After a day or so of returning to Lisbon we decided to attack the tourist heights literally and visit the castle of saint George. On the way uphill we passed an artists outdoor installation.
We had already figured out the Metro stop we needed but hadn't actually worked out how to find the entrance to the restored Moorish castle. luckily we found a very helpful security guard who gave us a beautifully illustrated, hand drawn, map. Unfortunately it was in Portuguese, which meant it was virtually useless.....they are masters of obfuscation.
I offer the map itself below, the small "L" shaped object, right of centre is the whole castle, beyond that it is, a mystery .
Non the less up is always up, so up was where we went and after going through some colourful neighbourhoods we eventually arrived at the entrance to the old ( or fairly recently restored castle)
This is the Porta de San Jorge, and just through the entrance portal was a statue of the man himself. St George, patron Saint of England, either a Turk or Greek he was a roman soldier who refused to renounce Christianity and was beheaded. I believe the naming of the castle comes from the first Anglo Portuguese alliance. The small plaque however referes to st George as the "Protector of Portugal", another mystery?
After paying our entrance fee we walked onto the large terrace on the western side of the castle walls.
The views over the city are worth the money alone and we decided to eat a picnic lunch while overlooking the view of the old town, the Tagus and the 25 April bridge.
This is a fantastic spot from which to view the city. It is easy to see why the moors built a castle here originally, there are steep defendable heights to the north and the castle is built on a rock base that would be difficult to undermine.
Nonetheless after resisting armies and assaults it succumbed to the great earthquake of 1775 and after numerous rebuilds, it was largely a military base before being rebuilt and restored during 1938-40 under the fascist Salazar regime. Hence the present imposing structure is in fact a reconstruction.
The Castle is visible from almost anywhere in the city of Lisbon, so it is almost incumbent to pay it a visit, and the views are certainly worthwhile in fact one of the best views is from the Torre do Haver (Tower of Riches ) so called because of the fact it was the treasury. It has another name the tumbling tower due to it being the archive of records and they would tumble "tombo" into it. Today it houses a Camera Obscura.
There can be seen a real time image of the city below projected on a circular hemispherical table. the periscope and lens housing can be seen in the photo below.
Another notable feature of the grounds, apart from the two delightful American ladies we got chatting to, are Peacocks. They can occasionally fly, or should I say plummet from the trees giving you a bit of a surprise. I for one had no idea they could plummet.
There is also an extensive area of archeological digs that are only available to view as part of a timed tour, we didn't have time to wait so had to miss out.
During the reconstruction levels were unearthed going back beyond the moors and Romans to stone age times. a good defensive site has always been valuable it seems.
We walked around the battlements
and eventually found the small museum.
This is housed in the "Palace tower" and houses a lot of artefacts unearthed during the reconstruction.
It is very well presented, most of the artefacts having Portuguese/English information displayed.
There is a lot of Roman and Phoenician artifacts which tell the story of Lisbon as a major trading centre predating a lot of cities including London.
Later in the afternoon we had a few minutes to contemplate the view over the river Tagus before heading down the hill and back home. For a minute or two in my minds eye I could see the Phoenician trading vessels and the Roman war galleys, the Carracks and Caravels of the Great age of exploration, the royal naval ships of the line supplying Wellington and the Peninsular campaign. The river had seen them all. The Castle may be a reconstruction but it was, as far as I could ascertain, accurate and sympathetic. Now if only the Portuguese could be persuaded to signpost it!
In comparison to some of the places we had walked around the Castelo San Jorge was basically a reconstruction of what once was and in some respects less than overwhelming, but the views are fabulous and with a little imagination the missing pieces will fall into place. It is also the only place that Lynne and I have sat on cork furniture (as above )
Or pretend to fire a 17th century canon (as below)
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