Lisbon Feb 5-10

 Feb 10 2024

Our return to Lisbon was easy except for the 0630 wake up which was required for the early morning flight.  PDL is an easy airport, surprisingly busy for early morning until you realize that there are fourteen flights between 7 am and 9 am, most to other islands of the Azores and three to mainland Portugal. Check-in and security were a breeze and we settled in for a coffee and a Pastel de Nata for our one-hour wait. The gates are all a matter of walking to the plane - not jet bridges - reminding us of early days in Germany and Washington State, all very civil and well organized.  The flight lasted two hours and we landed on time and were at the apartment/hotel we booked by 13:30. Surprisingly our apartment was ready which was a thrill. Not so thrilling was the fact that it was on the third floor (US 4th floor) when we had been promised one on the first floor. They have no elevator!!  We settled in, went for a walk, had a quick light lunch and a lovely nap before meeting our friends for a pre-dinner walk around Lisbon.

We have never stayed in this part of Lisbon before and therefore we really don’t know much about restaurants so we decided to just amble down the pedestrian street that is lined with restaurants in order to read menus. Impossible!! Each restaurant has a shill outside who approaches you with a picture menu asking do you want to sit inside or outside, or special price for you, or come sit for a drink and read our menu. Impossible to look at any menu without being assaulted so we decided not to eat on this street. We finally found a place where no one came out trying to lure the farm boys in and ate a very decent meal there. Since then we have found other places that have magnificent food, wines and service so we are happy campers.

The weather was nice on Wednesday and since our friends had never been to Lisbon, we climbed onto the Hop On/ Hop Off bus for a tour with headphones. We have found these buses to be an invaluable aid to understanding a city and its history and culture. We have always been happy with the ‘guided’ tours and so we were a tad dismayed at how this one played out. It started well and we had great seats and the narration was very good; it filled in lots of blanks that we had and we have been here often. The trouble started when the bus came to the stop for the Museum of Coaches. We got up and the bus lurched forward and started on to the next stop. Cindy went down the narrow stairs and berated the driver for not stopping. He said if you wanted to stop you should have pressed the Stop button. NO such button existed where we sat. We did notice them on the next several busses but not on ours. We got off at the next stop and walked back to the Museum which, as the link shows, remarkable.

After our visit to the museum we walked out to the bus stop and one bus had just departed so we had been told that the next one would be in twenty five minutes. We poked around a bit in the gardens and after about fifteen minutes we noticed that another bus had come and gone; it seems they do not stop there! As we walked to the next stop we passed one of the famous bakeries that make the Pastel da Nata so I popped in to buy two of them for our friends to try. I am now officially an enabler! These things are habit forming and they are the first things we buy as soon as we arrive in Portugal(while still in the airport before retrieving our luggage).   We finally got on the bus for the fifteen minute ride to the Tower of Belem where we spent a most enjoyable time walking along the river and enjoying the day. On the ride back to our starting point there was almost no narration despite passing lovely monuments, castles and gardens. We will not use this bus company again, preferring to stick with the Big Red Bus.

Yesterday we visited the National Tile Museum. It was pouring rain so we were pleased to take an Uber to this museum and spend two dry hours just wandering around, most interesting.  Cindy had the great idea to go to another museum and for once I agreed. This one was the Museum of Beer!  I’ve never enjoyed a museum more than this one, although to be perfectly clear, we failed to go to the Museum part, instead favoring the food and beverage part for two hours. Other than the beer, which was great, they feature Pastel do Bacalhau a national dish that is well made and presented here.  Walked home in a pouring rain storm and settled in for a long nap.

Portugese food is lovely, but after a certain time cod, potatoes and pumpkin just don’t cut it. We found a lovely restaurant that had the best eggplant dish ever as well as special twists on seafood that gave us a welcome diversion from traditional foods.  The next night we decided on Italian and found an Italian restaurant in Portugal run by Napalese!  How is that for international? Magnificent food, service, and wines - and ever so inexpensive. A lovely way to end our time in Portugal.  Now it is on to France for a four day fix of foie gras, Kirs and Champagne.