this period, you will probably recognize some of the images. I finally picked a Renoir to link you to here.

I didn't really intend to look at sculpture, but I was delighted to find this very famous Degas dancer in a case in a room with some of his two-dimensional work.

I only took these two pictures inside.

From the d'Orsay we took the bus to and up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. I will have separate pictures of and links to some the sites we saw there in the next blog entry.

After we got home, late of course, we again headed out for dinner. We ended up at a different restaurant. This time we went to a funky bistro. The food was just as good only simpler. It was also a younger, hipper crowd. I can't remember the name of it and I didn't recognize it in the area when I walked along Rue Cler via Google.

Besides 3 dinners, we also ate 2 lunches in the Rue Cler area where we stayed. Trout couldn't manage to get up in time for breakfast the first morning, so as soon as he was ready, we went to lunch at a place called Ulysse. It's known for its grab and go crepes and for Greek food. It was quite good.

The next day he managed to get downstairs in time to eat, but we lollygagged (no surprise there) and so we went ahead and had lunch at a place called Tribeca. It was Italian mostly and it was also good.

I took these two pictures along Rue Cler just to show a little of what it was like.

A Google image search for the area produces more and better pictures.

Au revoir jusqu'a la prochaine affectation.