Jetlagged and Custardless

We're back home, jetlagged, waking up very early, looking for lunch at 9:30 a.m., frequent naps, wanting breakfast at bedtime.

Our last couple of days in Lisbon were like the first couple of days, lots of walking around. Sunday we again went to Belém, this time to see the monastery and church and to visit several museums. All that walking and visiting is hard work, so of course we had to have more pastéis de Belém. The weather was warm and the tourists were out, so there were crowds everywhere.

Monday, we did more walking tours, around the Castelo de S. Jorge, then through Baixa, Alfama, Bairro Alto, and Chiado. We ended the day with a relaxing beverage at the rooftop terrace of of the Hotel do Chiado, with fine views of central Lisbon.

Tuesday, we visited the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, a wonderful building set in beautiful grounds. I was particularly impressed by the collection of Oriental art as well as by the amazing Art Nouveau decorative pieces by René Lalique. I had never seen anything quite like his Libélula, or dragonfly woman.



Gulbenkian himself is an interesting character, one of the richest men of his day, and his statue with the Egyptian god Horus behind him stands on the museum grounds.



We ended the day by walking towards the center, down lovely Avenida Liberdade.



Walking, walking, and more walking. We also realized that we were getting tired of walking and that it was probably time to go home. Next time we might have to rent one of these:



Wednesday we left Lisbon and headed to Madrid, where we stayed at the NH Barajas Hotel near the airport. We didn't do much except visit the huge Plenilunio mall ("the largest commercial center in Spain," with over 200 stores) before going early to bed to rest before the long flight back to DFW on Thursday.

One thing we noticed is that the second most common language in Portugal was English, both written and spoken. We heard lots of Italian, some German and French, very little Spanish. In Spain, there was much less English and no Portuguese.

And what about those custards, eh? After all, that's why I went, right?

I had at least two custards a day, sometimes more. (Terri thought my reason for going to Portugal was silly, but she put aside her misgivings and graciously helped by eating almost as many custards as I did.) I bought them at famous old shops, at the mall, in the airport, at a museum, at neighborhood pastry shops across the street and around the corner, in department stores. They were all wonderful, passing my critical taste tests with flying colors. The best of them all, I'd have to say, was the pastéis de Belém, when eaten at the counter, still warm from the oven with plenty of cinnamon and powdered sugar sprinkled on top.



Never content to sit still, we're off again on Monday, on a short road trip to visit family in East Texas. But that's another blog post.

Enough of writing and reading, it's time for pictures. Here's my Flickr photos from Lisbon. Or, if you prefer, the slideshow version.

P.S. The main advantage of having access to the AA Admiral's Club is that you get to go into other airlines' lounges (Iberia, BA, Blue Lounge), all of which are much better.

Ana and Manny

On our first night in Lisbon we went to dinner at O Pitéu, a small restaurant around the corner from our apartment. The food had to be good because the place was packed at 8:30, and after waiting ten minutes we got the last table for two.

We pored over the menu, struggling to make sense of the Portuguese descriptions of various dishes. A gentleman sitting next to Terri saw our difficulty and offered to help us. He explained the menu, helped us decide what to get, and then ordered for us. He introduced himself as Manuel and even posed for a photo with Terri.

As we enjoyed our dinner, the conversation with the gentleman continued, and by the end we knew him as Manny, a retired business executive, and had met his dinner companions, his wife, Ana, and their son, an opera singer. At the end of the meal, Manny and Ana invited us to their apartment for a drink.

Over glasses of fine old vintage port, we enjoyed the dreamy nighttime view of Lisbon from their large terrace, and heard about their times living, working, and visiting London, New York, Washington D.C., Paris, Luxembourg, and many other places besides. The meal at O Pitéu had been excellent, but this nightcap afterward with Ana and Manny made the evening very special.

After an exchange of emails over the next few days, they invited us for a drive along the coast. So Saturday noon they picked us up at the door of our apartment building and we were off. The day was gray but the Portuguese coast was lovely, and we had our own personal tour guides to explain it all along the way: former royal residences, modern apartment buildings (some pretty, some not so much), shopping malls, and surfers. We went through Oeiras then Cascais and on through undeveloped natural areas to the small town of Azóia, where we had lunch at Pão de Trigo.



After a tasty Portuguese meal of fish and vinho verde, we went on to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe. From here, beneath tall rocky cliffs, the blue Atlantic stretches uninterrupted to the New World.



It is a humbling experience, to stand there with the wild, rocky hills at your back and the rolling ocean spread out before you. One could stand there for hours, contemplating the meaning of it all, but you must be quicker than that because a tour bus will pull up and you will find yourself in a sea of tourists boisterously enjoying their scheduled five minutes at a Famous Place.

We made it away from the newly arrived crowds at Cabo Da Roca to have a coffee down the coast at a converted stone fort, now the hotel and restaurant do Guincho. Our table was set beneath large windows overlooking the Atlantic, and I could see the slow ocean swells roll in as we sipped our coffee and enjoyed each other's company.

After a pleasant drive back into Lisbon, this time by a slightly different route that showed us parts of the city new to us, Manny and Ana dropped us off at our apartment, seven hours after we had begun.

Terri and I have had many memorable travel experiences, but there's nothing quite like making friends in a new place. To Ana and Manny, thank you so much for your gracious and generous hospitality. We hope to see you again, soon.

To see more snapshots, my Flickr photos are here.

Walking Around

I can summarize our time so far in Lisbon by simply saying, "walking around." Well, mostly walking; we've taken the tram a few times, too.

I suppose I am too easy, but I have a habit of falling in love with each new city I visit. Lisbon is no exception, as I have fallen in love again. The weather is gorgeous, warm days and cool nights, with intensely blue skies. The colors are striking: so many buildings are painted in bright pastels. The city is hilly, which means there is a new vista around every corner.



Another nice thing about those miradouros, or scenic overlooks, is that there's usually a restaurant or kiosk where you can buy a beer or glass of wine to enjoy with the view.

We've walked from our neighborhood, Graça, down Rua de Sao Tome to Alfama, then on to Baixa, the commercial center. We walked to Rossio and up Avenida Liberdade, then to Socarro. We got on Tram #28 and rode it all the way from one endpoint, Martim Moniz, to the other, at Praça São João Bosco.

We took Tram #15 to Belém and went to the top of the Monument to the Discoveries. We walked to the Torre de Belém, through the park, along the waterfront, and back to the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, where we caught the tram to come back home.



One thing we've noticed is that so many people here speak English. We try our few phrases of Portuguese, but we're always able to switch to English. The only real difficulty, as usual, is translating menus; fish dishes often have no exact English equivalents.

Another thing we've noticed is that food is inexpensive here. Restaurant meals are half what they were in Belgium, where we visited in January, and grocery prices are ridiculously cheap.

And about those custards, I will save all that for another blog post.

If you're wondering what it all looks like, my Flickr photos are here.