Those in-between days in Lisbon

Through the years, one of the best investments we have always made is to plan a day away from where we’re moving from (i.e. Antwerp, Belgium or Malmö, Sweden) before we hop back into life where we’re moving to (i.e. Chicago or Minneapolis for home assignment).  It’s always been good to just land somewhere, after all the packing and cleaning involved with a departure (oh yeah, and add the emotions on top of that!), and just "be".

 

This time, though, after a super busy 7+ months in the US, we decided that since we didn’t get enough quality time off for vacation, we would consider a place to “land” before we landed back in Malmö.  And joy of all joys ~ the cheapest airfare from Chicago back to Sweden was via Lisbon, Portugal.  And it included 2 free suitcases!  And we were allowed to take up to 5 days visiting Lisbon and then could continue on our journey, without getting penalized for an interruption in our flight.  So we booked our flights, then booked our personal vacation B&B, and landed back in Lisbon.  Not being our first trip to this fascinating city, we felt like we were revisiting a place that had meant a lot during a cold, dark winter season in our early years in Belgium.  And we just plain needed a place to land so that we could jetlag well before we landed and hit the ground running in Malmö again.

 

Enjoy these reflections on what were some of the most restful days that we’ve had in a long season….despite the jetlag and one suitcase not arriving until the day before our continuing journey to Sweden.  The video is the B&B where we landed....we were convinced that God had provided the exact place we needed to just "be" when we opened the door and only heard birds and the playful street conversations going on below our window.

 

 

Steve....always on a hunt for a good cup of coffee and bread.  We called this the "wall of bread" café!

 

It felt so good to land and walk.  We're happy because the sun is out....but oh wow, were we ever tired!

 

 

Ever the nomads and checking out the mosaics tiles

 

Getting in our steps!

 

 

We called this one the "Pink Street"

 

 

Knowing that we were soon landing during cold, wet, dark winter in Sweden, we literally stopped our walk and just stood there and leaned against the wall of this bakery to enjoy the sunshine!

 

Steve on the tram ~ it's so old, creaky, yet so delightful to experience!

 

Mosaics ~ it's what Lisbon, and Portugal, are famous for!

And more mosaics....

And more mosaics...

Love that there is often something related to religion and pious behavior involved in a mosaic tile....wonder what story is being told here?

How did they do this hundreds of years ago?

These colors just pop out of this mosaic!

Notice how all the faces of the killers have been wiped out on this tile

Perhaps my most favorite tile ~ mostly because of its' imperfection and randomness of the two brown tiles that really don't fit into the scene being depicted in the tile...it gives one pause to consider how that is a lot like life...imperfect, random...

Care to guess what animal this is?  In any case, he's got a really sweet face!

Okay, so candles in church is a common thing in Sweden....but the Portguese take it up one step and prioritize fire safety with this model

And then this happened.....stayed tuned!