Lisbon: Anything can happen....

When you are in a same place for a longer time, you start to look away 

from the touristic highlights. There are the unexpected small things

 in the streets. Unexpected things that happen

Surprising, funny, strange...... 

A lot of people try to earn money by doing "something" like playing music,
singing, dancing, pretending to be a statue......

But then there is this pair of "lazy beggars". They have their own webside. 

Take a picture for 278 euro... (sorry, I didn't see it....). 

They even tell you how they intend to spend the money. Obviously liquid assets.

"Pelo menos sincero"..... At least straight!

Except f course for the Lazy Beggars everyone has to work. This small dog carries the plastic container to put the money in for its master. 

A giant soap bell passes over the street.....

And here is a cow sticking her head through a window. How nice he has a scarf to keep warm.



Now don't get your head in this cloud. It might be a small thundercloud according to the colour. It is made of what I would call Brillo pads; these iron scrub sponges to clean dirty pans. Already getting a bit rusty.



This bronze man has his head literally in a book. OK, it is Fernando Pessoa, the great poet. He was born here in the house of this lovely orange cow (completely inside the window).

Waiting for you in front of A Brasileira, he invites you to take the seat next to him....

You are not his first companion. The chair is extremely polished.

After some interesting discussion and a few glasses of good Portuguese wine, anything can happen.

Did I see someone flying through the air near the statue of Dom Pedro IV.......???

Tulips from the Gulbenkian Museum

When in Lisbon the Gulbenkian Museum is a must. Calouste Gulbenkian (1869 – 1955) was a British entrepreneur of Armenian origin. All his life he collected a wide range of art objects. Ceramics, ancient Egyptian art, paintings, furniture…. 

At first (part of) his collection was kept in his house in Paris. But when the Germans invaded France he fled to Vichy with the French Government. Later in 1942 he went on to Portugal. For a long time it was not sure where the collection would be housed. Some of it was in the British Museum,. Later on part went to National Gallery of Art in Washington.  

Finally 14 years after his death the unique fact happened that a museum was especially built to house a collection. The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum opened in 1969.

All sorts of art object to be seen in the museum. Here I would like to show some of the Iznik pottery from the 16^th century that shows tulips. Under the patronage of the Ottoman court the Iznik pottery “flowered”. After the Persian city of Tabriz was captured by Sultan Selim I, he brought local artists from Tabriz over to Iznik to work in the ceramic industry.

During the 16^th century colours were added to the initially Blue-White porcelain. First turquoise, later pastel shades of sage green and pale purple. In the middle of the century a typical red (bole red) replaced the purple and the sage green became emerald.

In Iznik of today they still produce tiles with the beautiful floral patterns.

Read more about the town of Iznik and Iznik tiles

Read more about the collection