Frida Kahlo

We check out and head to the Tings hotel with our packs on our backs. It’s only a mile and a half away, but it’s on the top of one of Lisbon’s hills. There are some excruciating stairs to climb to get there (extra) and we’re tired and sweaty when we finally arrive at the amazing viewpoint.

They’ve upgraded us from the Garden Corner to the Green Lounge. At first I’m disappointed, but the new room is larger and lighter, although it is at the top of two step sets of stairs.

I’m speaking at the conference later in the afternoon, but there’s time to wander round this part of town and visit the monastery of Sao Vicente (extra) before jumping a bus back to the conference.

The session goes reasonably well. The biggest problem was the intermittent failure of the radio mic and the constant background hum of attendees continuing their conversations.

We’ve got a hour out so to kill before the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the museum of water, so we go grab a beer in a small bar. We wander up to Rato and into the gardens outside the museum. There’s a kiosk selling there where we get another couple of beers, sitting outside in the warm, damp evening surrounded by locals doing the same.

The exhibition is more like a set of animated installations and is really remarkable. There’s the mirror-walled room where visitors move around causing cascades of colourful flowers and skulls to be projected onto the floor wherever they walk.

Then there’s the VR room, where you don goggles and headphones and are immersed in a ten minute, 360 degree experience of music and flying and watermelons.

Finally there’s the reservoir room itself. There’s a 30 minute loop of whacky, Kahlo inspired, animated projections that cover every surface. Reflected in the water, you’re treated to an optical illusion of a huge, valued floor mirroring the actual huge, vaulted roof.

Exhausted, we head to a churruscaria by Rato for cod and sardines.