Monday 11.1.2010


Back to City Life


What a surprise, the sun is out this morning and the winds have died down significantly. We postpone breakfast to take an hour-long walk along the beach down to the marina and back, so out the door at 8:00. We’re back at 8:05 as a big black cloud emerged from the bluffs above us and it started to pour. OK, this won’t last long so breakfast first and then the walk.

The stroll isn’t perfect with clouds and sun taking turns to make it either too cold or too warm, but it is a lot better than the last couple days. The marina and harbor are a pretty big deal with big new stone jetties extending well out into the ocean, a traffic control tower and some good-sized fishing boats.

The dogs are out on our way back, some with their humans and others just having an early morning meeting at the beach. It is like a big dog park where they just show up to run around after each other with the little ones nipping at the big ones trying to get noticed. We also take this final opportunity to walk down to the water so Mary can perform her ritual touching of this body of water (eastern side). A big wave surprises us and as John is back-peddling up hill to get out of its way, he performs his ritual butt-plant on the beach much to Mary’s amusement.


We’re in no hurry to get going this morning. This is a national holiday in Portugal (All Saints Day) so a lot of people are milling around in the square outside our window. One fellow has a miniature remote control car that he is running up the road to our right, covering the block in about three seconds. He then has the bright idea to run it down onto the beach whipping around in sand spewing circles. This of course gets the dogs fired up and they are now all chasing the car. When they get close to it, catching it no longer seems like a good idea and they tend to get out of the way. We are standing on our balcony in the sun very easily amused.


We don’t leave until noon with one stop in the old village of Obidos on our way to Lisbon. While this is Portugal’s best example of a medieval walled village, we have been through some of the best on our trip to now, so it seems less impressive than it otherwise might. We give it an hour of walking around and pick up a couple pastries with ham and cheese baked inside for lunch.


Monique is programmed to avoid toll roads today, but we think she is avoiding any kind of major highway. We tiptoe into Lisbon through all the suburbs so it is a slow methodical process. We have a general idea of where our B&B is located, but Monique loses control and tries to have us steer onto a cruise ship in the harbor. We go back to old school with Mary on a map and John playing dodge-em cars on streets two inches wider than our car.

We pull over when we think we are close, look up and see the name of the street we are looking for. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the street isn’t a street, but a stairway that goes from the top of Lisbon (Bairro Alta) to the bottom (Baixa). John parks illegally and goes down the stairs while Mary guards the car. After a couple laps up and down, John finally gets some help from a sidewalk café waiter and when he gets close he hears someone say, “John?” It is Luis, our host who has been sitting outside waiting for us.


Luis gets us to a parking ramp and then helps us tote our luggage a few blocks back and then up three flights of stairs to our room. He then pulls out the maps and begins the one hour check-in process covering sight-seeing, restaurants and attractions, all interspersed with stories. What a delightful fellow. He gives us a cell phone with his number programmed in so wherever we are, we can call for help. He then calls and makes a dinner reservation for us for tonight and we are ready for Lisbon.

Our room overlooks the entire city with a very nice terrace outside a sliding door. With the time change it is darker earlier so the lights of the city are twinkling on as we get ready for dinner. We are eating tonight at Al Faia, back up the steps and across the square (where we illegally parked earlier) and down a block. Mary has an interesting monkfish dish and John orders the suckling pig (sorry, we’re out of that) and gets a large segment of pork product with big bones and skin. It looks bigger than a shank and smaller than a shoulder, but it must be one or the other. The meat found somewhere inside is very moist and tasty so worth the work to get to it.

The Bairro is bustling when we come out from dinner and we hear Fado music coming from the cafes. Another pretty nice experience for us.

Today’s picture: Looking from our room over the Baixa and to the Alfama district on the opposite hill.