A Trip to Portugal (page 3 of 11)
Day Two – Lisbon
Day two started with breakfast at the hotel. Every place we stayed provided breakfast with the room, and all of the breakfasts were similar. Coffee and bread with butter and jam. Some had meats and cheese to go with the bread, some had juice, but I mostly stuck to coffee and bread with jam. The coffee was uniformly awesome (more on coffee later) and the bread was much better than what you’d expect from a cheap American motel. Not a lot of food if you’re used to big breakfasts, but it was perfect for me.
We decided that day to have a better waterfront experience. Belem, a part of Lisbon to the west of where we were, seemed like the perfect place to do it. We walked down to the turismo by our hotel to find out the best way to get there. We continued along the same streets as yesterday to the waterfront to catch the tram to Belem. All the guide books we read made a big deal about this tram, but it seemed like a pretty normal bus-like experience to me. Anyway, the tram took fifteen minutes to get us to Belem, and deposited us near the Jerónimos Monastery.
The monestary is a good example of Mauneline architecture, which is like Gothic architecture but with a lot more decorative flourishes. Unfortunately, I know
diddly about architecture. That, however, did not stop me from enjoying this beautiful building. We wandered around the church for a while and then paid for admittance to the cloister, both of which were amazing. Every column was filled with details. Every walkway had arches overhead. There was so much to look at it was almost overwhelming. When we were finished, we left the monestary and went down by the water to see the other sites in the area.
Next up was the Monument of Discoveries. It’s very pretty, but nothing special. Worth seeing for the sculpture and the huge compass rose, but that’s it. We didn’t go inside, but we did sit by the water for a while watching the traffic on the river. We walked over to the Torre de Belem, which is really beautiful. We did go inside this and climbed
all the way up the tiny spiral staircase to the top. More great views of the river.
After all of this, we were ready for lunch. All of the guidebooks said that the Portugese treat lunch as the main meal of the day, having a lavish three-course meal with wine, etc. As much as I’m a fan of observing local customs, Edie and I fell in to a different routine for a number of reasons. We’re not used to eating huge lunches, and we frankly didn’t want to take out a huge chunk of prime daylight hours for a meal. Fortunately, almost every cafe in Portugal served between-meal snacks that were perfect for lunch. Specifically, toasted ham and cheese sandwiches (called tosta mista everywhere) were widely available. I ate either that or a regular ham and cheese sandwich almost every day. We picked up a sandwich and some sodas from a snack bar behind the main restaurant by the tower. There was a woman sitting near us who insisted on speaking to the waiter/busboy in Italian. They seemed to communicate okay.
Before catching the tram back we stopped at a pastelaria that was recommended by Fodor’s as being one of the best in Lisbon. We had a coffee and a “pastry of Belem”. They might’ve been built up too much, but I was underwhelmed. The pastry is like a small cheesecake (I found it very similar to the queijadas in Sintra), but with a texture more like a custard and much less rich. Not bad, but not fantastic. The coffee, on the other hand, was truly amazing. Every cafe we went to in Portugal had an espresso machine and fresh ground beans. In Portugal, um cafe is a shot of espresso served with a package of sugar and a little spoon, usually costing around fifty cents. I don’t know what they do differently over there, but I didn’t have one bad cup of coffee while in Portugal. It was uniformly smoother, toastier, and less bitter than any espresso I’ve had, and I used to live in Seattle. My only complaint is that I wish the servings were bigger.
We took the tram back to the waterfront by our hotel, and then decided to head to the other end of town to see the Oriente station and the European Expo grounds that are next to it. We went to the turismo for directions, hopped on a bus, and headed out. Oriente was completely different from anything we’d seen so far. The station itself is a massive complex that serves buses, trains, and the metro. The architecture is thouroughly modern, and has a completely different feel from the rest of Lisbon. After wandering around the different terminals, Edie and I walked through the mall to the Expo grounds.
The main attraction at the Expo grounds is the aquarium, but we didn’t go. Instead we wandered by the river watching the people and looking at the buildings. The whole ground has a unified look, but I found myself wishing that more of an attempt had been made to pull in elements from the older parts of the city. It was beautiful, but it didn’t feel like Lisbon. The one exception is the bridge, which did provide a great backdrop for the grounds.
After going to both ends of the city, we went back to the hotel to gather our thoughts and figure out what to do that night. Unfortunately, the outgoing bus terminal at Oriente is very poorly marked, so we decided to take the Metro back to our hotel. The Lisbon Metro is very clean and cheap (65 cents for a ride) compared to New York. We generally prefered above-ground transportation so we could see more of the city, but I wouldn’t hesitate to take the Metro if I was short on time or lacked other options.
Back at the hotel we decided to spend the evening in the Barrio Alto, which is located on top of a hill to the west of where we were staying.
Baixa is located in a valley between the Barrio Alto and the Alfama. Instead of walking up this hill we took a tram that has only two stops: one at the bottom and one at the top. The tram stopped right by a park which overlooked the city. What is it with this city and scenic viewpoints? Oh yeah, the hills. We wandered around the neighborhood for a bit with no real destination. Saw some churches that were closed, scoped out potential restaurants for dinner. Stumbled upon a park that featured dozens of teenagers drinking, playing guitar, and generally hanging out. Saw two teenagers freestyling in Portugese on the way out. Nodded to the police officer who was overlooking the festivities from the parking lot above the park. Continued on our way.
We ended up searching for a dinner restaurant in the central streets of the Barrio Alto. The streets were dark and almost deserted, which was
pretty creepy. We ended up at Lonely Planet recommended A Familia. I felt pretty good about making it until 7:30 for dinner, but we were the first ones in the restaurant. The proprieter greeted us and handed us menus that were in Portugese and English, but with the daily specials handwritten in Portugese only. I got the feeling that Lonely Planet sent a lot of foreign business his way; he went down the list and gave a rough translation of each. Edie decided on fried sole and I ordered the arroz de tamboril, which was literally translated as “frogfish rice”, but which featured a fish more commonly known as monkfish.
This meal was more in line with my expectations. It cost less than half of the previous night’s dinner. The house wine was cheap and outstanding. Edie’s dinner was a whole sole fried very well. Crispy and not greasy. My meal was delicioius. It was a fish and rice dish, but unlike anything I’ve had before. The rice wasn’t stuck together as it is in Latin dishes like arroz con pollo, and there was a considerable amount of tomato broth with the rice and the fish. It tasted more like a stew, but the fish was still firm. The rice was cooked perfectly, the broth was slightly spicy and delicious, and the fish was amazing. One of the best meals I had in Portugal.
Since we ate so early, we decided to investigate some of the Barrio Alto’s nightlife. Nightlife might be an exaggeration. We went to a bar. The streets were a little more full after we left the restaurant, but there still wasn’t much going on. We were offered “ganza” (the Portugese pronunciation of ganja) on one particularly empty street, but we declined. We found a nice-looking shop that had particularly pretty tiles and picked up our sourvenir for the trip. We went to the bar next door for a nightcap. Judging by the posters on the wall of the bar and the rainbow tiles we saw next door, we stumbled upon a particularly gay-friendly neighborhood, which was good to see. After a quick beer we headed back to the hotel the way we came.