Today was a day to get the last of our Christmas shopping done. Despite being a predominately Roman Catholic country Christmas seems a little more low key than in Australia. Again the emphasis seems to be more about people than stuff, more about family than feasting. The Christian population of Lisbon has not always been able to celebrate however.

The tower in the photo above is actually part of the Lisbon Cathedral that we visited today. It was designed as a fortress, a refuge for locals when an attack by Islamic Moors was imminent. The doors are massive steel numbers and the aisles were built wide enough for cavalry. The first Bishop in the  12th century had ‘English Knight and Holy Land Crusader’ on his CV.  The building survived the 1755 earthquake, only to be swamped minutes later by the consequent tsunami. At least the tsunami put out some of the raging fires.

The meal tomorrow? We bought a chicken at the local market from an old lady called Celeste – she survived the Moorish invasions and the earthquake and has been selling chooks for 987 years at Mercardo Arriois.  Part of our meal came from a more recent invader – a Spanish supermarket chain. Linda has baked a cake, Catrina has decorated the Christmas pot-plant (a step up from the Christmas Chair of previous Yuletide celebrations) and Maryanne is making sure we have enough to drink.

I’d best let you all go, I have presents to wrap and place under the pot-plant

F C-S

Scary Santa