Tag Archives: Street Art

Day 8 Part 1 – Leaving Vila Nova da Barquinha

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Friday 4 September 2026 – Another day, another Uber. The forecast was unchanged – a very warm (30°C, cloudy and humid) day was in prospect. With a 23km walk, meaning at least 6 hours and probably seven on the road, and an elevation profile like this

helped us decide on taking a ride to our next destination, Tomar. Not therefore having to get out at sparrowfart allowed us to take time to look round Vila Nova da Barquinha in more detail, seeking out the bits of street art which were within walking distance and revisiting the sculpture trail in the park that we’d pottered around yesterday evening, to see things in decent light.

Barquinha (for such I’ll call it in the interests of brevity) is typical of our experience of Portugal so far – touches of great elegance against a backdrop of neglect. So, for example, some wonderful azulejos

but a badly-maintained backdrop.

One thing that looked in good nick was the bullring.

We saw from a poster by the railway station that a corrida was happening in a week’s time; whether this clean and tidy appearance was due to the imminent event or whether civic pride generally kept it looking nice we will never know. However, I happened to notice that one of the doors, the second one, labelled “Camarotes”

was open. So we looked in. It would appear that “Camarotes” means “Boxes” in the sense of privileged viewing places.

and we got a good view of the arena, which was being worked on, presumably, again, for the forthcoming festivities.

I had formed the impression (see the featured image for why) that the “Vila Nova” (“new town”) part of Barquinha’s name meant that it was only about a century old. Wrongly, as it turns out. It has a significant history stretching back centuries. Actually, the development of the region is strongly related to the Reconquista period, when the nearby river Tagus was the border between the dominions of Christians and Moors. In the 12th century, the defence of this border was in charge of the Knights Templar, who built several castles along the river. One of these is the Castle of Almourol, (which we didn’t get round to visiting for various reasons). At the end of the 13th century, when the Reconquista was finished, the importance of the castles of the region declined and the villages along the Tagus then became important riverside ports for the transport of agricultural goods of the region to Lisbon. There’s an azulejo in the riverside park about this.

Vila Nova da Barquinha was created in the 17th century around a fluvial port. In the 18th and 19th centuries the village became the most important in the region, and it was turned into the seat of the municipality in 1836. The history of the place explains the touches of elegance we saw as we walked around.

And it was quite a walk to the first street art installation,

tiling placed round what we think is (or was once) an electricity substation. The tiling was done by Manel Vieira in 2018, and it doesn’t look as if the building has had much TLC ever since, which is a shame. We pressed on, going back past the bullring and a tiled installation

which is apparently about 500 years of the Reformation in Europe. A tiling panel next to it dated it as 2017, but I couldn’t decipher the artist’s name.

We walked some way out of the centre of Barquinha and passed a mural that I’d actually noted on our ride into the town;

another piece that would have been impressive at the time but which looks very sad now. The same was true of the next instance we came to;

a further example of an attempt to prettify infrastructure which has been allowed to decay. The final piece on this part of the walkabout was an impressive work, once again using infrastructure as the canvas.

In it, the artist (whose name was not specified in the accompanying panel) expresses his concern about pollution in the Tagus River. (There was one more example of prettified infrastructure, which I’ll come to later.)

As we walked about, we noted that the mosaic pavements were decorated in a very specific pattern,

which Jane correctly identified as a small boat, which is, of course, how “Barquinha” translates into English. This was confirmed at the municipality offices.

The mosaic pavements stretched across much of our walk. We came across a couple of guys working on the maintenance of a section,

which makes one realise what a huge scope of work all of these pavements are.

Not everywhere is tatty. The sports pavilion is tidy and announces itself with great panache.

and many of the houses and apartments are in good shape.

We were struck by all the white space around

that was completely devoid of graffiti. Until we got to the station, that is.

I wonder whether there’s a specific anti-graffiti task force which keeps (almost) everything clean; it certainly makes a change from everywhere else we’ve been, where graffiti is depressingly ubiquitous.

On returning from the above peregrination, we walked around the park, where there is that other example I mentioned earlier, of an electricity substation that has been gussied up.

and we walked past the various sculptures beside the paths in the park.

“Rotter” – a representation of a wicker basket used in fishing in the Algarve
“House in the Sky” – industrial storage boxes used to build a prefab
“Line of Earth and River” – in polished and brushed stainless steel
Untitled – actually four tall steel mirrors, turning the garden into a stage
“Contramundo” – artistic tosh in the description of this trilobite
“Square house with tree inside”. Nuff said
“Castle” was once in yellow granite
“Concrete Poem”
“Irrigation”
“Over the forest” inspired by a mandala

As well as all the above slightly pretentious stuff, there were a couple of rotating disks, one of which gave a very compelling illusion.

 

The park was opened in 2005 and the sculpture trail inaugurated in 2012. The building decorations seem to date from around 2017 or 2018, so it’s clear that sporadic efforts have been made to bring art into the public spaces. It’s just a shame that, having done this good work, so much of it has been left to decay.

The café in the park got some more of our business after all that walking, and then we whistled up an Uber to take us on to Tomar, where we have a rest day. (Well, I suppose you could call today and the preceding couple of days “rest days” since we didn’t actually walk any of the Caminho. But we have walked a bit – today’s wandering round Barquinha was a 7km path, so we haven’t been entirely idle.) Tomar has significant historical and cultural significance and so I’ll deal with it in subsequent entries.

 

The last of Lisbon…for now

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Tuesday 25 August 2026 – We weren’t due to meet Carlos until midday, so we had a relaxed schedule for the morning. On checkout, we discovered that the hotel’s “finance people”, despite having agreed that the prepayment for our room had, in fact, been made, had still not sent their approval for the reception staff to process a refund for us, so I’m still £400 down on the deal so far. But I’m sanguine that things will get sorted before the credit card bill becomes payable. Yes, really.

Carlos’s wife had enforced a change of plan by requiring use of their car for the day, so we weren’t going to get our lift over to Sintra, not that it mattered. It takes pretty much the same time to get there by car or by train, and Carlos had developed a plan that took us round some parts of the city we hadn’t yet explored, ending up at the station where we needed to catch the train. Street art was very much still a theme in what we saw, but in the posher parts of town. We headed up Rua Augusta but veered off to the left, into the Chiado area of the city, where a lot of the buildings were very ritzy

and smartly decorated, both outside

and in

This was a pie shop. Well, a rather nice pastelaria, which featured top notch pastel de natas and perfectly decent coffee, so we partook whilst Carlos expanded somewhat on the fire of Chiado, a tragedy which happened exactly 38 years ago – August 25 1988. The fire started at a department store in Rua do Carmo and quickly spread, affecting a total of 18 buildings, of which 11 were full losses with structure collapse. The wooden furnishings in the buildings, and the contents, which included fabrics and gas bottles, contributed to the swift spread of the fire. In 1989 the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira was invited by the mayor of Lisbon to oversee the reconstruction project for the area, which was mostly completed by 1999. The exterior look of the buildings was restored, while the interiors needed, of course, to be completely rebuilt according to modern construction techniques and safety regulations. Some original frontages were saved,

and interiors are in some cases still being restored to their former finery;

overall the area still has a grand feel to it.

One particularly striking building is the Casa do Ferreira dos Tabuletas.

It was originally built in 1865 on part of the land once occupied by the 13th-century monastery of Convento da Trindade, by Manuel Moreira Garcia, a wealthy Gilician businessman and Freemason, after religious orders were dissolved in Portugal and the Convent building fell into disuse. The façade is famous for its 19th-century azulejo (ceramic tile) panels created by painter and azulejo artist Luis Ferreira (known as “O Ferreira das Tabuletas“- Ferreira of the panels), featuring allegorical figures representing Earth, Water, Science, and Industry, as well as mythological themes and ornate floral borders. Originally designed for mixed residential and commercial use, it remains one of the most celebrated examples of tile architecture in Lisbon.

Garcia converted another part of the Convent into a cervejaria (pub) which also has a very flamboyant display of azulejas.

Nearby is the Teatro da Trindade – whose name is again a reference to the Convento da Trindade.

A little further along the way was the church of São Roque, which was handsome enough without being distinctive on the outside but ridiculously opulent inside.

There are areas of very lavish tiling,

and the ceiling is remarkable.

What really stands out, though, is the opulence of the nine chapels surrounding the nave. One of them, the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, was mandated by King John V, who ruled as an absolute monarch, riding roughshod over normal political protocols, styled himself after Louis XIV and spent vast amounts of money on architectural projects and specifically this chapel,

which included 20% of the entire gold holdings of the country. He wanted the Pope to come and bless the chapel, but that was never going to happen, so he had it built in Rome, blessed there by the Pope, and then disassembled and reassembled here in Lisbon. No wonder he was unpopular.

Carlos then led us around the streets of Chiado and neighbouring Barrio Alto, showing us some of the street artwork to be found there, some larger scale

and some smaller.

Lisbon has a powerful reputation for its “tagging” (graffiti, to you and me) as well as its artworks, and there’s one slightly amusing point where a brand new building was erected with a sign forbidding graffiti

and right next door to it is the entrance to a theatre – who were happy to allow the artists full rein!

Chiado features a famous café, A Brasileira, one of the three oldest cafés in Lisbon.

Outside it there’s a statue of Fernando Pessoa, a well-known poet who was also a philosopher, playwright, essayist, translator, advertising executive, astrologer, inventor, businessman, commercial correspondent, literary critic, and political commentator – though poetry remained his first love. He was a frequent visitor to A Brasileira under his many heteronyms: Ricardo Reis, Álvaro de Campos, and Alberto Caeiro. The mosaic in the pavement is supposed to represent his long face, and the establishment, like many in this posh area, has its name in the pavement outside.

Inside, it reminds me very much of the Julien Restaurant in Paris – very belle epoque.

Another belle epoque frontage can be found down the street from A Brasileira.

It’s a gelateria now, but has retained the frontage that proclaimed its original purpose – ladies fashion. The whole area was crowded and buzzing, despite it being a Monday; you could tell how busy it was from the number of the taxi-cum-tour buggies parked up awaiting customers.

There are extraordinary numbers of these vehicles roaming the streets of Lisbon, most of them in golf buggy style, some built as replicas of old automobiles, some more like tuktuks. They have all cropped up in the last fifteen years or so, and have become so ubiquitous that the authorities stepped in to regulate them; they are all now electric and restricted to certain parking zones. There must be huge competition between them for business and some owners clearly try to mark theirs out from the norm.

We saw a few more artworks before we finished our time in Lisbon with Carlos.

One was particularly striking, being somewhat three-dimensional.

Even the station is a work of art,

and the artwork didn’t stop at the façade. Even the stairs were decorated

as were the walls by the platforms.

Mind you, the place has its prosaic moments, too.

And so we bade a (temporary) farewell to Lisbon and headed to Sintra on the train. We will be back, and may be able to fit in some more tourism, depending on schedules and weather. But I’ll end this post here and the next one will take up the thread as we arrived in Sintra for our short stay there.

Learning more about Lisbon

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Sunday 23 August 2026 – We had a date with Carlos, who would be our guide for a walking tour of Lisbon, at 10am, so we didn’t have to leap out of bed with too much alacrity. The hotel has a small restaurant for providing breakfast, and I’d nominated 0830 as the likely time of our arrival. It was a buffet breakfast, with many good things on it, which I largely ignored for a chorizo sandwich. The major disappointment with it was a complete lack of any Earl Grey tea we could snaffle to supplement our supplies, but we thought we might be able to find some in the shops; otherwise it was a decent and ample breakfast.

Since we had time spare before our date with Carlos, I took the opportunity to walk along to Rua Augusta to see if I could capture some of its charm, and particularly the very typical  Lisbon use of mosaics on the pedestrian areas, before it got all full of people again. One thing I remember very clearly from previous visits to Lisbon is the very charming use of black-and-white tiles to make patterns in the pavements.

These are evidence simultaneously of the effort that must have gone into laying them in the first place, and the lack of maintenance in recent times. Rua Augusta, though, notable as it is, is mosaically in a good place.

Since that put me near the Praça do Comércio again, I took the further opportunity to get some photos there, too.

We met Carlos at the hotel and immediately headed back towards the Praça do Comércio, which gave him the chance to explain some of the history behind what we were seeing. Had we arrived in 1756, the scene would have been one of utter devastation, since there had been a major earthquake (estimated at 7.7 magnitude and only some 40km to the south) on November 1, 1755. November 1 is All Saints Day, and many people were at church, leaving candles lit for the occasion – in wooden houses. So buildings fell and fires raged. As well, a tsunami hit, which completely wiped out the square we were standing on and all the buildings around it – 85% of Lisbon’s buildings were destroyed.

The king, Joseph 1, and his prime minister, the Marquis of Pombal, survived the earthquake and set about rebuilding the city. The buildings we see around the square today are this Pombaline legacy – architecturally simple and with an elegance directly influenced by Parisian architecture.  All the ruins behind the square were flattened and the streets rebuilt on a grid pattern. The yellow colour of the buildings denotes their original purpose of being government buildings. Other colours were used for other functions or in other quarters of the city, like this one.

Apparently, Praça do Comércio spent much of the 1990s as a car park!

Carlos then took us generally northwards, past the Elevador de Santa Justa

a wonderful structure designed by a pupil of Gustav Eiffel to address the very hilly nature of Lisbon, now sadly closed ever since a tragic accident with one of the city’s distinctive funiculars, which meant that they, and the elevador, had to be closed for “maintenance”, although it would appear that neglect was a major contributor to the disaster.

We continued northwards to another major square, the Praça Dom Pedro IV.

You can see old Peter the Fourth above the trees there. He was a Good King, having managed to achieve great things (recapturing Lisbon from his hated brother Miguel, establishing the monarchy as constitutional) before dying young. His statue

dominates the square, but Carlos told us a story that the statue might not actually be of Peter, but of Maximilian 1 of Mexico. The story goes that Italian statue makers had created a statue of Max, but he died so they offered it to Lisbon at a bargain price; it was mounted very high so that the people couldn’t see that it wasn’t actually Peter. A close up of the face

does show a visage resembling Max rather than Peter, it must be said.

Maximilian 1 of Mexico
Peter IV of Portugal

We continued northwards towards the Jewish and Moorish quarters, in doing so passing remnants of the old walls of the city,

and the ruins of the Carmo Convent,

a 14th-century Carmelite convent which fell into ruin during the 1755 earthquake.

We were heading into the more working class areas of Lisbon, and it showed;

it’s even more dilapidated than the downtown areas. Among the general downbeat air, though, can be found some of the decorative architectural flourishes typical of the city.

as well as hints about its topology.

The decorative tiling seen elsewhere can be seen here, too, particularly on the buildings in the better-off areas;

tiles are an excellent architectural tool, since they don’t fade like paintwork does, and also can be replaced piecemeal should some break or fall.

The Moorish areas are Mouraria and Alfama and are distinguished by, among other things, the narrow and labyrinthine street layout.

This is the area where the distinctively mournful musical style of Fado is widely said to have originated. The street above features street art depicting many of the most influential figures in the early 20th-century development of Fado.

Fernando Mauricio
Amália Rodrigues, whose skill established a female presence in Fado

These two, and others, are celebrated in artworks along this street,

and there are other artworks dedicated to the tradition, too.

Fado singing is traditionally accompanied by two guitars, one of which is a special Fado-style instrument
Detail of the Fado guitar

We started to see increasing amounts of street art in this area.

and Carlos led us up streets and staircases featuring a bewildering varety of art works.

Much of it sprang from a project to address mental health and community spirit.

and some of the work was of immensely high quality,

and some artists had contributed multiple images, like Gnomo (who painted the other chameleon, above).

The area where this street art can be found is called Graça, and the steps we climbed led to its church.

We looked in, but a service was under way, so we didn’t stay long.

Just outside the church is a splendid miradouro (viewpoint), giving a great view of the castle

and an overview of the city.

At the bottom of the picture you can see the one remaining functional funicular, the Graça funicular, which is more modern than the ones that are currently “in maintenance”, albeit run by the same company.

Around this area can be seen some larger-scale street artworks, many of which have the theme of female empowerment (a relatively recent concept in Portugal, it has to be said).

At this point the rain, which had been sporadic up to that point, became really heavy.

so we stopped in at a charming little coffee shop, Condes da Praia,

where we treated ourselves to some traditional Portuguese pastel de nata – delicious custard tarts before calling it a day and catching a cab back to the hotel.

Carlos had done a splendid job of showing us some of the parts of Lisbon we wouldn’t otherwise have seen, and we’re delighted to learn that he will also be our guide in Sintra, where we travel in a couple of days’ time.

We relaxed for a while back at the hotel until housekeeping ushered us out so they could tidy the room. Since by that stage the sun was beginning to shine through, we decided to see if we could get up to the top of the triumphal arch at the base of Rua Augusta so we headed that way. It was clear, from the aroma in the air, that the amount of rain we’d had during the thunderstorm was more than Lisbon’s drains were prepared to deal with.

The entry fee for the arch is €5 per head, and for this you get a lift ride almost all the way up, which is great. There are still 74 steps to complete the journey, but that’s a lot fewer than it might have been. And the view you get from the top is wonderful, even if the aroma from the street was still perceptible.

I had particularly wanted to be able to show the patterns of the mosaics along Rua Augusta, and this was the perfect viewpoint. I was very taken with the reflections of sunlight from the windows in this picture.

We also took the opportunity to look into the church near the hotel which has the fantastic façade we’d seen yesterday, the church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição Velha.

This picture makes it look quite plain, but it isn’t. The altar is quite something,

the ceiling is beautiful

and there are many carved figures around, some with very lifelike features.

They’ve also taken some of the guesswork (and the reliance on donations) out of setting candles.

We finished our wanderings at Pata Negra, a Portuguese Tapas and Steakhouse, which served us a very fine meal (and G&Ts!), before heading back to the hotel.

So, thanks to Carlos we’ve learned a lot about Lisbon that we didn’t know and seen a lot we probably would have missed. The weather prospects tomorrow morning are conducive to taking a late breakfast, but we can wander about a bit more during the afternoon. Who knows what we may stumble across? Check back soon to find out!