Busking with style, Lisbon

Teatro Eden, Lisbon

I have a love for Art Nouveau and Art Deco and was thrilled to find this beautiful old theater in the centre of Lisbon.
This was one of Lisbon’s major cinema/theatre buildings. It was built in 1931 in the main city square Praca dos Restauradores.
Across the top of the huge facade is a stone frieze depicting stylized actors performing before a film crew and cameras.

 On the ground floor there was an arcade of shops and the theatre was reached by a series of stairways which led onto the first floor where the actual theatre entrance was located.
Sadly this magnificent cinema closed in 1989 and lay unused for many years. It was used as a location in the Wim Wenders movie “Until the End of the World” (1991).
In 2001 it was converted into a 134 room apartment hotel known as the Orion Eden Hotel.  The rooms are apparently ‘pie-shaped’ to fit inside the former auditorium space.
So now you know where I want to stay next time I go to Lisbon.

These are close-ups of the motif at the top, going from left to right. This is the far left..

Here's the design at the center.

The far right.

Pasteis de Belem, Lisbon

Everyone warned me about the delicious custard tarts in Lisbon; "They're wonderful, you'll want to eat too many!" Did I heed the warnings? Hell no.

Here's one man making a batch.

The famous bakery in Belem, it's been there since 1837. There are queues outside every day.

This is just one of the rooms inside. Every table is full and there are more queues for the next available table.  And yes, the tarts really ARE that good.

As we left I noticed there were now 2 people making the tarts; I didn't think I ate THAT many!

Graffiti in Lisbon

Saw some excellent graffiti- like on the side of  this funicular...

...and on this bin ....

These ruins had been decorated with some really good art work.

But the best was by a Fado club (the one above and the two below). I think they're outstanding.

Modern tiles from the Tile Museum, Lisbon

Lisbon- the Tile Museum

Above and below are some examples of the traditional blue tiles from Portugal.

Lucky kids were getting an art lesson in the beautiful surroundings of the Tile Museum. How come school wasn't like this when I was there?!

This woman is restoring old tiles. It looked like painstaking work- and look at the stack she still has to work on (behind her). That's what I call 'job security'.

This family were quietly drawing the beautiful, intricate designs.

The tiles above and below are from the 1500's.

There were a lot of modern tiles too, and I'll show them in the next post.