Sometimes it brings one enormous comfort to know that humans are the same the world over.

Waiting to catch a bus from Lisbon to Obidos I realised the urine smell here is exactly the same as the urine smell in the Toowoomba Bus Exchange.

Actually, to be honest Remington, it’s not comforting at all….

We have spent the last couple of days wandering around Lisbon. Yesterday we spent time in the Gulbenkian Museum- just wonderful. Calouste Gulbenkian was an Armenian born in 1869 in Constantinople. His family moved to London to avoid the first Ottoman genocide of Armenians (good plan) and they became British citizens. Calouste finshed uni and became interested in oil, just as the world was becoming interested in oil. He almost single-handedly set up the oil trade between Iraq, Iran and the West and became one of the World’s wealthiest humans. Almost all of his money went to his charitable foundation and his art collection.

His private collection ranges from early Egypt to the Impressionists with examples from different periods in between. No human now has sufficient money to set up such a trove. The most recent Ming vase with an imperial seal to be sold at auction went for for £33 million, his museum has 12 with the seal – it also has a large number of pieces from each of the other major dynasties. He has an extensive collection of Impessionist paintings and Dutch Masters. His collection of priceless Ottoman carpets is considered to be the best in the world, as is his collection of coins. All in all it was much better than the stuff Pop stored under our house.

Today for us it was wandering around the Alfama District – the part of Lisbon that was always the oldest and the poorest. Archaeologists think it may be the second oldest permanently inhabited site on mainland Europe. Some of the shops today were stone-age, as were the manners of the man who made my (nudging dangerous) coffee. Alfama was the district Moors and Jews settled in the 10th century, it somehow survived the earthquake and tsunami but was always the gritty end of town. It became the home of Fado, wine bars and muggings. With gentrification it is now the home of Fado, wine bars and pick-pockets.

And I was able to pay my respects to some of the greats in Portuguese history and culture at the National Pantheon. Vasco and the other great explorers are there (their boats were smaller than the Sydney to Hobart winner and their SatNav systems had more than a few gaps and flaws), as is Infant Henri the Navigator, along with the nation’s major poets and authors. I’m sure there is a place reserved for Ronaldo. The building, initially intended as a church, took 300yrs to complete – (our builder in Toowoomba was slow, but not 12 generations slow).

The great paradox of travel is that the more familiar a place becomes the more there is that you want to see. Sometimes a weekend can feel too long in one place, sometimes a lifetime is not time enough. Lisbon is a lifetime city. Even its history throws up questions. For example a couple of days spent exploring, wandering and wondering have led me to think that there must have been an easier way for Vasco to get his cinnamon and pepper. Plus I bet he didn’t know where Rosewood is – or the best way to get there from Toowoomba.

Farley the Explorer