Sep 21 – Evora to Lisbon
An easy travel day with no extra stops between Evora and Lisbon. Before leaving, we took one last walk through Evora to find the Porta Moura gate. We missed it the first pass through as it is two towers and no arch. It was an easy drive to Lisbon airport to drop off car.
We were happy with the apartment we booked in Lisbon, in the Principe Real neighborhood. Pleasantly surprised at the great views from the rooftop terrace and from the living room.
We found a nice restaurant just minutes away – Honest Greens. The restaurant offers many healthy option and a rooftop terrace for dining. We explored the neighborhoods – walking through nearby gardens, checked out the very cool but expensive Baixada shopping center in a renovated building and finally found an Aldi grocery store to stock up on basics.
We took advantage of the terrace for simple dinner of wine, bread, cheese, meat and fruits.
Sep 22 – Exploring Lisbon via Tuk Tuk and by foot
We had prearranged a tuk tuk tour of Lisbon with Vini of Get Around Portugal. He picked us up at our apartment and whisked us all over the city, stopping at the highlights. It was a cloudy day so the views from the various miradoura were not spectacular. But we hit many highlights mostly from the outside and we peeked in a few places like the Se Cathedral.
The tour ended in Belem where we had the famous pastries Pasta de Belem. Belem is where the Portuguese explorers began their travels. We spent some time at the Monument to the Discoveries on the riverside. The Monument is in the shape of a ship with the great navigators carved into stone – Henry the Navigator, Vasco de Gama, Magellan and the kings who financed their trips. Equally interesting is a marble map of the world showing the progress and conquest of the Portuguese between 1488 and 1522.
We only peeked at the Tower of Belem and the very long lines at the Jeronimos Monastery. We were lucky to see impressive monasteries in Tomar and Alcobaca with no lines or crowds, so skipping this one was a no brainer. The Maritime Museum looked interesting but we never made it back there.
In the evening we had a reservation at the renown Ponte Final restaurant. Prior to talking with Vini we contemplated canceling, thinking it would be a hassle to get there and back. He convinced us to go. It was a bit of an adventure well worth any hassle. First we took an Uber to the ferry terminal (Cais do Sodre) and then a 20 minute ferry ride to Cacilhas. Cacilhas is a small port town with many seafood restaurants. To get to our restaurant we walked along the riverfront. The concrete “promenade” is in bad shape with huge holes and hazards. The walls in front of shuttered warehouses are covered in graffiti. The good part of the walk was watching the sun start to descend behind the 25th of April bridge and many sailboats giving sunset tours.
We joined hundreds of other patrons waiting for their 7pm sunset reservation. The restaurant is wrapped around a corner and luckiest guests have sunset views from their tables. We got a good table and tucked in to enjoy the evening. This restaurant is easily able to manage possibly 200 covers all seated at the same time.
The guys tried a few Portuguese specialities, grilled sardines and salted cod, neither of which appealed to me. We had a marinated octopus salad which was tasty but didn’t compare with the grilled octopus we had in Porto. I made a great choice, a seafood stew filled with fish in a red sauce cooked in a clay pot. It was too much food for me and I hated to leave half. We ordered a red Douro wine which was nice. The brand is readily available in stores for 5 euros a bottle and we even had some in airport on way out.
Overall dining at Pont Final was a fun experience that I’m glad we didn’t miss. We decided to Uber home over the bridge which entailed quite a hike up maybe 100 steps in the dark to a street where the driver could pick us up. Shared rides in Portugal have been quite cheap.
The history focus in Portugal seems to be on ancient history from the Phoenicians and Romans, Moors, the monarchies and explorers. Little was mentioned about the brutal dictatorship of Salazar who was in power from 1926 until his death in 1970. The Carnation Revolution in 1974 finally ended the dictatorship. Portugal, Spain and Greece all experienced civil wars, world wars, dictators in the 20th century and all remained the poorer countries of Europe until the 2000s.
Sep 23 – Sintra
Today was a full day tour in Vini’s van to Sintra and other sights along the coast. This route is extremely popular with the tourists so we decided to reverse the typical tour and do the Sintra palaces in the afternoon.
We drove the wild western coast first stopping at the Boca de Inferno, scenic oceanfront cliffs featuring a natural archway & open cave created by pounding waves.
Next stop was a winding road over a mountain to the westernmost point of Europe, Cabo da Roca. This spot is teeming with bus loads of tourists, everyone politely waiting a turn to take a picture in front of the market. It reminded me of a similar photo we took in South Africa at the Cape of Good Hope. Our guide knew of a restaurant close to Cabo da Roca for lunch. Moinho Dom Quixote was not very crowded and has tables in a delightful garden with views overlooking the sea. Good choice.
We visited Caiscais (pronounced caish caish). Cascais is a coastal resort town in Portugal, just west of Lisbon with several sandy beaches and a busy marina. The old town is charming we all decided we could easily stay there and take day trips to Lisbon. Zoe thought she might buy a place when all hell breaks out in the US.
We continued on along windy roads and through many villages to drive through Sintra, a madhouse of cars and people to get up to Pena Palace and Regaleira castle.
Pena Palace
The biggest draw for tourists in Sintra is Pena Palace. It’s a disneyesque hilltop palace that sits above the town. Built in the 19th century by a German born prince who was a cousin of Prince Albert and “Mad” King Ludwig (of Neuschwanstein). Rick Steve’s description of the palace is “crazy neo-fortified castle of Gothic towers, Renaissance domes, Moorish minarets, manueline carvings, and azuelo tiles”.
We only bought tickets for outside which included the gardens, the terraces and a lovely chapel. This was the most crowded place we had been on this 2 week trip, though the crowds at Nazare Beach and Belem monastery lines were also long. It is a photogenic location and the afternoon sun reflecting on the colorful walls made for nice pictures. Glad we went, don’t need to go again.
Quinta da Regaleira
Our second stop in Sintra was the Quinta da Regaleira, a 1912 mansion and garden. The house was not that interesting as it had little furniture or original decor, just pictures of the family, their lifestyle and presidents of the country. The outside of the building is striking with prickly spires.
The gardens are what draws all the tourists. They are uphill from the house and entrance. The highlight of the grounds is the “Portal of the Guardians”, a spiral staircase well called the initiation well where masonic initiation rites were held. From the bottom of the well there are many tunnels that lead to waterfalls and back to the path down to the house. The line for one way path through the well looked long but only took 20 minutes.
From this palace we walked back to the old town of Sintra. The traffic has subsided and town was quiet but it’s obvious that the daily hordes of vehicles must annoy the locals. On the way out of town we had a couple of travesseiros, a flaky pastry filled with an almond paste at the historic Casa Piriquita bakery.
We did not visit the Moorish Palace. It’s awfully high up and there wasn’t enough time to make the trek..
On our return to Lisbon, we got dropped off near the Praca do Comercio so we could we could explore this touristy area. The riverfront square is huge and was once the site for the royal palace. The square has a huge statue of King Jose I and his chief minister Pompal who actually ran the government after the 1755 earthquake. On the north end of the square is Lisbon’s Rua Augusta Arch, built to commemorate the city’s reconstruction after the 1755 earthquake.
Sep 24 – Final Day in Portugal
On our last day of this trip, I explored on my own for first half of the day. I love wandering a city by myself because I can decide where I want to stop and for how long. I followed the Barrio Alto/Chiado neighborhood walks which were mostly downhill. I was able to see a few of the major sites that we had missed.
The Sao Roche Church is one of the earliest Jesuit churches, built in the 16th century, with several mainly baroque chapels. It has an amazing painted ceiling that appears to be curved but is actually flat. The chapels are quite ornate and there are several with relics, bones from saints. Photo below from travel-in-portugal dot com as my phone couldn’t capture the immensity and ornate decor.
I especially enjoyed the Carmo Convent which is now a unique museum – Carmo Archaeological Museum. The museum is a ruined Gothic church that was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1755. The roof of the main church collapsed during the earthquake and has been mostly left intact. Behind the nave are a number of chapels who still have their roofs. Displayed in these chapels are archeological relics from many centuries including tombs, pottery, tiles, and finds from pre Christian times. There were no lines, it wasn’t crowded and was definitely worth my time. A couple was taking photos to announce arrival of a baby girl to be named Zoe.
Next door was a military museum which was hardly worth the 2 euros I spent. (Museu da Guarda Nacional Republicana / Museu da GNR.). Don’t bother.
Lunch at Caffè di Marzano Vermuteria. Excellent Shashuka.
Walked on Rua de Garrett, pedestrian retail and dining street. Popped into several famous bookstores along the way. Bertrand is supposedly the oldest continuously operating bookstore in the world. Interesting building but nothing caught my eye. Livraria Sá da Costa is a rare book shop with a small English section, lots of photographs, maps and post cards along with old books.
Kept heading down towards Praca Commercial where I buzzed through the Lisbon Story exhibit and then met up with the others. We ended our sightseeing day with a ride on the historic tram 28, passing through all the same neighbourhoods we had seen on our tuk tuk tour. Disclaimer – we did not take this fabulous picture. Courtesy of cktravels dot com.
The tram ride ended up in Martin Moniz which seems to be the immigrant neighbourhood, just as the rains were starting. The restaurants were Indian, Asian, Pakistani, Ethiopian and the locals were definitely not Portuguese. Quick break for coffee and pastry as the rain continued. We Ubered back to the apartment for a happy hour charcuterie board and red Douro wine. The rain dictated a third visit to Honest Greens for dinner. It was delicious as usual.
By the time we went to bed, we were all packed, showered and ready to go in the morning. We are headed home to Hurricane Helene in the Gulf.