More Abandoned bits of Portugal

version

Well-known member
How do you keep finding these bizarre places? There seem to be a ton of them in Portugal. I'm sure if you went wandering around Britain, you'd just find abandoned barns, schools etc which look much less interesting.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
We went to that town cos we were gonna visit Obidos which is a picturesque old place but too small to entertain one for a whole weekend. Some of our friends went to uni in this place which is nearby and they recommended the thermal hotel.... and said it was famous for ceramic dicks.
Nobody mentioned this bizarre statue in the centre of a roundabout which kinda welcomes you to town... I mean, seriously, what is going on here?

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Seems to be a possessed woman floating in ecstasy but enmeshed in a wire pentagram which is set to garrotte her
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
are all these good abandon bits unique to Portugal or is this a european thing?
Weve got abandon parts states side but seemingly not as robust as what youve been post
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
How do you keep finding these bizarre places? There seem to be a ton of them in Portugal. I'm sure if you went wandering around Britain, you'd just find abandoned barns, schools etc which look much less interesting.
Thinking about this, I reckon there are a lot of odd places but it often takes an outsider's eye to point out the peculiarity of that thing you walk past every day.
 

catalog

Well-known member
That monument on the roundabout looks like an anti witch statue to me, she's being broken on the wheel.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
That monument on the roundabout looks like an anti witch statue to me, she's being broken on the wheel.
Yeah it says witchcraft and/or satanism to me. Unless... this town and nearby Obidos are associated with queens of Portugal, maybe the wires are supposed to be invisible and it is a queen ascending in religious ecstasy.
Our friend tells us it's referred to as the 'hanged girl' though so...
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
are all these good abandon bits unique to Portugal or is this a european thing?
Weve got abandon parts states side but seemingly not as robust as what youve been post
Definitely not unique to Portugal... I reckon most if not all of Europe has at least some similar bits, though of course some more than others. I bet there are loads of fascinating overgrown castles and so on in Hungary, Romania etc etc
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Thinking about this, I reckon there are a lot of odd places but it often takes an outsider's eye to point out the peculiarity of that thing you walk past every day.
Perfect example is that creepy statue - we drove past it several times with no-one paying any attention to it at all and I resolved to take a picture before I left. So today I parked nearby and we walked up and crossed to the middle and took a picture... and some local walking by saw us and obviously thought "oh yeah, that is a bit odd" and then walked there too and took his own picture. Classic case of "monkey see monkey do".
 

catalog

Well-known member
Her book 'The Interior Castle' sounds pretty Blakean.

"The work was inspired by her vision of the soul as a diamond in the shape of a castle containing seven mansions, which she interpreted as the journey of faith through seven stages, ending with union with God."

Christianity provided a good set of parameters within which people could work. Solid cosmogony.

Now we've got global capitalism, the weirdos struggle more to get their own system going.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Gone to our friend's gig, had to walk through an abandoned station on the way...

Oh, I can't upload from my phone, you will have to take my word for it.

Barreiro is an interesting little town, it's right across the water from Lisbon but it's midway between the bridges so it's actually quite far by road. There is a ferry but obviously it's just that bit different to get to and as a result it kinda reminds me of Hackney before the overground stations, very central but because you had to get a bus there, it required a bit of planning and to non-Londoners who relied on the tube it was invisible.

So it's nearby but cheap rent and a few people seem to have moved there lately, there is an art collective or something who put on a HUGE event in an abandoned factory with like fifty rooms of art and several soundsystems and bands.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
OK, someone has informed me now, it's the levitating saint, Saint Teresa da Avila.
That'll be the Saint Teresa who experienced a definitely-not-in-the-least-bit-sexual ecstasy while being pierced by the big, throbbing, veiny shaft of Our Lord's love:

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Reminds me of the bit in Infinite Jest where Joelle (the P.G.O.A.T.) tries to kill herself with a massive crack overdose.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
are all these good abandon bits unique to Portugal or is this a european thing?
Weve got abandon parts states side but seemingly not as robust as what youve been post
i always have the same impression in the US. especially compared to the UK there's abandoned stuff everywhere. even in places i'd never expect, like collapsing houses close to the center of Miami for example. notice all this stuff upstate new york, vermont and so on. baltimore was kind of unbelievable for that stuff. i remember wandering around philly in about 2013 and coming across more abandoned housing than i'd ever seen anywhere else. detroit obviously but that's a bit exceptional. i'm just listing places i've seen it.

really rare to find abandoned buildings in southern uk. i guess it's all too valuable. bits and pieces here and there but there's not much.
 
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