Lisboa - Bairro Alto & Chiado Stroll

I was excited to see sunshine when we woke up this morning, later turning to partially cloudy. It would be a good day to explore another historic Lisbon neighbourhood. Yesterday we walked 11 km but today’s stroll would only be 8 km, although much of it was uphill. We headed downhill to the centre where we got help getting uphill to Bairro Alto, or “High Town”, by taking the funicular. It was a very steep hill and the funicular provided a noisy, rough ride to the top. There was a park-like viewpoint of the city below. We used Rick Steve’s tour book again to do an interesting self-guided tour.

One of our stops was at Sao Roque Church, one of Portugal’s first Jesuit churches. There are numbered panels on the floor that were tombs for plague victims. In the 19th century, parishioners complained about the idea of having rotting victims under their feet and the tombs were emptied. One of the more ornate chapels, the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, was taken from the Vatican and reassembled here. We walked through the busy neighbourhood admiring the architecture while dodging cars and trolleys. We ended up on Rua Garrett in the upscale Chiado district where we enjoyed lunch at a patio restaurant. Our son, Garrett, didn’t know he was named after a Portugal poet, a Romanticist, and neither did we!

One last gradual uphill climb, about 2 km, and we were back at our hotel. It was a great day!Read more