When we got to our guest house (after taking the metro), we were pleasantly surprised to find that he had put us in the fancy room for both nights! A little studio with a kitchen and living area, and Brazilian music "Bossa Nova for lovers" was playing when we walked in. It was absolutely adorable. And the best part- there was a stack of guide books: Frommers, Lisbon Food and Wine, and wait for it- Rick Steves Portugal! This is when we knew we were destined for Lisbon. The weather was beautiful, in the mid 60s, and our host, Luis, invited us out for a drink at a little bistro in front of the guest house. Apparently he does this with all his new guests, and it is a very nice little touch. We had some local vine verde (green wine that's like a bubbly white) and empanadas and got a recommendation for a delicious restaurant in Barrio Alto called Lisboa Noite.
The funny thing about Portugal is that they put out little appetizers when you sit down at a restaurant, and then if you eat even one olive or a piece of cheese, you pay for it. Luckily, Rick had warned us. We enjoyed a delicious meal of cod and a mushroom asparagus risotto. Cod is very popular in Portugal, but interestingly most of it comes from Norway. This was Liz's first fish in 3 years and she was in heaven!
We had an early night so we could rest up for our whirlwind 24 hour Lisbon tour. We woke up at 630 am and took a cab to the castle in the Alfama district close by. We did a walking tour of Alfama (with Rick), which is one of the few areas in Lisbon that survived the 1755 earthquake. We were staying in the Rossio area which had been entirely rebuilt into a gridded city. Alfama was pretty difficult to navigate, mostly because I didn't have a good map, but also because it has lots of twisty streets and none of it makes sense. We learned more about the castle and about Portuguese history and then walked back down to The Chiado district, near our guest house and did a second walking tour in this area, which had been rebuilt into a grid after the earthquake. By the time we got back to our hotel around 930 am, our host, Luis, was mighty impressed that we had seen half of Lisbon. He thought it was hilarious that in the past 7 years, we were the first to have sight-seen for 3 hours before breakfast. Breakfast is also included for all the guests, which is a nice little touch <3 Zuza!
We freshened up after breakfast and took the 15E tram over to Belem, another area of Lisbon. There is a really beautiful monastery and church, a monument celebrating the explorations of Portugal, and the tower of Belem. The church was beautiful and held the tombs (though i dont think they actually have the bodies) of Vasco de Gama (a Portuguese explorer who found the trade route to India)and Cameos (a poet who wrote about the explorations.) Our favorite was the monument to the explorations. We climbed all the way to the top and got beautiful views of the monastery, the 24 de Abril Bridge (a cousin of the San Francisco bridge), and the tower of Belem. At the bottom of the monument was a gorgeous marble map of the world, gifted to Portugal by Africa. It had the history of the explorations of Portugal on it and was so neat. Rick also gave us a lot of info about it! Rick is awesome, by the way. I've been a lonely planet lover for quite some time, but Rick Steves is great because he gives you lots of history and really good suggestions (that aren't usually touristy.) Of course, you've got to take everything with a grain of salt. I'm a convert now, thanks to Elizabeth's previous love for Rick, and hence why we brought Rick Steves Eastern Europe guidebook on this trip.
Belem is also the home to the original pastel de Belem (called pastel de Nata in the rest of Potugal) which is a delicious little custard tart that tastes like rice pudding without the rice. I might have gotten 2! The good news, is that unlike the Sachar torte of Vienna, the pastel de Nata tastes pretty much the same everywhere, despite only 3 people supposedly knowing the original recipe. For lunch, we took another Rick Steves recommendation and got one of the best meals ever at a fish joint. I'm not even certain what fish we ate but it was delicious! Two guys came and cut up one of them and then they had this delicious olive oil, tomato, onion dressing and buttered boiled potatoes. It was good!
After lunch, we took the tram back to the commercial square and then walked 3 km to the tile museum, which was East (Belem is west of the square and we couldn't find a bus that went to the tile museum.) The tile museum was so neat! They had lots and lots of beautiful tiles and scenes dating from before the earthquake (and some after too) and it was so neat to see. We only had an hour before the museum closed, so we had to do a speed tour but I wouldn't definitely go back and spend hours oogling the tiles, if I could!
We walked back to our guest house, picked up some vine verde and had a great time with Bossa Nova on our CD player! We loved Lisbon! We headed out for some Fado, traditional Portuguese singing. We went to a local open-mic night Fado restaurant Rick had recommendedC originally we were planning to eat dinner there, but the food didn't look that great so we just had drinks. Lets just say they didn't like that, because when we went to get our bill, the waiter tried to charge us a cover charge! There were a couple empty seats, so they hadn't been losing business because we were there, and they never told us we had to order a minimum! Luckily, I took control of the situation and told him "ah heck no" and so we got out of there just paying for what we ordered. Plus, Rick had recommended this place and even said there was no minimum and to "order what you want." Hmmph. We decided to go to another restaurant Luis had recommended in the Barrio Alto area, as well, and then had a lovely sea bass dinner. When we got back to our guest house, Luis' people had left us a breakfast in the fridge for the next morning, since we would be leaving before breakfast. It was very sweet. Elizabeth and I cannot wait until we come back to Portugal (someday!) The weather is great, the people are so kind, and the food is delicious
1. The musical theme of our time in Portugal
2. Look what was greeting us at Zuza Guest House
3. Our cozy suite
4-5. Dinner at Lisboa Noite- cod and risotto
6-7. Delicious pastel de Belem at Pastis de Belem
8. The church at the monastery in Belem
9. Delicious fish lunch be deboned by Carlos
10. The painting in our fabulous cozy suite
11-13. The amazing tile museum
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