Even on the best of vacations, sometimes rain must fall. Or at least is predicted to fall; we were supposed to get heavy rains and winds, starting sometime between 10:00 and 11:00. So, we decided today would be a good museum day. We started with a late breakfast, and finished up well after 10:00, and we were thrilled at the sunny skies – we would not have to get soaked walking to the museum. Off we went to escape the coming torrents, to our refuge – the Gulbenkian Museum.

The Gulbenkian Museum was founded from the collection of a wealthy Armenian who was granted refuge in Portugal during World War 2. When he died, he left his impressive and eclectic art collection to Lisbon as a thank you. The collection includes ceramics, textiles (mostly rugs), wood work, sculpture, paintings, furniture, and more, spanning ancient Egyptian art, Islamic art. Chinese art, European art, and others. Many of the pieces were obscure to me, but he had several sculptures by Rodin, and some paintings by Monet, Manet, Degas, and Renoir, and an entire room of paintings of Venice by Guardi.

I loved the European art, especially the religious art. There was a wooden statue of Mary that was very moving – she was old and sad, and this was not a modern statue (I think it was from 1700 or so). I also liked a huge tapestry called something like “The Children’s Dance,” in which a bunch of Cupid-like children were dancing. And then you notice that one of the ones up in a tree had inverted a quiver of arrows, and the arrows had fallen on a dancing child, who was now looking unhappy and bleeding. Odd.

I loved the Rodin sculptures. Mer laughed at one called Sister and Brother, in which two siblings were cozy – she said it was just like me and my sister. Next to it were two lovers kissing passionately, and I said that was just like us. Mer saw that it was called Early Springtime and remarked that we were more of Early Autumn. Touche.

There was a special exhibit called “Beyond the Mirror” which explored the mirror in art. It was interesting, showing how the mirror was portrayed in early art, and then later was used as the subject of art itself. So we had exhibits where the focus was on the reflection of someone, or we had art that incorporated real mirrors. It was well laid out, and it was a thoughtful theme to trace in art.

We got done with the Gulbenkian around 1:30, and came out to cloudy but dry skies. We wanted to go to a couple of museums back out in Belem (out by the monastery), so we had to take the subway to the train station. When we emerged at the train station, it had rained, but was only sprinkling, and so it was in Belem as well. We walked the ten minutes to the Museu Colecao Berardo, a modern art collection spanning (roughly) from 1900 to today.

I am not the biggest modern art fan, but I like early modern art and religious modern art. This museum had no religious art, but a solid collection of early modern art. It also had three fourths of the school-aged population of Lisbon there, but we managed to avoid them, on the whole. About half the collection was from recent modern art, which usually makes me mad. It did so again today. I think I finally figured out why. Art should point to truth, and modern art rejects the idea that there is truth, or even that art should have a point. So, in the end, it mocks real art that does point to truth. And that makes me angry. I also get a bit ticked off when art that I could have easily made with no training ends up framed in a museum. At any rate, I was no big fan of the second half of the museum, although I still found a couple of pieces I liked for the color or pattern.

After a rest stop at a cafe, we made our soaking and windy way over across the street to the National Archaeology Museum, which is a small museum in the long wing of the monastery. They had three small exhibits – one on an excavated area of Portugal, covering from the stone age through the Romans; one on Egypt; and one on Roman artifacts dealing with death and the gods. It was well laid out, and the Portuguese exhibit even had some artifacts you could touch, but I was getting a bit tired and hungry. Three museums in one day were a pretty good haul. We made our really wet and windy way back to the train, to have the rain stop for the day when we got to the station. Twenty minutes of being in the rain was not bad for a day forecast to have it all day long.

Back in Lisbon, we had a traditional Thanksgiving meal at an Italian restaurant with pizza and steak. Dubbs said we should all say some things we were thankful for, which was a good idea on Thanksgiving. After sharing a few things each (including family, friends, health, good living, good jobs), we ate well. That made me feel much better, so that I was happy to go to the shopping street to see if the Christmas lights were on yet. They weren’t. We comforted ourselves with dessert, and I began to think about bed.

Then Mer said she wanted to do the Trolley #12 tour. #12 runs a small circular path around the main part of downtown Lisbon, and even though it covered some of the same ground we had already done, it had some new areas too. Off we went. It was amazing how well it tied together areas we had come at in a roundabout way, or had popped up in from the metro. We did the whole track in about twenty minutes, getting off at a small market in a square, where we browsed and bought a few things. Then it really was back on the metro and back home for the evening. And the forecast has the rain ending by 10:00 tomorrow morning. Back to outside touring we go!