Everywhere we went in the old city of Lisbon, we could see the Castelo de São Jorge on the hillside. We used it as an orientation point as we navigated the twisting streets.
On our first day, one of our first adventures was visiting it. How could we not? It demanded curiosity.
The castle grounds start with an architecturally modern plaza, filled with statues and great views of the city. It was beautiful, but at first, i was a little concerned—had the castle been renovated beyond recognition?
I shouldn’t have worried—as soon as we went up some stairs and through an arcade, it was as medieval as anyone could desire.
There even was a medieval (I think?) play going on in the courtyard! It was in Portguese, so I don’t know for sure what it was. Structurally, it looked like a morality play, with an angel figure and a devil figure vying for the attention (and souls?) of several different humans. One innovation that I could imagine stealing was that they had these little step ladders that they moved around to put themselves a little above the crowd, allowing them to be seen without having to construct a stage. They moved through the crowd and shifted people seamlessly to reshape and reorient their playing space.
One thing that surprised me about the castle was how green it was inside. Most of my prior castle experience was in the UK, and those castles are acres of bleak stone. This castle had trees growing within the walls, moss, even a small garden. I learned later that this is probably the Moorish influence—Lisbon was originally a kasbah, a Moorish walled city, and when we were in Morocco, the kasbah we visited had an amazing garden.
They even had peacocks in the trees! They added a touch of magic (and freakiness—I had forgotten how weird their calls are!).
There’s also a staircase to nowhere. I haven’t been able to figure out what the deal is with it. The kids charged down it, and I went after them, shouting, “What goes down must come up!” Maybe they were too jetlagged to think about the consequences of their actions…
I hadn’t anticipated what an incredible experience it would be for me to see my children and JC entering an actual, real-life thirteenth-century castle for the first time. They all love fantasy literature and role playing games. Big Ren Faire people. Witnessing them actually entering and experiencing the kind of space that they had previously only imagined blew me away. JC couldn’t stop grinning. The kids ran up and down the worn stone stairs and crowded each other to peer through arrow slits.
They even got to see their first oubliette (which, as everyone said, implies the existence of a larger and more terrifying oublie).
And to think, our adventures were only beginning…(we were soooo tired)
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