Lisbon: Crumbling Warehouses and Crispy Sardines

Yesterday we walked along Lisbon's shores. It was a trip of big contrasts, from direct decay to real delight. 

We started the day out by walking past the crumbling warehouses and empty factories at Cais do Ginjal. By the evening, we were eating golden sardines and moist monkfish at Ponto Finale. Lisbon really gives you these weird mixtures. 

Cais do Ginjal is the waterfront just across the river. It used to be thrumming with life and workers, but now it stands totally empty. It is a relic from Portugal’s industrial days, slowly succumbing to rust and weather. 

Wandering past locked warehouses with peeling paint and cracked glass, you can almost hear the ghosts of ships being loaded many years ago. It makes you think.

Wildflowers sprouted straight out of the bricks that have been worn down by salt air. There was graffiti everywhere across the bad walls, like someone was trying to claim back these forgotten buildings.

In one warehouse, a whole wall had collapsed right down. It showed all the rusty pipes inside. The jagged hole looked like a gap-toothed grin, as if the building was chuckling at how broken it was. It's a bit funny but also sad. 

We went inside through a side door that was hanging loose off the hinges. Broken glass crunched under our shoes as we walked around the dark interior. It was now a place for pigeons, and their cooing echoed around.

In a way, these old warehouses wore their decay beautifully. They had a haunting, melancholic dignity.

The sun streamed through broken window panes to light up the dust. Rust bloomed on the old machinery like orange flowers. Even while collapsing, the buildings showed a kind of artful imperfection. They are striking monuments to the cycles of building things and watching them erode, the glory and the decline. It really hit you how nothing stays the same.

After thinking about these monuments to impermanence, we walked out to Ponto Finale. It is way out at the far end of the ruins, quite remote, but everyone wants to eat there.

We sat right out there in the bright sun and had the fried sardines and monkfish. The food was so fresh.

The glittering Tagus river was right in front of us. It was a complete counterpoint to when we were crawling around inside those dark, abandoned spaces.

It was so lovely just sitting there with the sun hitting the water and people talking quietly around us. The sardines were perfectly crisp on the skin, but tender inside. It shows how good simple food can be when they know what they are doing.

A black and white dog came over and sat by my chair, just watching me eat. My shirt actually got a small oil spot on it from the fish.

 

We stayed there a long time until the sun went down.