Photo Essay: Unique animals featured on Portuguese tiles
Travel to any town or city in Portugal and you’ll come across some amazing azulejos - hand-painted tiles featuring anything from religious scenes to battles, rural life to iconic buildings, royalty to peasants. Bearing in mind that many of the blue paintings were done in the 18th and 19th century, perhaps it’s understandable that they aren’t all artistically accurate. At least not when it comes to painting animals.
Here are a few unique animals I found on the walls of the famous Antiga Confeitaria de Belém café in Lisbon.
Take a close look at any of the azulejos you see as you travel around Portugal and you’ll find plenty of other amusing and unique animals.
Have you got a favourite among these unique azulejo animals? Please leave a comment and let me know which one.
You can find more uniqueness at the Weekly Photo Challenge.
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You found all these in one place! Great!
Yes, the waiters must have thought I was mad, crouching down to take all these pictures while trying not to get in their way.
Quite a few of them look like combinations of two or three animals! They remind me of the early, black and white Disney characters.
I see what you mean about the cartoon-like appearance. Ever since I first spotted one of these weird animal combos, I’ve kept an eye out for them as they never fail to make me chuckle.
[...] Portuguese word for blue is azul, which explains why Portugal’s famous painted tiles are known as azulejos. Azulejos exist in other colours but a quick glance around any town will [...]
The rabbit duck is my favorite. This is a great take on the theme!
Thanks! I’m torn between the rabbit duck and the lion monkey myself