Top tourist attraction Lisbon: bronze sculpture famous poet Pessoa & history

The bronze sculpture in Lisbon of Portugal’s famous writer and poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) is extremely popular.

Lisbon cafe A Brasileira tourist attraction statue Fernando Pessoa

Sculpture of famous poet Fernando Pessoa, kissed by a young girl, almost 80 years after his death!   🙁

Top tourist attraction

Famous cafe ‘A Brasileira’  ‘s terrace in Lisbon (Rua Garrett 120) is a real tourist attraction. Poet Fernando Pessoa once was a regular customer. His table in bronze was created by Lagoa Henriques.

Pessoa statue Rua Garett A Brasileira9

Famous old cafe ‘A Brasileira’  (‘The Brazilian’, opened in 1905) Lisbon, Rua Garrett

Who was poet and writer Fernando Pessoa?

Pessoa was largely unknown in Portugal until after his death in 1935. The man has no idea he’s mobbed by lots of tourists nowadays, all day long!

Lisbon Pessoa statue Rua Garrett & friend Hans

Sculpture poet Fernando Pessoa Lisbon & Dutch admirer Hans

‘The best way to travel is to feel’ Pessoa wrote, ‘so feel everything in every possible way.’ Pessoa was born in Lisbon in 1888.

Apart from his high school years which he spent with his mother and half brothers in South Africa, he lived in Lisbon without a break, without taking public holidays, without traveling abroad. He did so with the help of heteronyms, inventing many lives (and cities) out of his own, spent between the Chiado area, where he lived.

Restaurant Martinho da Arcada table Pessoa famous Portuguese writer

Quality Restaurant Martinho da Arcade, Lisbon.

Restaurant Martinho da Arcade Lisbon & Pessoa’s table

Portugal’s famous poet and writer Pessoa spent a lot of his time in cafes (like Cafe Martinho da Arcada, where he wrote and drank a lot . He died in 1935, aged 47.

Pessoa’s table is still there…

Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa

Casa (house) Fernando Pessoa, Rua Coelho da Rocha, 16, Campo de Ourique.

Open from Monday – Saturday 10:00-18:00.

Pessoa drawing Travessa do Sequeiro

Drawing Fernando Pessoa, Travessa do Sequiero Lisbon

“Acordar”, poem by Álvaro de Campos, one of Fernando Pessoa’s various ‘heteronyms’ (imaginary characters).

“Acordar da cidade de Lisboa mais tarde do que as outras
Acordar da Rua do Ouro
Acordar do Rossio, as portas dos cafés
Acordar…..
E no meio de tudo a gare, que nunca dorme
Como um coração que tem que pulsar através de vigilia e do sono”

“The waking up of Lisbon, later than other cities
The waking up of Rua do Ouro
The waking up of Rossio Square, at the doors of its cafes
Waking up…..
And in the middle of it all the train station, which never rests
Like a heart that has to beat in both waking and sleeping hours”

Pessoa drawing Rua 1 Dezembro Lisbon

Rua Primeiro de Dezembro, April 2009

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