We were up surprisingly early after walking so many steps the next day. We had declined the breakfast at this hotel with the hope of going out and getting something a little bit better than “hotel breakfast”. We found a place called “Mil Sabores” that was open early, so we walked a few blocks in the brisk morning air to get there. We passed some beautiful landmarks on the way, and the road maintenance people were out cleaning up from the night before.
The breakfast place was a cafe, not part of a chain, and the lady running it spoke English, so we were all set. We had a ham, egg and cheese omelette (better than Marrakech) and I had a grilled cheese sandwich, along with two cappuccinos (each!) While we enjoyed our hot breakfast the shopkeeper was talking with a couple of what looked like homeless guys. I got a really good vibe from the cafe – it was a nice breakfast place.
We went back to the hotel to get organized and then went outside and hailed a car with the ride hailing app Bolt. Ride hailing was banned in Morocco but it was nice to be able to use an app instead of haggling with taxi drivers over price and having to listen to their sales pitch while driving.
But we soon found that there are some drawbacks to the app model. Our driver was quiet but most of his attention was focused on his personal phone sitting on his lap – he was either attending a web meeting or watching someone’s presentation. He got us to our destination, but I was surprised how little he paid attention to the road. I’m sure he was getting paid dirt cheap wages to drive, and so I guess we should expect a little more risk for as low as the price was. Still, not a great experience but at least no haggling.
Our destination was The Monument to Discoveries, a dramatic and imposing sculpture in remembrance of historical Portuguese explorers setting out from this point. It was really impressive, even more so with the morning sun shining and backdropped with the blue sky and water.
From the monument we walked along the river/ocean to the west until we came to the Torre de Belem, a landmark tower with a great view of the Tagus river and the ocean beyond. In this area we started to see a lot of tour buses parked – we weren’t the only ones getting an early start. In the area we also walked through the Jeronimos monastery which had some beautiful exterior architecture in a white gothic style.
Instead a riding a taxi we decided to walk back and burn some calories. It was not a short walk but gave us plenty of chances to see things that we would otherwise miss. I got lots of photos of tiles, and we passed so many cafes and restaurants that were placed to enjoy the view of the river. We walked over a bridge to a unique platform overlooking the long bridge to the south. The viewpoint was called MAAT, and the modern style indicated that it wasn’t that old.
Finally we ended up closer to where we started. We popped into a big market that was divided into two sides. The first side we visited was the traditional market – where people would buy ingredients, fish and meat for cooking – but it was about half closed down. However on the other side was the Time Out market, which was packed with small restaurants and food shops selling things that were ready to eat. They had all kinds of local foods, bars that were serving local booze and wine, and some lively music playing. It was a cool vibe, so we thought it would be a good place to take a break. Kuniko bought us some shrimp in a spicy soup with some crusty bread, and I contributed two glasses of Portuguese sparkling wine. The place was full of long tables, and there were big empty spaces, but we were surprised when a group of four people sat right next to us. It felt like someone sitting right next to you in an empty movie theater.
We continued exploring the city, checking out new areas that we had missed last time. Lisbon is of course a huge city and we were only getting a little taste of it, and the hillsides we went up and down reminded me a bit of San Francisco. Eventually we stopped for lunch at a seafood restaurant that was located on a quiet intersection. We sat outside as the day had warmed up, and once again got into the sparkling wine. I ordered a big cheese plate with five or six kinds of cheese and it was fun to taste and compare. We also had salt cod and potatoes, and then some still white wine that I really liked.
After lunch we checked out local markets, found new year’s traditional roasted suckling pigs piled on a table for the locals. A little grotesque, but I’ll bet they are delicious. We also had to buy some pastel de nata (four of them!) as we had really enjoyed them in Macao and thought it would be weird not to eat them in Portugal.
We spent some time resting our feet and taking a nap in our hotel, and then went back out to get some more wine and food. We went to a wine bar that wasn’t too far away. It was a very stylish restaurant, and the wines they served were all different labels but owned under one wine group. The staff were friendly and fanned out their wine list as a set of cards – we could read about each wine. They also gave some recommendations, and let us taste before pouring our glasses.
We ate and drank well here, as you might expect. We had two sparkling wines, two rather bold reds, I got a small round of Azeitao cheese (oh yeah) and then we had pork cheeks with potato, mushrooms stuffed with chorizo sausage and quail eggs. We were the only people there because as usual we were starting early, but it was great to try several kinds of wines and eat local foods.
As it was getting dark we wandered the area randomly, turning corners and heading towards things that looked interesting. There were shops selling tinned fish in stylish designs. It was shocking to see that each tin was 9 euros – the price you pay for style! We saw more Christmas trees, some DJs were set up playing really loud music, and again lots of people were just standing around taking it in.
Finally we went to another wine bar that was close to our hotel, and had port wine for dessert. I had a tawny 10 year port, Kuniko had a white port, and we ate a drunken pear with ice cream on cinnamon sand. Once again the staff were really nice and helpful – we met so many genuinely nice people on this trip.
Back at our hotel room we realized that the H&M camisole that Kuniko had bought earlier still had the anti-theft tag on it, and so we went back out to get it removed at the store. We waited in line for a cashier – customers were all using their smartphone to look for coupons maybe – so it took a while. But the staff checked our receipt and then remove the tag. She said that next time we don’t need to wait in the line, and I wondered how often this kind of thing happens…
So we headed back (again) to our hotel, and to bed to build up our energy for New Year’s Eve tomorrow.
