Street Art in Sesimbra

After the weather we’ve been having recently I’ve decided I need some sun on here, and unless the weather turns as predicted, let’s face it looking at holiday photos is the only way I’ll get some sun. So today we’re heading back to Sesimbra, which is just outside Lisbon for a look at some amazing street art. At first I didn’t notice them as art, but as we walked past more and more obvious pieces despite the heat we retraced our steps to capture some of those we’d overlooked to start with.

The character of the man in the one above, and its unassuming ‘canvas’ is outstanding. It doesn’t matter what the words mean, to me at least.

We passed fishermen parallel to the beach, which couldn’t be mistaken for graffiti.

The polaroids were also quite unexpected.

And that’s before we saw the whale, which was opposite our hotel and somehow we’d missed as we left the hotel.

But look more closely - yes that’s a gap partway down the body. I told you they were something special didn’t I?

But I couldn’t let a post of a Portuguese town go by without a tile or two - or even a couple of doorways which caught my attention with all their faded glory.

Sigh. We’re not planning to travel abroad this year, but hopefully when things are a little less unusual we’ll be planning a trip somewhere fantastic.

A garden by the beach

We’re virtually travelling again in this post, this time to Sesimbra just outside Lisbon. We visited in July last year, and like many other things it feels such a long time ago. We’d had a few days in Lisbon before starting a walk from Sesimbra, but while we were there we explored a bit. There was a suggested walk up what looked a very steep hill, so instead we messed around on the beach, took some photos with the ‘town letters’ - that’s for another post though, and stumbled across a garden by the beach. And with sculptures too.

I think after a pretty grey week here I needed that burst of colour. I remember at the time I couldn’t quite get over the the vibrancy of them. And that was even before I spotted the unusually shaped, white building.

Looking back towards the beach the orderliness amused me, only now looking at these again am I reminded of the decorative posts at the top of Hunstanton’s cliffs. More uniform, but not as artistic though.

And with sand.

You can feel the warmth in the picture below, can’t you?

And isn’t it great!

We left the beach wandering through a zig-zag path. Only when we were at the top did we spot the statues, neither of us were very sure about them.

But the views, they’re something special and took our breath away. And won’t it be nice to be able to travel again properly, whenever that is?

Azulejos, hand painted tiles

Well, when in Portugal and you get the chance to visit a tile factory where they hand paint azulejos, of course the answer is yes. Especially when it’s just over the road from your hotel, which was how it happened on our walking holiday in Portugal last June.

And by factory, I don’t mean large and automated. Think more of a place for specialist crafts to take place, though they did have a shop and I was very tempted by the tile above, for no more reason than I liked it.

The ‘factory’ was among residential streets, where we returned later for dinner in a local restaurant, and was set away from the main part of the town. Both made us feel incredibly welcome, with our own tour of the workshop and an explanation of the process, which hasn’t changed vastly, as you’d expect with a traditional craft.

The designs created here, are all hand painted, and are stunning. They create the traditional designs, as well as modern designs and take in custom commissions from across the world for private and commercial customers.

On our visit we were encouraged to watch the tiles being painted, and it was great to see. The detail, and process was fascinating and we were shown every stage of the process by our hosts.

Who’d have thought that we’d have the chance to see such beautiful tiles being created? Certainly not me, but I’m so glad we did. We almost didn’t as we’d been out all day and on our feet again, but it was definitely worth it.