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.