{"id":844,"date":"2015-04-28T16:55:50","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T16:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=844"},"modified":"2016-08-21T02:00:28","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T02:00:28","slug":"bela-lisboa-day-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=844","title":{"rendered":"Bela Lisboa, Day Five"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, April 23<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listening to an audiobook as I roam around is a big part of my experience.\u00a0 It’s the way I cope with long weeks of silence, the kind that comes with not knowing the language. Writing scratches the itch I have to communicate beyond ‘I want to buy ten stamps, please,’ but I also want to hear English. Intelligent, lively, thoughtful English. Joanna Bourne’s http:\/\/www.joannabourne.com\/<\/a> books are excellent for this\u00a0since she’s as much adventure as romance, it takes place on the peninsula, and the audiobook reader is superb.<\/p>\n

Today my destination was Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga,<\/strong> in no small part because they have a major Bosch triptych, The Temptation of St Anthony<\/em>.\"\"<\/a>Think back to my experience of viewing the Bosch in Madrid \u2013 vying with the crowd for more than a glimpse. Not here. People came in twos and threes, and in between I sat before it, alone. Examining a painting this complex and rich, with time to view each detail and then step back and see it as a whole, is a genuine luxury.<\/p>\n

A few details;\"pig<\/a><\/p>\n

\"red\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"B<\/a>After an hour, I drifted through the other rooms, soaking in the peacefulness of art viewed without jostle. That\u2019s not an unmixed blessing; these storehouses of treasures need supporting, and seeing the other patrons was like looking in a mirror \u2013 definitely senior and preponderantly female.\u00a0 I winced a little bit, not because of aging, per se, but because I belong to an identifiable type; formerly fierce, once-upon-a-time outrageous women, now earnest, harmless, and gray-haired. Grandmotherly with an artistic bent.<\/p>\n

Several works caught my eye, despite feeling somewhat over-saturated in religiosity. This Tiepolo is not only vigorous and lively, it’s a way of imagining the Flight into Egypt that doesn’t feature dirt roads, sand, or donkeys.<\/p>\n

\"tiepolo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This Salome looks properly ambitious and cold-blooded, instead of the decadent slut she is too often portrayed. She’d make a credible Lady MacBeth, too.<\/p>\n

\"salome\"<\/a>Finally, this Mary looked like a virgin teen mother, still a child herself, instead of simpering or featureless as an egg.\"virgin\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was struck by a large painting of animals crossing a ford, in particular, a shaggy white goat. Took pleasure in doing a little drawing. I used sienna and umber cont\u00e9 crayons and a little white chalk.<\/p>\n

Stumbled over a little exhibition devoted to red chalk drawings. Nice.<\/p>\n

\"red<\/a>Had lunch on the terrace overlooking the mighty river Tagus.<\/p>\n

\"lunch\"<\/a>Pigeons are aggressive. I saw a dozen pigeons converge on a tray someone left on a table. They went all Animal Planet, like vultures fighting over a carcass.<\/p>\n

Back inside and upstairs to look at work by Portuguese painters. This view of hell is much grimmer and less hallucinatory than Bosch. Good for a month of nightmares.<\/p>\n

\"hell\"<\/a>The day had flown by. Ready for some gelato, I headed towards the Santini\u2019s I’d visited on day one. After I\u2019d walked fifteen minutes, I paused to look inside the Mercado da Ribeira<\/strong>, Lisbon’s sleek indoor food market. Behold, I spy an outpost of the very same Santini\u2019s. I ordered a chocolate, caramel and coconut combo\u00a0if you must know. Worth every calorie.<\/p>\n

Ubered back to the B&B and slept in peace, which I don’t take for granted and truly appreciate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, April 23 Listening to an audiobook as I roam around is a big part of my experience.\u00a0 It’s the way I cope with long weeks of silence, the kind that comes with not knowing the language. Writing scratches the itch I have to communicate beyond ‘I want to buy ten stamps, please,’ but I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[20,137],"tags":[166,165],"class_list":{"0":"post-844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lisbon","8":"category-short-trips","9":"tag-bosch","10":"tag-museu-nacional-de-arte-antiga-museum","11":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lunch.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7OBxc-dC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=844"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2225,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions\/2225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}