Welcome to Portugal: Afternoon in Alfama

Lisbon's Alfama neighborhood is lousy with trams

Reporting live from Lisbon, Portugal.  Today was a Jeb Bush kind of day: low energy.  It was a six-hour flight from JFK to Lisbon and it left a few ticks o' the clock before midnight, so there was not a whole lot of sleeping going on.  So I stuck to exploring the neighborhood in which I am staying:  Alfama.

This is the old "Moorish" section of Lisbon.  The extremely narrow streets will tell you this was laid out well before car culture.  Well before "horse and carriage" culture for that matter.

That is not the ocean.  That is the Tagus River.  It's the estuary, so I'm guessing it's salt water.  But it's not, technically speaking, ocean water.

This is up in one of the high viewpoints within Alfama.  Alfama is quite hilly.  In fact, the steepness of the slopes is the reason trams are so popular as public transit.  There may be no tram in this picture here, but there are tram wires:

Here's an example of some non-indigenous wildlife:

Turista Americana.  These types often can be found in viewpoints of various European capitals.  Especially when there is something photogenic, such as an estuary, to form the photo background.  Hey.  I would've snapped a selfie but I was too tired from overnight flight,

Upon at the viewpoint a band was playing something that sounded Afro-Brazilian.  One of the great things about Portugal is that has done a better job than anywhere else in Europe absorbing the racial minorities from its former colonies into its territory.  And since all of its overseas colonies seem to have awesome musical traditions, that means lots and lots of awesome music.

And stairs.  Lots and lots and lots of stairs in Alfama.

This is the Igreja do Sao Miguel.  Lisbon is lousy with beautiful old church buildings.  Some of which are still used as churches.

Now, let's look at some museums, of the "offbeat" variety:

Museu do Fado, the museum dedicated to Portugal's indigenous bluesy/sea chanty music, fado.

The Museu do Lactancio, which translates to the "Museum of Lactation."  Here's my weird observation.  I'm stunned that "lactation" is a masculine-gendered noun.

And finally, in the same general neighborhood:

Museu Militar.  I did not go in any of the three as it was too close to closing time by the time I had wandered down there.  Anyway, there's a police station next to the Museu Militar.

Here's another thing typically Lisboa (Lisbonian?):

The decorative tile facades of so many buildings.

Anyway, since I walked downhill to the water -- estuary, I mean -- walked down to the estuary, that meant an uphill battle to get back to the hotel.

And what's that beautiful white building up ahead?

It's a re-purposed defrocked Catholic church,

But what it was re-purposed into is impressive:  The Lisboa Panteao.  The Lisbon Pantheon.  Where a boatload of famous Portuguese are buried.  Those little tourist "tuk-tuks" are everywhere, too, by the way,

More trams:

And this is a Catholic Church I found when I figured out I climbed the wrong steep hill to get back to my hotel.

This is the Igreja e Convento da Graca,

My observation about Lisbon after Day One:  what an amazingly friendly city.  People are friendly.  Dogs are friendly.

But the cats aren't friendly.  So in that way Lisbon is just like everywhere else.

Portugal has now become the 22nd (or 21st) (or 23rd, depending on how you count) (which I'm not going to go over here, let's just say that under my preferred method of counting countries visited, it's #22)

I leave you with this, a twilight view of Castelo de Sao Jorge.