The Museum of Water

Respect your host country and forget about the 16 Pimsleur language lessons you spent 40 hours studying. No one in Lisbon has time to listen to your halting Portuguese. Then climb aboard bus 702 from Praca Marques do Pombal and ask the driver to let you know when you've reached the aqueduct. Because it is astonishing and stretches for more than 34 miles and few other tourists seem to want anything to do with it.

At the Museu da Agua, you learn a lesson in material culture that we need more of: A glass of orange juice, a cup of wine, 8 ounces of milk and three coffees requires enough water to fill 100 bathtubs. From that tidbit, you may take heart that we won't be around for the future world wars over the liquid freshwater that constitutes about 0.01 percent of the globe's total water reserves.

It was Joao V who got construction on the aqueduct started in 1731 to bring in water from northwest of the city. Twenty-four years later, an earthquake and tsunami essentially destroyed Lisbon, killing 100,000 people. But the aqueduct survived (as did the Alfama building in which I write this).

Truth in marketing: There is no museum to speak of, just some informational placards in a pretty garden and an invitation to walk along the elevated waterway about a half-mile in each direction. The views are espectacular, and Portugal's modern-day infrastructure comes into focus, too.

After spending about 90 minutes here, there was no sign of any other people save for a security guard and the guy who sold me a 4 euro ticket.

Comments

Diary

Each morning begins with a stroll through Alfama, climbing to this vista or that. The people of Alfama are not blessed with good humor and do not naturally make eye contact with outsiders. They do seem grateful to be able to get up and do a day's work, or to greet their neighbors on their way to the corner store. Outside my tiny windows after midnight I can recognize some of their voices without peeking: The washroom attendant delivers a searing staccato of insults when she has been slighted, and the local madman howls for deliverance. When dogs need to be wrangled, the restaurant workers at Antu Alfama take up the mantle. But the conversations that stick with you ―the ones that escort you to dreamland ― are tender, muffled exchanges that seep almost transcendentally through the walls from unknown directions. These murmured confidences continue until about 5 a.m., followed by two hours of true silence before the wagtails and sparrows awake. What you never hear in Alfama, an ...

Lisbon perks up at night

The thing about the 1974 coup is that it could have been far bloodier. Civilians filled Largo do Carmo, where Prime Minister Marcello Caetano was barricaded inside the secret-police headquarters. Jittery cops fired into the square, killing four people. The crowd dispersed, but then returned when insurgent army officers rolled up with an armored personnel carrier. Photos from the time show people climbing the square's jacaranda trees to watch the standoff while others nonchalantly leaned against the armored vehicle. After nearly 50 years of being terrorized by their government, they would not be denied a front-row seat. Portugal's fascist regime had come to an end. Correction: Carmo Square is claimed by the bookish Chiado neighborhood, not Bairro Alto.

Europe's art racket

I just wanted to get in the door marked "Europe." Lisbon is great, but I'd be equally happy in Split or Bucharest or Lubeck, were the fare as reasonable. The blood and soil of a place, its creeds and ancient loyalties, are not intrinsically interesting. The castle on the hill behind me was really important to people trying to stay alive 800 years ago, but it's just a bilheteria and a turnstile today. Now, when a shady art collector like Calouste Gulbenkian wants to serve up his collection on any number of leopard-spotted, hyacinth-embossed platters ― this is when things get interesting. Bring it on. I am a porous visitor, here to soak up the continent. He was a strange dude. The day after the Earl of Carvanon died in 1923, Gulbenkian was on the phone trying to scoop up his collection of antiquities. A prominent art dealer reminded him the body was still warm. Gulbenkian was born to a family of wealthy Armenian kerosene merchants in Istanbul. Under the tutelage of a ...

336 hours in Lisbon

Search This Blog