OK, after making what was a regional travel digression, we now return to the trip to Spain and Portugal that my wife Mary Pat Treuthart and I took in late May. We pick up at the point where we had left Sevilla and flown to Portugal’s capital city, Lisbon (Lisboa in Portuguese).

First, though, a bit of history. On the morning of Nov. 1, 1755, a major earthquake hit the Iberian Peninsula, affecting parts of Spain, North Africa and most of Portugal. It nearly leveled Lisbon, though the post-quake fires and tsunamis contributed mightily to the damage and loss of life. As many as 30,000 people are thought to have died in the disaster.

The quake changed a number of things in Lisbon, mainly – as one online article that I found makes clear – through the efforts of a man named Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo. Known as the Marquis de Pombal, de Carvalho served Portugal’s King Dom José I as the country’s Minister of State. And it was he who refashioned Lisbon to fit the modern age.

As the article states, through Pombal’s efforts, “The Lisbon that arose after the earthquake displayed modern thinking about seismology, architecture, and disaster planning.”

The debate endures about whether the city is prepared enough to handle another such natural disaster, which geographical scientists says is bound to occur (something that those of us living in the Pacific Northwest should expect, too). But it’s far better prepared than were the residents of two and a half centuries ago. And at least for now, those visiting it can enjoy one of Europe’s more scenic capital centers.

(By the way, Lisbon offers the opportunity to experience that historic day in 1755 through its “immersive museum,” Quake, the Lisbon Earthquake Center.)

We’d arrived in Lisbon after catching an 8 a.m. flight out of Sevilla, which – praised the heavens – went off without problems. As the trip took no longer than a Spokane-to-Seattle flight, we arrived far too early to check into our hotel, the Lisboa Carmo Hotel, which sits just adjacent to a famous plaza.

As photographs displayed in the hotel lobby indicate, Portugal’s 1975 Carnation Revolution, in which a democratic movement ended up taking control from what had been decades of dictatorial rule, experienced a well-documented and ultimately peaceful meeting between members of the Portuguese army and demonstrators.

We walked past that same plaza, down the city’s steeply sloped streets, after dropping off our bags. Trying to get a feel for the local area, we walked past the Livraria Bertrand – reputed to be the world’s oldest still-operating bookstore – and ended up having lunch at the Fauna & Flora café (the bagel sandwiches were, as my friend Leslie Kelly would say, yummy).

Before we returned to the hotel, we walked to a tree-lined overlook called the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara, which boasts a panoramic view of the city beyond. We sat for a while, enjoying the scenery and people-watching – many of the other visitors came equipped with children – before a guy with an electric guitar broke the peace by setting up and playing his version of pop tunes.

We quickly exited but then took advantage of the overlook’s nearness to ride the Elevador da Glória, one of the city’s three funiculars. Dating to 1885, and electrified in 1915, the cable car is a welcome alternative to having to make by foot the steep climb between the overlook and the street several blocks below. A ticket is good for a round trip, which affords riders not one by two opportunities to see the array of graffiti that street artists (some call them vandals) have painted on the adjacent buildings.

Later, after finally being able to check into our room, we met up with our friends and travel partners Ann and Matt – also from Spokane – who had just flown in. We served as their guides, first taking them down the hill to the street-side Café A Brasileira for coffee and pastries. Then we made a mandatory – yes, mandatory – stop back at Livraria Bertrand where we all conducted what I consider to be compulsory purchases (my motto: never leave a bookstore empty-handed).

That left us the matter of finding someplace to eat dinner. Mary Pat managed to snare a table at Bairro do Avillez, which is ranked on some websites among Lisbon’s top-rated restaurants. The place was busy, but we had no problem making it past the bar crowd and into the large interior dining room. We were hungry, so take that into consideration when I say that the food was definitely filling … though, sorry, I could have done without the standup-comic style of our server Davide.

On our walk back to the hotel, we stopped at one of the many small bodegas (lojas in Portuguese) that can be found on pretty much any corner in Europe. Bottled water and sodas in tow, we headed to bed, dreams of Portuguese democracy dancing in what I imagined was our collective head.

Next up: Getting around Lisbon.