Up the hills, down the hills, across the water, cod croquettes, Ginjinha and Porto.
All the major museums are closed here on Mondays so we went
to the second string objectives – the Castelo São Jorge and the Sé Cathedral,
both way “up there” in the Alfama district.
Not wanting to walk, we decided to do the whole tourism bit
and ride the famous 28E tram. It had a stop right around the block from our
place, so after acquiring our daily New York Times, we went and got in line. When
it arrived, it was already “standing room only” so we shoved our way in and braced
ourselves as it climbed the hill up to the castle.
It wasn’t a fun ride - hot, crowded and tough to brace yourself
against the incline. It stopped about 200 feet from the entrance to the castle,
so we huffed our way up and at the top decided to just get some photos and head
back down to the cathedral. On the way we passed one of Lisbon’s newest
museums, the Teatro Romana. Closed unfortunately, we were at least able to peer
though the fencing at the actual excavation site, a 2000-person theater from
the 1st century AD.
The walk down from the castle through the old Jewish Quarter
was pleasant. Tree-lined streets, tile-fronted buildings, nice views out across
the city every once and a while
The Sé is a large on the outside, modest on the inside
church. As big as many in Spain, but not nearly as lavish or ostentatious. Just
a quiet, dimly lit reflective church. Built in 1147 on the site of the city mosque,
it is undergoing a very elaborate renovation project that will highlight the
various uses of the site, from Roman to Christian to Muslim and back to
Christian. I had been looking forward to seeing some of the Roman excavations
but unfortunately that area is currently closed.
Heading down we went in the direction of the Casa dos Bicos.
Known as the “House of Points” due to its pointy exterior, it is a 16th
century home built by Dom Brás de Albuquerque in the style of a house he saw in
Ferrara, Italy. In addition to the unique façade, it is also built into part of
the original city wall, and it incorporates unique elements of both Gothic and
Manueline architecture. The latter is unique to Portugal and named for Dom
Manuel I, the king who made Portugal rich by way of the spice trade. The style
often includes references to navigation and maps.
We ate a nice takeout lunch of an assortment of pizzas from
a place we found just around the block from our apartment. After a bit of
downtime, we headed off to the waterfront to catch a harbor cruise. These are
often a lot of fun, offering a completely different perspective of the place.
The guy running the ticket kiosk was a genuine character, a friendly
hard-seller and a Breaking Bad fan. We had a nice talk about the series and its
production in Albuquerque.
The Yellow Boat cruise is owned by the same company that
runs the trams and the buses. It cruises along the waterfront from the Praça de
Comércio to Belem, about 5 miles down the coast. Depending on what you want to
do, you can cruise down, spend 2 hours and come back or just cruise down, sit
on the boat and return. It turned out to be a wonderful afternoon, giving us
great views of the 25-April Bridge (comparable to our Golden Gate, and built by
the company that built the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge) it recognizes and is named
for the 1974 “Carnation Revolution” that brought an end to 48 years of authoritarian
rule in Portugal. We passed by the Monument to the Discoveries depicting
Portugal’s place in the Golden Age of Discovery - it celebrates the 500th
anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator, and we saw the Torre de Belem.
Built by Manuel I in 1514, it was the launching point for many of the explorers
who went out to establish the trade routes for Portugal. We turned around after
discharging a few people and picking up some others. On the way back we got to
watch some children from the BMW Sailing School learning how to sail tiny little
boats, often it seemed ending up in the drink.
After the cruise, we decided to do something different and
took the subway up to the fancier part of town. What a difference - no
tourists, many fancy shops, a beautiful park running down the middle of Libertad
Boulevard. Much like the Paseo del Prado in Madrid, the Champs in Paris, or
Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona, this is where the well-heeled citizens go about
their lives. As we continued down towards Praça de Rossio, it changed. First
more regular people, then the hordes of tourists.
For dinner we made it simple, Pastels de Bacalao from a funny
little place on Rua Augusta. The pastel is a cheese-filled Cod croquette and you
order one of those and a small glass of wine for 4€. A nice change from a more
formal eating arrangement.
Having some daylight left, we continued up Augusta and
crossed over to Praça da Figueira thinking tonight we might be able to drop in
at their outdoor market. Much like Madrid’s Mercado San Miguel, it was crushing
on the weekend nights. Tonight was better – at least you could move. We each
had a glass of wine sold by a producer from Porto. I went back later for a shot
of Ginjinha, the cherry liqueur I had
tried here a few nights ago. This version was much heavier on the cherry
compared to my first sample. And considering I was now on a tour of the
alcoholic beverages of Portugal, I went back to the Port vintners and tried a
sample of their 10-year old “white” Port. It was exceptional.
It being vacation, the night cannot be complete without some
local dessert. Tonight, it was Pampilho
again, that stuffed phyllo dough tube. Tonight, one chocolate and one crema,
and shockingly, the crema version was actually better!
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