Saturday, October 6, 2018

May 11th: Lots of Lisbon Wanderings

It was a little weird not going out to a cafe for breakfast! Our hotel had a pretty good buffet, though, so that's where we started our first day in Lisbon. I made sure to get a pastel de nata.   :)

A fairly short metro ride later, we were in Baixa. This is one of the main shopping areas; there were all sorts of neat stores lining the sidewalks, and restaurants and cafes in the middle.

The Arco da Rua Augusta was down at the end of the rows of shops. There was a big Eurovision village set up just behind me when I took this picture (I somehow didn't get a decent picture of it). There was a stage set up with random musicians and news people, and there were people wandering all over the place with crazy costumes.

We wandered around the side of the Eurovision village and made our way down to the Tagus River. You could see the Ponte 25 de Abril in the distance; it looks like a twin to the Golden Gate bridge.

We wandered along the water for a bit, then eventually started to pick our way back inland. We stopped at a cafe near here for coffee for a bit; the weather was absolutely gorgeous.

There weren't as many tiled buildings in Lisbon as we had seen in Porto, but they were still scattered around the city. This one was a restaurant that we wound up going back to later in the day.

We wandered through a bunch of winding streets, popping into shops and churches here and there as we went.

At one point we even passed some Roman ruins, right in the middle of a neighborhood!

We wandered past more tiled buildings...

...and eventually made our way up to the Castelo de Sao Jorge. We thought about checking it out, but there was a huuuuuge line so instead, we bought strawberries from a guy selling them off to the side and ate them while we watched everyone waiting in line.

We wandered through some more neighborhoods, and eventually made our way to the viewpoint Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. Not a bad view!

We wandered over to the Church of Santa Cruz do Castelo. It wasn't very big...

...but it had some great painted tiles lining the walls of one of the rooms.

We kept wandering, past more tiled buildings...

...and wound up at the Church of Sao Vincente of Fora. We had to buy tickets to wander through this, but it was worth it! I think this was a cistern they had used hundred of years ago; it was kind of crazy to look down into it.

We wandered through the courtyard...

...and through a very ornate room.

My favorite, though, was a huge hall filled with fables. Each panel had the written fable in the corner...

...and an elaborately painted tile panel of the fable next to it. It was really neat to wander around, reading them all.

We eventually made our way up to the roof. We were pretty much the only people up there, which was pretty neat. The views were fantastic.

That's the National Pantheon off to the side.   :)

We wandered around the roof a bit more, then made our way back down to the street. A short walk later...

...we were at the National Pantheon. Time to check this out, too!

This was looking straight up, right in the center of the main room. Pretty neat.   :)

We wandered through a bunch of different levels, and eventually wound up on the roof. There was a pretty cool view from here, too.

We hung out at the Pantheon for a few more minutes, then started picking our way back through the streets toward the water. We stopped at a cafe for lunch and a glass of wine...

...then went to Cantina Ze Avillez for dessert and sangria. (This is the building we saw earlier that I posted the close up of the blue tiles from above.) Everything was really good.

We spent a little while wandering back through the shopping area. There were a few liquor stores that had some insane old bottles of port; I think we saw a couple that were from the late 1800s. For what they were, they weren't outrageously priced. I can't imagine what they would taste like!

We eventually wound up at one of my must-do things for the trip: A Ginjinha. Ginja is a sour cherry liqueur, and for just a couple Euro you can get a couple little plastic cups filled to the brim. The storefront is pretty much as big as you can see in this picture, so the sidewalk in front of the store is full of people sipping tasty cherry liqueur. Each cup had a cherry in it; I tried to eat mine but it was SOUR.

After finishing our tasty cherry drinks, we made our way up a very steep hill and past some hidden trolleys...

...to the Miradouro de Sao Pedro de Alcantara to check our the view. That's the Castelo de Sao Jorge on the hill in the distance.

A short walk later, we were at the Pavilhao Chines, a crazy bar with multiple rooms that are filled wall to wall, floor to ceiling with antiques. We wandered through all of the rooms to check them out, then hung out for a bit and had a drink.

After finishing up at the Pavilhao Chines, we walked a little bit, made our way through a small door and down a dark stairway, and grabbed a seat at the Red Frog Speakeasy. This easily ranks in the top 3 bars I've ever been to; the drinks were awesome and elaborate with crazy flavors. We hung out for a while before eventually taking the Metro back to the hotel.

We ended the day with room service: hot dogs and french fries, dinner of champions. Overall it had been a neat day of exploring, and we had more fun planned for the next day!

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