Lisbon - Day 2 - Belem and already overwhelmed

My hotel provides breakfast. The room has long tables and we all eat together, helping ourselves from the fruit, yogurt, cerials, custard tarts, rice muffins, various loaves and rolls, eggs, cheese, cold meat, fresh squeezed orange juice and a coffee machine to make lattes etc. No pictures as it was too cramped and I was self conscious. It was actually a bit too intense for me, that many people, in close quarters, before I had even had a coffee.
I walked a block and bought a 4 day pass on the Gray Line Hop on Hop off buses. There are 3 different companies and I chose this one because it had a route to an outlying village that I thought would give me a bit of a break from the city.

Up a tree lined street

round a square (they all have columns with statues and/or fountains)

and through a neighbourhood where it was difficult to tell where the murals ended

and the graffiti started.

Through some high end areas too.

Round Campo Pequeno, the Lisbon Bullring and Events Centre. Built in 1892 and renovated with a retractable roof in 2000. Portuguese bulls are not killed as part of the spectacle, they are wrestled to the ground. The guidebook does point out that most of them are so injured that they are usually put down afterwards anyway.

Down an avenue lined with trees in blossom.

Animals painted on the underpass pillars

near the zoo.

A pastel neighbourhood

and another.

Along the river, a series of squares,

another market,

more wall art,

under the bridge and into the area that I was interested in seeing, Belem.

Everyone on the top deck of the bus trying to get a picture of Monosteiro Dos Jeronimus (I didn't get off and will have to come back to tour this site)

I will also have to come back to see the Museum of Coaches, Maritime Museum  and the couple of art galleries that are in this area. Already overwhelmed and I have just done one of the 4 routes offered by the bus company.

I got off the bus here, at the Torre De Belem. When it was built in 1520 it would have been in the centre of the Rio Tejo but the earthquake of 1755 shifted the course of the river and it now stands near the bank.

I read a travel blog that said that there wasn't much to see inside,

but a great view from the top.

It wasn't an option anyway, as it was closed.

So I sat and sketched and just enjoyed the sun and the location.

From the tower I walked downriver past a marina,

and a lighthouse

to my next destination, Padrao Dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries). You had to be careful walking here as there were a lot of people using this flat area to try out the speed of the various electric assisted bikes and scooters they had rented.

Built in 1960 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of  Henry the Navigator. It just asks to be photographed.

I got back on the bus, knowing I would be back again to see everything else Belem had to offer.

I was trying to get the reflection of one building in the windows of another, when a plane flew by.

I got off the bus at the square near my hotel, Placa dos Restauradores, named after the restoration of the city after the earthquake.