Today I was meant to be in Sydney, but instead I am at home in Doha with nowhere to go and time on my hands due to a certain pesky virus. So it’s time to do some catching up on my oft-neglected blog. In February this year we travelled to Portugal for a fun week exploring Lisbon and Porto. We spent 3 days in Porto, and then 3 in Lisbon – not nearly long enough, but isn’t that always the way?

We flew into  Lisbon early in the morning, and headed via metro and train to Porto. But first we visited what has been called one of the world’s longest art galleries – the Lisbon metro system. Every station on the 4 lines of the Lisbon metro is decorated with tiles in different styles, genres and themes. The airport metro station was the first one we visited and possibly my favourite. Throughout the station are fun caricatures of famous Portuguese artists, scientists, musicians and writers. I loved the style of the figures, and I had fun researching who these people were.

Cassiano Branco, Portuguese architect. He is one of the most important architects of the first half of the 20th century in Portugal.

Fernando Lopes-Graça, was a Portuguese composer, conductor and musicologist.

Leopoldo de Almeida, sculptor (He designed the sculptures on the Monument to the Discoveries) and José de Almada Negreiros, artist.

Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral who achieved the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic in 1922.

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen was a Portuguese poet.

Júlio Artur da Silva Pomar, was a Portuguese painter and visual artist. He was often considered the greatest Portuguese painter of his generation. Luís Maria da Costa de Freitas Branco, Portuguese composer, musicologist, and professor of music, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Portuguese abstract painter.

Maria João Pires, Classical pianist

Over the course of the week we passed through several different stations, and enjoyed the art in each one. I was secretly hoping for a rainy day so we could spend hours underground stopping off at all the stations. Here are a few others we spotted – you can see how varied and attractive they are. By the way, if it looks like the stations were deserted, that’s because I put considerable effort into getting photos of the walls without any people in the way. Possibly too much effort!

This large panel was commissioned to honour the Brazilian president’s visit for the 500th anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of Brazil in 2000.