LISBON: ARCHITECTURAL DETAIL AND PUBLIC ART

My wife and I just returned from a two-week small-group tour of Portugal and southern Spain, where I took many--probably too many--photos (more than 1500 of which I have retained over 500).  The tour began in Lisbon, wandered across central Portugal and southern Spain, and ended in Madrid.  We stayed in charming central city hotels in both Lisbon and Madrid but in between stayed in small towns, lodging in older, restored, historical facilities, including a 15th century monks' convent and a 14th century Arab fortress.  We had a great time.

[This is the first of a series of posts on the trip that I intend to put on this blog over the next few weeks.  My plan is to organize the posts primarily in order of chronology and geography.]

As stated, we spent the first leg of our tour in Lisbon, the oldest city in Western Europe.  The city was devastated by an earthquake in 1755 and has largely been rebuilt since then, with much of the architecture stemming from the 18th and 19th centuries.  But the maze of narrow streets in many of the neighborhoods remain probably from the Roman era or before.  

I enjoy focussing on architectural details and public art, and both abound in the city.  Following are some of the images I took.

One of the amazing things one notices is that the pedestrian ways on the major boulevards consist of patterned mosaic stones (something, by the way, that would never last through the frost heaves of a Midwestern winter).  Yes, the leaves were turning.

I loved the ornate details of many of the building facades.

The city also had a large and eclectic collection of public art, one of my favorite photographic subjects.  Here is a sampling.

And I guess the following, on the facade of a more modern building that I caught as we were riding by, belongs in the same category.

Much more to follow.

John