Portugal April 2017

So, each day gets tougher to get out of bed, but by God we did it! Hiked up a few small hills to a Farmer's Market, where we bought some bread and cheese and then ate at a small restaurant in this pretty little park next to the market. Afterwards, we headed out for a 10 minute walk to a metro stop, where we jumped the metro for two stops to a train station where we were going to catch a bus to the Tile Museum (Tiles are definitely a big time Portgugese thing). After waiting around for a bit, it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps we were on the wrong side of the station! Sure enough, whipping out Google Maps and studying that little arrow which shows which direction.the Tile Museum lies revealed our error! So we went to the other side and after about a 20 minute wait , the bus showed up and we jumped on it for the mile ride to the museum.

Got off, explored - = actually petty good! Had some ham and cheese sandwiches and then the plan was to head towards Belem where the Jerónimos Monastery
https://goo.gl/maps/6fc5g56vcYS2 lies along with those world famous custard pastries (ok, so you haven't heard of them, but you should - scrumptious - we had already had a few, but these were warm and served with powdered sugar and cinammon! But I digress! First of all we decided we didn't want to wait for an hour for a bus to come by, so I whipped out my Uber app, requested a driver and within 2 minutes he pulled up. 10 minutes later we were at our destination. Great guy - nice Mercedes. We then jumped on the 15E tram using our Zap cards which we had just refilled (refillable Metro cards). Note - zap cards can't be refilled in the Metro in Lisbon with Visa cards - won't take them. We kept using cards and wondering what the hell was going wrong - well, had it confirmed later by a shop clerk.

Waited on the tram for Belem - the sign said it would show up in 25 minutes - everybody is standing in the sun. It gets down to 4 minutes and then suddenly it jumps back up to 23 minutes. People were getting a bit crazy by then. It finally shows up and we pack on like little sardines (a Portuguese thing) . Totally smashed for the 30 minute ride. Fiinally make it to the monastery - impressive! Sprawls over about 3 blocks. Interior is amazing as is the church. Definitely a must see in Lisbon. Headed over afterwards to see the monument "Age of Discoveries" (built in 1960) on the water dedicated to Vasco de Gama and his explorers - Awesome memorial - starting to wear out, backtrack to the pastry shop we had heard so much about - world famous custard tarts - oh boy , were they good - warm - slightly crunchy crust - dang - consumed 4 between us and took 6 to go. (for a video by Rick Steves on Portugal and how these are made , see this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYh4SiuFvsc Back to the tram, we caught one of the old fashioned ones - again packed - nice thing about this one was that it didn't stop at any of the 14 stops on the way back to Lisbon - too full. So we got back fairly quickly. Spent a 1/2 hour in a Lisbon souvenir shop, then took a 10 minute stroll north towards our apt with a sidetrack to a Rick Steves recommended little hole in the wall where I had a Bifana sandwich (marinated pork - another Portuguese speciality) and Janet had Monkfish stew with rice. Oh , did I say I had a half bottle of Portugal red wine? Do you know how hard it is to type this at 10:45 after a half bottle?

So tomorrow - we're heading to the airport on the metro bright and early where we are going to pick up our little ECAR to head south to the southern coast of Portugal and 2 nights in Lagos. Should be interesting adventure.!Read more