Photo Pest: Olá Lisboa!

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Olá Lisboa!

Porto's relatively new metro whisked me from my hotel across town to Campanha to catch my morning train south.

Trust me, Porto's rush hour was a lot less chaotic than boarding the Lisbon-bound train where finding my seat among hundreds of tourists with luggage and even a couple of e-bikes was a higher priority than capturing the three-hour journey on my i-Phone.

Navigating Lisbon's much older and busier metro was more challenging--especially since Google maps didn't indicate a transfer was required to get from Oriente to Entre Campos--but the size and variety of the tiled murals was stunning. Where does a 40-foot tall hare run? Anywhere he wants to!

Another monument honoring Portugal's Heroes of the Peninsula War greeted me outside my NH Hotel. Despite the event's historical significance, an employee at a local tourist office had never heard of it.

With several hours to kill before meeting Chris and his friend Janet for dinner--they had just flown into town after ten days of hiking in the remote but well-scrubbed Azores--I explored Campo Grande Park.

A pedestrian overpass caught my eye.

Upon closer inspection, I thought Audrey would love these cat tiles.

Perhaps bread crumbs is a better description. They led me directly to a museum celebrating the work of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, a 19th-century caricaturist and ceramicist who is considered the father of Portuguese comics. He influenced Carla Felipe, whose work I had seen the day before.

Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1846-1905)

In 1875 Pinheiro introduced Zé Povinho, his most enduring character and a kind of Portuguese everyman who enabled him to spoof the country's politics. In this cartoon, government officials have secured Zé Povinho's vote by bribing him with food and wine.

In a more surreal drawing, Zé Povinho drags the weight of the royal treasury, one of the concerns that led to the early end of Portugal's monarchy in 1910.

Pinheiro, who owned a ceramics factory with his brother, gave Zé Povinho three dimensions, too. From a modern perspective, it's tempting to think of him as a whistle blower.

Food figures prominently in both Pinheiro's illustrations and ceramics. From his girth, it's clear he enjoyed eating, too.

The bourgeoisie in Lisbon embraced the boldly colorful ceramics. When Pinheiro died, his son took over the business and it continues today under corporate ownership.

Unfortunately neither the family cat (Peaches, whose image does appear on an eyeglasses cleaner fabric sold at the museum) nor the frog tiles are available, although you can buy a grasshopper he designed for $98.

Outside the museum, his silhouette chases swallows which the company produces in a variety of styles.

I couldn't decide if the ceramics that decorate the entrance to a nearby McDonald's paid homage to Pinhiero or not.

My route back to the hotel passed the campus of the University of Lisbon where I was asked to stop taking video of what looked like a rather tame undergraduate hazing ceremony.

The city's jacaranda trees blossomed as prettily as those that Chris and I had seen in Mexico City two months earlier.

Janet, a foodie, had booked us a reservation at Zunzum, a gastropub not far from where the cruise ships dock on the Tagus River. No stars but it's in the online Michelin guide. The appetizers photographed better and satisfied more than the entrees.