Further Afield (a corner of a foreign one)

One of the places we have always wanted to visit is the English Cemetery. This is a rather lovely green space in the Estella area. It is only open on certain days and closes early so we needed an early start to get there on the Metro. Luckily the weather continued fine and sunny.

I suppose some may consider a cemetery a bit morbid but I have always found them interesting, This particular plot is know as the English cemetery as being protestants we were not able to be buried in Portuguese churches. Of course other nationality's are represented.

There are also a few war graves, immaculately kept as we have come to expect worldwide.

It is a peaceful and restful space and in a peculiar way does in fact feel English, signs are in English, there are privets and obviously the residents are invariably from the grey isles.......

Of course some of the exceptions are very interesting characters............
As the place closes early in the afternoon we decided to walk to the terminus of our favourite tram, the 28. This is at Prazeres, or the "Pleasures" in Portugese. How nice would that be?

 On the way is a fairly modern church in a square which Lynne was keen to visit as there is a market there, its the building in the background of the photo. It turned out to be nothing special so we wandered towards the tram stop looking for somewhere we could have lunch.

I have no idea what a pedibus is but would love to know...... we found a small cafe for lunch just outside yet another cemetery, This was actually the Prazare or Pleasures, a strange name for a graveyard. The cemetery was formed after an epidemic forced the authority's to  abandon the usual practise of burial within chuches due simply to numbers.

It is very extensive and follows normal practise of above ground internment in small mausoleums.

We visited the small chapel in the centre of the grounds which had a small exhibition of photographs about the death and funeral of the last King.

The chapel itself is very plain for a Portuguese place of worship but was non the less very attractive.

While we were visiting a series of youth military groups came to parade and have a small ceremony commemorating a General whose tomb was in the cemetery. It was the trumpet playing that had drawn our attention to the cemetery in the first place.

There also was a small coterie of veterans in attendance.

Some of the mausoleums are incredibly elaborate.

Lynne still finds the whole thing rather creepy!
One of the more unusual was this marble workbench, obviously commemorating a woodworker.

If you look closely the detail is amazing there are tools scattered on the bench and the workmanship is superb.

Overlooking the river and the Suspension bridge is the firemans cemetery. You can see Christo Rei on the horizon.

We were well off the tourist track but once we had jumped on a number 28 it rattled us back to the centre of Lisbon where we got off at the plaza Commercio before catching a bus home.

You can tell its January because Lynne has her coat on!