Situated far from the Metro & tourist crowds, the Palácio dos Marqueses de Fronteira has to be one of the best-kept secrets of Lisbon. Heck, it’s taken me 20 years to get around to visit it! Built in the 1670s, this hunting estate survived the 1755 earthquake & became the main residence of the Mascarenhas family since then…
Browsing through digitized period magazines on the Biblioteca Nacional website the other day, I stumbled across several photos of the Portugal pavilion under construction. A February 1929 edition of O Notícias Ilustrado highlighted artist Mário Reis with his portrait & the azulejos he made for the pavilion. I froze because I recognized those tiles… they’re now on the Chafariz da Junqueira!
Last time I updated the entire Rick Steves’ Portugal book, I posted daily comments on Facebook—each one beginning with “Wow, do I love Portugal”… fun moments describing the ups & downs of being a guidebook researcher. Four years on, I still love Portugal but Facebook not so much. This time I took a few moments before going to bed each night to jot down some notes about the day. Here we go again!
It’s July & that means one thing only in the Basque Country… time to run with the bulls! I’ve been lucky enough to go for the past two years, so this post is an amalgam of both experiences. And while I’ve never been tempted to put my life on the line & actually run alongside, the spectacle is something I’ll never forget.
Twenty years ago today, Lisboa opened a specialized World’s Fair that completely altered the city’s landscape. Local government reclaimed an abandoned industrial zone to make way for pavilions, new housing, a new Metro line, a multi-modal train station & a second bridge across the Tejo River. Lisbon would never be the same.