Bem-Vindo

I went to Lisbon last week to see my friend Julius, who was there for a meeting. Lisbon has: statues which would make the Bohemian Grove crowd jealous;

one (or more) marketing executives with a certain genius for the strategic deployment of English;


a cheery Italian who, perhaps out of desperation, took his son to feed the pigeons at seven thirty am;

an overpowering scent of lilac;

the amazing Jeronimos Monastery, which contains the tombs of Fernando Pessoa, Ricardo Reis, Álvaro de Campos and a number of other poets;


inappropriate decorations (actually, this is from Faro, on the seven-hour bus journey home - at 25º, it seems a little mocking);

a sense of irony - this closed-down, bricked-up building has a plaque proclaiming it the Higher Technical Institute of Economics;

graffiti which cheered up Julius (from Tübingen);

architecture;

lobsters;

Sèvres porcelain

and one excellent museum.