Bolger Family Travels: Tours by Locals. . .Marta

In recent years, we've enjoyed occasionally hiring a guide for a few hours walkabout. I rely on the website "Tours by Locals" as a good way to sort through the options.

I had booked Marta for a 2pm walking tour of Lisbon. We immediately hit it off with her. She did a great job taking us around the storied Alfama neighborhood, the Baixa neighborhood, and the Mouraria neighborhood.

We spent a bunch of time in the Pedro IV Square as Marta gave us some basic primers on Portuguese history. Other than Vasco de Gama, Magellan, Henry the Navigator, and a little about Salazar, neither of us knew much about the country's history. (By the way, Christiano Ronaldo is another famous person from Portugal, but that's current history).

The square itself has some beautiful fountains, an amazing wavy tile pattern, and oddly enough for October 28th, a huge Christmas fake tree (jumping the gun). We later saw Christmas decorations hanging from building to building across streets. Talk about Christmas creep. . .the earlier and earlier signs of Christmas. At least in America that is 100% commercial, such as toy sales at Wal-Mart and decorations for sale early in November at Home Depot.

Pedro IV Square. The tip of my umbrella

in the photo means it was raining.

Up close on the fountain

Christmas comes early.

Pedro IV stoically suffers

with a pigeon on his head.

After that, we walked over to the Church of Sao Domingos, which was a center of the Portuguese Inquisition. There is also a recent, simple monument to the Massacre of the Jews in 1506, that started there in the square. It was 14 years after the Spanish kicked the Jews out of Spain. Initially welcomed by the king of Portugal, the Portuguese people did not like having the Jews there and they were expelled in 1496.

Some stayed and tried to act like they had converted to blend in and stay in Portugal. In Sao Domingos in 1506, a Jewish man questioned the vision of a Christian woman in that church. Words were exchanged, the Jewish man was slaughtered, and then the mobs went after more.