A Lisbon photo story by a flying Dutchman!: Lisbon a collapsing museum

It must be 12 years ago, that I visited Portugal for the first time. I stayed here almost a year and I liked the country, the temperature, the nature, the old architecture, the people, the music etc., etc., very much. I stayed mostly in Lisbon and in the Algarve (Tavira). It was in the time before the Euro, in Portugal they had still the escudo and we in Holland the Gulden, (Florin). It was a good combination those two old currencies, those were the ‘golden’ times.
It took me 5 years before I visited Portugal again and now I stay every year at least half a year. I’m now not an tourist anymore because everything is not new anymore, I talk with my Portuguese friends about a lot off things and see the country more from the inside, although still with Dutch eyes as well.
It is unbelievable how many things changed after my first visit. Not only because that Europe ‘stupidity’, that we have in Holland as well. The Euro is not made for the people who don’t have a lot of money and Portugal is one of the poorest countries of Western Europe. But what the politicians do with there country is for me unbelievable. Okee, to make a long story short, I live like a happy watching walker with a critical eye and mind wherever I am. “I think it could be paradise and should be paradise, but is not pffffh…..”
I got 3 years ago a digital camera and started to take photos from the things I saw. I took many photos and am now going to open up my archives to give you an idea from this country. I will add some comment or whatever to give you even more ideas and feelings in Dutch English so that more people can read it. My Portuguese is not good enough for philosophy or poetry or storytelling and I think Dutch is for a to small group. Oh yeah I got my camera 3 years ago so it has only four mega pixels which was in that time good but technology…… But okay it is about the story behind the photos so I think these photos will do.

My favourite Dutch Poet Slauerhof came al lot of times during the thirty’s of the last century in Lisbon when he was travelling the seven seas as a doctor on a ship. He was charmed by the sadness of Lisbon, the saudade of the Fado and the decay and glory of the past. I wonder what he would think about Lisbon now. Not about the new modern and postmodern building but about the growing decay of buildings and ruins. And these buildings are the attraction for many visitors. Would they come as allmost all of the old Lisbon has become new. Ant that is what going on, because the owners of these buildings don’t care about there past heritage and esthetics. They have rather money and when there buildings fall down they will earn much more money by building new ones than by repairing the old. I think that is an inaccurate and and a rseaon for care because who is not caring about their own past…………..Her a lot of photo’s as a witness for my little story about the Collapsing of a Museum!