Lisbon is absolutely beautiful. All the houses are white stucco with red roofs, and many of the buildings have tile work all the way up and down the walls, almost like some sort of wallpaper. The city has massive plazas with plenty of open space, the shops are fun, and the ocean is along the whole length of the city. We got a walking tour to get oriented.
If you're wondering, yes, the uniforms on those students do look a lot like Hogwarts robes. Apparently JK Rowling was married to a Portuguese man, and took lots of the inspiration for some parts of Harry Potter from the places and people in Portugal. The culture of Hogwarts university and the robes are inspired by a university in Lisbon.
We also made it to a fun little castle, and while we just had a short amount of time there, it was a really great view.
That night we got a great presentation on the history and culture of Portugal and its transformation from dictatorship to democracy. (Portugal had a dictatorship even longer than the Franco regime in Spain). It was really interesting to see how quickly Portugal has modernized and become a free country.
Afterwards we had an extremely fancy, and delicious, dinner.
Did I miss the student robes? I can't find anything that looks like Hogwarts in your photos.
ReplyDeleteYou can see them in the first picture a little bit- they were doing an initiation party for the freshman where they have to get into the fountain and chant the fight song.
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