Portuguese miscellany

Here I am sitting by the balcony of our rental place in Cornwall, listening to and watching the Atlantic coast beach, surf, and surfers while I wait to go to lunch, and so I am working on a final blog on Portugal - talk about after the fact!  About time to move on, so let me be done with Portugal, please.  What follows are some pictures of interesting things, or at least intriguing to me; most not tourist book material, just oddities,.... or odd thoughts.

Facilities just outside the Castle San Jorge in Lisbon.  The sign on the left shows it is a urinal (and the caricature illustrates, if you can't read, I guess) and on the right you can see it below and to the left of the illustrated sign - just a metal screen to conceal from about mid-thigh up and a trough that you can't see here (sorry, men only).

Below a doorknocker I especially liked.  I saw several similar elsewhere, but this one was in Cascais.

To the left is a picture of the carriage in which Portugal's King Carlos and his heir were killed by assassins while in Lisbon on February 1, 1908.  Below is a close-up showing bullet holes in the side of the door.  The carriage is on display in the National Coach Museum in Belem.

Below a couple of AIDS prevention posters (there were quite a few) on display at the Museu de Farmacia in Lisbon.  I thought the one on Carlos and his sleeping mate(s) habits was especially pointed and done so that young people might hear the message.  (SIDA = Sindrome da Imunodeficiencia Adquirida)

Below a window in the Chapel of Bones in Evora.  I don't get the church's preoccupation with skeletal remains. 

Below left, Nancy enjoying the equipment in a parque infantil just outside the Evora city walls.

Mickey D's in Porto; the eagle is a building logo - just serendipitous for McDonald's I guess.

Amor de Perdicao, near a bus stop in Porto - message here?

A cup of machine cappuccino, 0.35 euros, in Porto - not bad!

This pieta in Braga's Museu de Alberto Sampaio looks more like the Emperor Paldatine than Mary.

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It may look like Jesus, but it is a Roman floor mosaic of Oceana.  The guy is not wearing a crown of thorns - those are crabs' legs sticking out of his head.  From the Museu Arquelogico, an ex-convento in Faro.

And this may not look like Jesus, but it is.  Usually Jesus is shown with a pretty good six-pack, but in this flagellation painting from the Museu Arquelogico in Faro he looks a little bit paunchy.

More church bones, cherubs with human skeletal parts - the main Se (cathedral) in Faro.

Below, the sign shows we are now leaving the town of Casais - common signage in Portugal.

Why not "Parar" or "Alto" - who's country is this?  Street sign in Sagres.

A picture of these was in an earlier blog, but doesn't this seem like a really cool (and more challenging) version of go-karts?  Outisde Sagres.