Over the hills, under the moon - and off the beaten path

This morning, I crawled through muddy, dark Roman-era tunnels below Lisbon.  The tunnels were carved during the reign of Emperor Augustus, and for centuries, they directed underground rainwater while empires above rose and fell. Eventually, they were sealed off and forgotten - to be rediscovered completely by chance during the rebuilding after the 1755 earthquake, which turned most of Lisbon into rubble. Today, the crypts are normally completely filled with groundwater, but they are pumped dry on just a couple of days each year, where only a few visitors are allowed access.   Today, I was among the lucky few.  The only entry to the below is through a narrow temporary shaft in the middle of the busy Rua da Conceição, right between the rails of the 28 tram line. The stairs leading down felt steep and risky, and when I finally reached the galleries, a few lights illuminated the void that had stood in total darkness for more than a Millenium. Some passages were s...

Someone told us about LXFactory, and we decided to go and see what the fuss was about. The place is in the Alcantara district, in what used to be the largest spinning mill in Portugal; 23.000 square meters of brick and iron, built in the nineteenth century, abandoned when the work went elsewhere, and then taken over some years ago by the kind of young entrepreneurs who look at an abandoned industrial ruin and see a food court. This is not a criticism. The food court is excellent. We found it by following the sound of people enjoying themselves down the Rua Rodrigues de Faria, and ended up in a courtyard full of mismatched chairs and tables, where someone was selling very good pizza from a kiosk and the 25 de Abril Bridge was visible at the end of the street, doing its best impression of the Golden Gate. Inside the warehouses, which still have their original bones, the high ceilings, the iron columns, the general feeling of a place that once did serious work, there are now stalls ...

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 righ...