Example of the blue tiles used on many buildings in Lisbon. The origin is the Moors. Very Lisbon.
Our first destination is to walk the Avenida da Liberdade. Highly recommended by our friend Wolfgang who lived in Lisbon for a period of time. It is a very long north/south wide avenue street so quite shocking for what we are used to in this central area of Lisbon. Lots of trees lining the wide boulevard and high end shopping and hotels. Walking northbound it is all uphill. As well, there are so many wide open spaces along this avenue that it almost doesn't feel like Lisbon. Many people strolling and window shopping (like Lana). We walked as far as Parque Eduardo VII. Major traffic as it is the best north/south route through the city. Some very very light rain.
Great news as Lana finally found a ceramic sardine (artist is Bordallo Pinheiro) that she wanted to purchase. It is a lighthouse design inspired "by numerous existing lighthouses along the Portugese coast, this Sardine refers to the idea of travelling to a distant world, whether real or imaginary, as well as the eternal return home after its discovery." We bought this at Galeria de Arte Portuguese located on the Avenida da Liberdade. Lana is very happy! This is a country where the Sardine is a national treasure.
More designs:
Finally Lana has an opportunity to indulge her shopping urges. We stopped at COS as she was interested in shoes. Eventually, she bought a pair of cream coloured shoes and again more happiness.
Interesting tile at art shop.
We ambled toward the ocean as our next destination was lunch at Sol e Pesca. We found this very tiny and casual restaurant relatively easy as we had been in this area yesterday. Anthony Bourdain had eaten here and I had watched that show. As well, awesome recommendations from many other sources. We were pretty excited to eat here.
Wow, this is a very unique concept to food. Basically, they sell fishing equipment like rods, reels and equipment plus canned fish to eat. For most North Americans we would see canned fish as tuna and/or salmon. In Europe, or at least Portugal, there are a huge variety of high quality fish that is canned and then eaten.
There were only four tables occupied on our arrival. Given there was only one server when we arrived this was good news. We loved our food and the total experience. Our order was a glass of beer, lemonade (bottle of water is poured into a glass that comes with lemonade concentrate with chopped mint and you add sugar to your liking), bread, house salad (tomatoes, onion & lettuce), tin of roasted cod in olive oil, tin of small sardines in spicy olive oil and a tin of tuna steak in RAW sauce. All sounds weird, but tastes incredible. No need for a kitchen as the server grabs the tins from a glass case and then places them on a plate with their resident oils. The beer was the perfect pairing with the canned fish dishes.
Perfect lunch as it was light, healthy, flavourful and good quality. Great for dipping bread in the various oils. You can buy the tins for around 3Euro each. We bought six (6) cans/tins to take home to Vancouver. Maybe, share with our friends? Total cost of just our lunch was 24Euro.
Yes, I look serious as I couldn't wait for the lunch. Note the variety of canned fish on the shelves behind me.
Lana holding our menu which comes with a fishing rod and is in English!
Tuna steak in RAW sauce.
Tin of roasted cod in olive oil.
Tin of small sardines in spicy olive oil.
Examples of the tins of various fish that you can purchase to take away or the server removes and then plates.
Menu page.
Menu page.
Menu page.
On a lighter note, "three of these things belong together, three of these things are kinda the same. Can you guess which one of these doesn't belong here? Now its time to play our game." From Sesame Street, per Lana:
Our next stop and it happens to be more indulging our food cravings is up Rua da Flores (steep hill climb) to Landeau Chocolate. This is touted as the best chocolate cake in all of Lisbon. While we have no opportunity to compare to other chocolate cake producers, we agreed this is one of the best pieces of chocolate cake we have ever eaten!
For a piece of chocolate cake (3.50Euro) you receive a good portion of cake comprised of a bottom level of a soft brownie, middle level of chocolate mousse and then topped with a dark chocolate powder sprinkled on top. Delightful and not overly sweet. Still thinking of that cake!
We returned to our apartment to drop off the very heavy six (6) tins of fish, Lana's shoe purchase and the ceramic sardine art. Plus, bought another large bottle of still water for only 1Euro. Bottled water is very cheap in this city.
Walked mostly downhill to Cais do Sodré train station, but followed a new route of a very steep tram line, but a more direct route to the train station located at the bottom of this hill and closer to the water. Arrived at the train station and bought two return tickets to Cascais. Cost only 9.20Euro for both of us! As usual, the clerk was very unfriendly and not helpful. I don't think they get the service concept? We left the station on the train at 14:20 with seats facing forward. We arrived at 15:05 so about 45 minutes train ride with quite a few stops on the way.
Very beautiful ride along the coast to Cascais which is a former fishing village that is now the playground of boaters and beach goers. Beautiful scenery as the train rolls along the coast area between Lisbon and Cascais. Sunny and hot weather. Palm trees, red tiled roofs, Moorish architecture, colourful flowers and bushes, pink, blue, yellow painted houses, graffiti on houses, cacti in some places, surfers in spots and beaches with people.
Our destination was the Casa das Histórias. Another museum highly recommended. We know the address of the museum, but not sure where it is relative to the train station and it is a larger town than we expected. We crossed the street to the mall and checked our Travel Guide. Lana happened upon a store that carried her favourite French sturdy shopping bags so she was ecstatic. They only had two bags and she took both.
Decided to take a taxi and returned to the train station to find a taxi. We paid 5Euro in total to the cabbie. This was the slowest taxi driver in history! Even a couple of cyclists in their 60s were travelling faster up the hill! He stopped at every possible opportunity and ensured he was in the slowest line and route. When we arrived at the museum we found it was CLOSED on Mondays as per Municipal ordinance. Hmmm, we figure he knew this already. Grrr.... we will make the most of it regardless. ;-)
It turned out to be a fantastic afternoon of new discoveries. We walked down to the water with some idea of how to eventually find the train station. Huge marinas and good strolling along the ocean front. We stopped for some ice cream as it is very hot. Many people strolling in this area. Palm trees along the water.
Lana decided to phone her boss to update her on an important project. While this was a temporary work distraction at least Lana felt better about ensuring her boss was aware of all the developments.
One cool thing was walking above the marina we saw schools of fairly large fish swimming between boats. As well, some smaller fish pestering the larger fish and then scooting off. Many kinds of fish. These fish were big enough that I wish I had my fishing rod with me.
Lighthouse very close to the beach.
Selfie enjoying the sun and sights. Brings me to a topic about the number of fellow travellers that have selfie sticks in Lisbon. I can't count the number of times I see these extended sticks being used for selfies individually or in groups. Even a young girl tanning on the beach was using one for a photo of herself.
Churro purchased for 2Euros. This was a "sweet milk" infused churro. As you can see these churros are much longer and fatter than what we are offered in Vancouver. These churros are warm and soft and sugary.
Churro stand on the beach. So many choices.
Cascais harbour.
Cascais beach/harbour and you can see the structure in the middle of the photos is a bandstand. A live band was giving a free concert. At bottom of photo you can see the smelly fishing equipment.
Lana enjoying her churro!
Casks beach and harbour. Surprisingly to me, there were no half naked females. There have been beaches in other parts of the world where a number of European ladies will remove their bra tops.
A Czech sand castle artist created two quite unique sand sculptures. He was below us in the sand and struck up a conversation. Obviously he was a hockey follower and once he discovered we were Canadian then talk turned to hockey.
So much fun at the beach, but it was time to head back to Lisbon. We found the train station fairly easily. Our stomachs are full from the chocolate cake, ice cream and churro! By 17:30 we are on the return train to Lisbon. We arrive at 18:02, so the return trip is shorter as there were less stops.
We headed to Mercado da Ribeira to do some food shopping. We decided that it was a long day and we were not too hungry so buying our dinner and taking it home made sense. Plus, our gracious host had left us a nice bottle of white wine (Azeitão Branco) and sardine paté/crisps. We bought some roasted suckling pig and deep fried potato chips. Plus, a very generous small plate of red beets and orange pieces as a salad. Total costs for our dinner amounted to 20Euro.
Mercado da Ribeira. Very cool space with a number of merchants on the perimeter and seating in the middle. So many great choices for food and for drinking. We took our stuff back to the apartment.
Roasted suckling pig.
Suckling pig with potato chips.
Sardine paté provided by our host. Lana is acquiring a taste for sardines on this trip. I have loved sardines for years so easy for me to enjoy eating in Portugal.
When travelling you can be surprised by the unexpected. We tried to reverse replicate the route we took from our apartment to the train station as it was more direct, but very steep. Well, we didn't quite get it right, but we did come across a "miradourus" on the way up this very steep hill. We don't know the name of this miradourus, but the views were spectacular of the harbour, bridge in the distance and many houses below. A miradourus is an outlook point or hilltop terrace in Lisbon. There were many locals there and lots of beer and wine being consumed. So lucky to have come across this place.
We weren't sure where we would come out from the steep climb/streets, but when we came across the main street that runs near our apartment we were right at the intersection to our apartment! Wow, we couldn't believe it!
Back to the apartment to enjoy our dinner with a very nice bottle of white wine. Very relaxing and enabled Lana to get into bed and sleeping before 21:30. Lana checked her step counter for the day and we put in 15.5 kms today in walking. Might help to stave off weight increases! Gave me time to finish today's blog. Another excellent day in Lisbon and surrounding area.
Tomorrow, we rent a car and then drive to various parts of Portugal. Very quiet in our Airbnb apartment as we can't hear any noise from the street or our neighbours. So far, this has been a great experience so looking forward to exploring other regions of Portugal.
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