Lisbon Portugal

After the dreaded long haul light, we land in Lisbon, with no issues. The quickest way to recover from jet lag, is to stay awake as long as you can and fall asleep once the sun goes down in your new city.  So we hit the streets of Lisbon old town and walk till we drop. And what an awakening of the senses it was, the use of colours, stunning architecture and beautiful patterns everywhere. Davids orange jacket a perfect contrast colour against the stone backdrops.

The city was hit with a devastating earthquake and subsequent fires in 1755, the majority of the old city rebuilt as we see it today, with modern architectural innovations and colour.  Many of the homes are covered in tiles, to provide protection from the humidity from the Tagus River. The rebuild was uniformly designed with wooden frameworks and stone walls providing flexible connections to withstand future seismic events in a grid like urban layout.  The result is a stunning, relaxed and easy city to walk through, very difficult to get lost, even for two jet lagged zombies 

Beneath your feet are footpaths of white limestone and black basalt, in beautiful arrays of patterns. Some appeared to move as you walk, leaving Dave a little giddy, (but I think it was more we needed sleep desperately), cut from local quarries and arranged by hand, into intricate patterns. A tapestry of interlocking stones, each one slightly different creating beautiful mosaic's.

We stumbled across a street being relaid, not with asphalt but square blocks of black basalt, about 15cm square, all by hand, sitting on a bed of packed sand, men on knees, laying stones one by one. Talk about skill tradesman at work, gaps of about 1cm, filled with sand to absorb rain and withstand heavy traffic.

                                        

Standing alone amongst the standard five story tiled apartment buildings, an elaborate stone ornate building comes into view and takes your breath away, intricate works of art, the subtle stone colour, making its own statement.  No need for bright colours here,  the stone creations are the works of art in their own right. The 'Ficheiro' building below right, an example of the buildings housing government departments or houses of worship.

A short, but thoroughly enjoyable stay, just loved wondering the streets. Next stop, Portimao, Algarve, our first cycling destination, right on the southern coast of Portugal.  

The start of our 3 month cycling adventure.....