Day 2 - Lisbon, Cascais and Food

Today was a long one. We were up early and out touring before the cognitive side of me could kick in. A little jet lagged and not drinking coffee is a rough combination. 

We had breakfast in the hotel. European breakfasts are my favorite. They always have fresh bread, ham and cheese on the buffet and that makes a perfect breakfast for me. I avoid coffee while traveling (never know when you'll have a potty break and well, coffee...)

We picked up a local tour guide and off we went about learning about Lisbon. I learned immediately the traffic in the city is tough. Small, narrow streets clogged with small, narrow cars and the all to occasional tour bus. I really have a lot of respect for the bus driver. How he moved that bus through that traffic without hitting a person, a car, or a building is beyond me. 

Lisbon is a beautiful city. Many buildings are covered in tiles. Not just for ascetics, but because the tiles reflect the sun and help keep the residences/buildings cooled. Or so we were told. 

All their sidewalks are cobblestone. And all of the sidewalks are treacherous. If you're muscle memory isn't used to walking on an uneven, trip hazard, you had to watch your every step. Despite that, the sidewalks are often decorated. It really makes a nice accompaniment to the rest of the architecture. 

The Romans were everywhere. This aqueduct is a reminder of that.

There's this elevator that goes up several stories and offers an amazing view. We didn't get to take it, but I glimpsed it. 

If you look closely, almost exactly middle of the photo is Hotel Mundial - where we were staying. This is a view from Barrio Alto back to downtown Lisbon.

Everywhere you look in Lisbon is tile work. We found a continuous stretch of tile work along some road in Lisbon. I have no idea what area, I just know we enjoyed the views.  

View of the Castelo de Sao Jorge. We could see part of it from our hotel, but this is from another part of the city. We didn't get to go up to it, and it's just as well since I heard there are like a thousand steps to get up to it. 

After our Lisbon city tour, we headed over to the Belem Tower. This was on my list to see and I'm sure glad Globus has this need to get their tours to spots early and before all the other annoying tourists. It sure helps getting good photos without hoards of people in them. 

While the tour guide filled us in, extensively, about the Belem Tower, I couldn't remember all that info so I went to the trusted Interwebs for help. 

Belém Tower, officially the Tower of Saint Vincent is a 16th-century fortification and served as a point of embarkation and disembarkation for Portuguese explorers and as a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon. It was built during the height of the Portuguese Renaissance, and is a prominent example of the Portuguese Manueline style, which we heard a lot about. The structure was built from limestone and is composed of a bastion and a 100 ft four-story tower. It has incorrectly been stated that the tower was built in the middle of the Tagus and now sits near the shore because the river was redirected after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. In fact, the tower was built on a small island in the Tagus river near the Lisbon shore.

From the Tower we went just down the road to the Discoveries Monument, officially called Padrão dos Descobrimentos. This was an amazing sight to me. It's HUGE and looming and just really screams "WE ARE PORTUGAL". I didn't know anything about all the discoveries and explorations Portugal was a part of until this trip and this monument really does a good job representing all of them. 

From the Interwebs: Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument of the Discoveries) is a monument on the northern bank of the Tagus river estuary. Located along the river where ships departed to explore and trade with India and the Orient, the monument celebrates the Portuguese Age of Discovery (or "Age of Exploration") during the 15th and 16th centuries.

We crossed the street to be treated to lines upon lines  at the Jerónimos Monastery. Thankfully, as a tour group we got to avoid the lines. 

We toured a number of monasteries and all of them have a lot of similar structure and architecture. And at the same time, each are very unique and were interesting to tour. 

From the Interwebs: The Jerónimos Monastery is a former monastery is one of the most prominent examples of the late Portuguese Gothic Manueline style of architecture (a richly ornate architectural style with complex sculptural themes incorporating maritime elements and objects discovered during naval expeditions, carved in limestone) in Lisbon. It was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1983, the Jerónimos Monastery was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the nearby Tower of Belém.

The dining room. I think the tour guide said they had about 400 monks here at one time.

Beautiful hand painted tiles in the main dining room.

A carving of the Pieta (there's a huge carving of this in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome)

The carvings on the columns were all unique and so amazing. 

The Chatter room. This huge room you could easily imagine a hundred monks singing.
 The acoustics were what you'd expect. You can hear it, can't you?

Door to confessionals in the cloister.

One must always remember to look up when traveling.

The cloisters

The ornate side entrance to the monastery was designed by Juan de Castillo and is considered one of the most significant of his time, but is not, in fact, the main entrance to the building. This shrine-like portal is large, 105 ft high and 39 ft wide, extending two stories. Its ornate features includes an abundance of gables and pinnacles, with many carved figures standing under a baldachin in carved niches, around a statue of Henry the Navigator, standing on a pedestal between the two doors.

We had a potty break after the monastery. Potty breaks are something you have to think about when touring in a group like this. One must find the balance between staying hydrated and not drinking so much you're about to pee your pants because you don't know when your next potty break is. Our tour guide, bless him, was really good at letting us know when we'd have a break. You HAVE to take advantage of them when you can. Even if you think you don't need to go, you gotta. 

That all being said, we had more women on this tour than men (shocking I know) and the lines we stood in just to pee was constant and long. I swear every bathroom also only had 2 stalls. This was the line we stood in to pee. 

 Now that we have that out of the way. 

Our afternoon was all about an extra excursion to Cascais (Cash-keye). Our first stop was in the town of Cascais itself for a lunch break. I should mention it was almost 2pm and this girl was STARVING. It had been a long time since our 7am breakfast and a lot of walking. I was more than hungry. 

Janet and I stopped at a restaurant pointed out by our local tour guide. She also happened to point out the "World's Best Gelato" shop across the street. We knew immediately we'd have to stop there. 

This was our first opportunity to have the Portuguese lunch of Bifana. Bifanas are a traditional Portuguese sandwich that is made with a bun the size of a hamburger bun and filled with roasted pork thinly sliced. Most have roasted garlic on it as well. And that's it. Simple and OMG so delicious. This particular restaurant didn't have Fanta (dang it) so they recommended we try this Sumol. It was just as good as Fanta I think. Nothing like a refreshing drink on a VERY HOT day. 

Cascais itself was a beautiful little coastal town. We really didn't get to spend much time there, but we got to walk down to the beach. 

Leaving Cascais we headed to the Western most point on the continental Europe, Cape Roca. Turns out it has crabs. 

And no excursion would be complete without visiting a cathedral or a palace, so we got to see Palace of Queluz.

Interwebs: The Palace of Queluz is an 18th-century palace located at Queluz, a city on the Portuguese Riviera. The palace was conceived as a summer retreat for King José I's brother, Pedro of Braganza, later to become husband and king jure uxoris (as King Pedro III) to his own niece, Queen Maria I. It eventually served as a discreet place of incarceration for Maria I, when she became afflicted by severe mental illness in the years following Pedro III's death in 1786. Following the destruction of Ajuda Palace by fire in 1794, Queluz Palace became the official residence of the Portuguese Prince Regent João, and his family, and remained so until the royal family fled to the Portuguese colony of Brazil in 1807, following the French invasion of Portugal.

This was the strangest chair I've every seen. 

The Don Quixote room. The images on the top all depicted stories from the book. 

We finished our tour and headed back to the hotel. Not to rest mind you, no we don't wanna do that when we travel. In a spur of the moment decision, we decided to sign up for the Foodie tour that evening. And boy am I glad we did. 

We had a wonderful tour guide named Sara. She walked us to a couple of different locations as a progressive style approach. We had tapas at one place, then "main" dishes at another and finally dessert. 

Our tour took us to the Barrio Alto part of Lisbon. It's full of steep cobblestone streets. This area is full of quirky bars and restaurants that attract the locals. It's where the night life is in Lisbon. We were there to just visit a few of these quirky joints. 

Every restaurant we walked by or visited was TINY. Most couldn't fit more than maybe 50 people in the place...and that was being generous. 

At our first restaurant for tapas we were greeted by the staff and shown to our table inside. 

We were in for a treat! The food started coming out as quickly as we got our drinks. We were starving and ready to taste what Portugal has to offer. 

Olives of course.

Vinho Verde - green wine. It's a young white that was refreshing and crisp. 

Sauted mushrooms with who knows what in the dish. So good.

Sardines! I wasn't sure I'd like them. Frankly, they reminded me of salmon.

Our next stop was a small restaurant for the main meal. I opted out of another glass of wine and went for my daily Fanta. 

Bacalhau a bras is a traditional Portuguese dish made with salted cod. It uses shredded cod, onions, thinly chopped and fried potatoes (think hash browns). All that is bounded with scrambled eggs. All the bacalhau we had was garnished with black olives on top. 

We tasted several bacalhaus. This was our first and frankly not the best of the bunch, but we didn't know that when we had it. It was different and interesting. I could see how this became a national dish. It's filling and comforting.

These beef tips were in some type of gravy that was very garlicy and OMG so delicious. They were tender and flavorful. The actually call this dish "Woodpecker". Our guide joked with us that it was woodpecker, but couldn't keep a straight face. The reason it's called "Woodpecker" (and we saw this on several menus), is because you're supposed to use a toothpick to stab at the meat...you know, "peck at the meat with wood". 

Now let's talk about dessert. We didn't go to any restaurant. Our tour guide took us to a near by square where she then walked over to get some hot out of the oven Pasteis de Nata. Nata is a tart filled with custard that has a crisp, puff pastry crust.

These little gems of goodness are national treasure to the Portuguese people. They are everywhere and consumed by everyone. I'm not a huge custard fan so I really wasn't sure what to expect and y'all ... I am so glad I don't live in Portugal. I think I could eat my weight in these yummy, little treats. 

There are two little tarts in that box. 

I realize this photo is out of focus, but we had been
 drinking and walking up and down hills. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. 

Once we were stuffed to the gills we went back to the hotel to fall in to bed exhausted. What a long day. I think we knew we over did it, but we figured we could rest when we're home. 

Tomorrow we leave Lisbon headed north. Let the fun begin!