There are three million steps in Lisbon, and every one is up

Change of plan: Instead of puttering around the Portuguese countryside to wrap up our Portuguese adventure, we booked a last minute AirBnB in Alfama – the oldest, and clearly the steepest, neighborhood in Lisbon.

Alfama

In hopes of a hard cure for Marida’s chopped up right knee meniscus (lol), we booked the top apartment at the top of a hill in a tall one-room-wide row house on a pedestrian alley. So after our Uber dropped us off at the closest point, we hauled three carry on bags, two backpacks, and a two liters of water up three long flights of steps to the house…then up three flights of steps to our apartment…then up three floors of one room each to the bedroom. The top veranda was small but had a gorgeous view of the city including the Pantheon, the river, and a ginormous Celebrity Apex cruise ship pumping out a bazillion watts of neon all night long.

I did a timelapse video showing the trajectory from the Uber drop off to the top of the apartment. Fun activity: count the steps!

When a magnitude 8.7 earthquake and subsequent firestorm and tsunami devastated Lisbon in 1755, the Alfama district was the only area to emerge largely intact. As a result, it retains the original winding cobbled walkways connected by a steep stone stairwells, all staggering crazily up the vertical slopes. A map of Alfama would probably look like a plate of spaghetti flung against a wall. Or perhaps a collapsed pile of pick-up sticks. It’s all up, down, around, in-between…so hard to photograph, but so fun to noodle around in.

Military Museum

We just happened upon this while strolling, and enjoyed it immensely. Like all old buildings in Lisbon, it is entirely covered in ancient blue tiles. Here, they mostly depict Portuguese military victories.

São Vicente de Fora Monastery

This 17th-century “Monastery of St. Vincent Outside the Walls”, is one of the most important in Portugal. It also is covered in amazing, antique tiles. Also, if you have the lungs for it, you can climb the tower to the roof and up to get a bird’s eye view of the city.

The Tile Museum

Set in the former Madre de Deus Convent, founded in 1509, this is another building where you are overwhelmed by the visual spectacle and the sheer antiquity of the place. They also had some recent work, some Picasso-style tiles, and (my favorite) a tilework QR code on the entry wall.

We finally see Lisbon

On the last day of our month-long tour of Portugal, we finally managed to do what most people do first – tour the capital city. We hired a guide to drive us around to see Lisbon’s highlights and then to the airport for our flight out. Rafael was from Brazil and had some thoughts to share about Portugal’s colonial history.