Lisbon Part 2

We got a good night’s sleep last night and enjoyed breakfast at the very modern coffee shop Copenhagen, at the end of our street.  They had unusual breakfast items for Portugal like a soft boiled egg and cold oatmeal with chia seeds, granola and fruit. Usually the options are chocolate or plain croissants, cream filled pastries, or plain rolls.  I don’t think they had any workers or clients from Portugal there.  We could easily fix breakfast at our apartment, but since we leave tomorrow it didn’t seem worth getting the fixings when there were so many options nearby.

This morning we decided to explore the ancient Moorish neighborhood of Alfama and the San Jorge castle.  We took the 1930s era tram across town, but it was very crowded and slow.  I think it was just a morning traffic jam problem.  It did save us a lot of hills though.  The castle has beautiful views over the city as one might expect of a castle whose main purpose was defense.  Parts were built in the 1100s over Bronze Age settlements.  It would be fascinating to see a time lapse film of the development of a hilly city like Lisbon from say 500 BC to the present.   The Alfama neighborhood has narrow streets and lots of passages of stairways.  It is pretty touristy though with a gift shop around most corners.  We walked around for a while and generally headed downhill to the Baixa (low) neighborhood.  This neighborhood has lots of pedestrian streets filled with shops and restaurants with outdoor seating.  The pedestrian streets go all the way down to the Tejo River, the original grand entrance to Lisbon.  Now the biggest ships you see are just upriver at the cruise ship docks. The working port area looks like it may be downriver a little ways.

The old defensive walls of the city passed through here

More recent additions to Castelo Sao Jorge

The former moat?

Sylvan below the flag of Portugal

We had lunch at Noso Italia near the waterfront, outdoors.  We shared a pizza that was pretty good, and the salads and desserts that were passing our table looked great.  As it was very warm out I did get a scoop of passionfruit sorbet for dessert.  We caught the metro back to Rato station so we could judge whether we wanted to haul our bags back to the station by foot or taxi tomorrow morning.

Jake cooling his toes in the Tejo River

I could definitely see staying in Lisbon a few more days.  There are lots of other museums that sound interesting – an oceanarium, tile museum, the old water pumping station, car museum, and another botanic garden.  And there is the historic city of Sintra, a 45 minute train ride from Lisbon.    We can only do so many museums a day though and Jake especially is not into overdoing tourism.  Porto could have used another day or two also.  And then there’s the rest of Portugal!  I’d like to visit some cities that were not quite so overrun with tourists.

While on this trip I’ve been reading Thoreau’s Cape Cod for the October book club meeting.  This book was first published in 1865. Reading the book has made me think about how places develop.  I’ve never been to Cape Cod, but looking at a Google Earth map many of the wild areas Thoreau walked through are now extensive housing developments.  There were before European settlers, Indian communities on Cape Cod and Thoreau describes finding arrowheads.  I imagine they were much like the communities around the Chesapeake Bay.  In Portugal there were references to the Bronze Age settlements (2500 -800 BC).  Portugal is more or less on the same latitude as Cape Cod and so you can imagine a timeline comparing the development of the two regions facing each other across the Atlantic.

I find interesting Thoreau’s statement, “We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always”.  I do have this romantic sense when gazing out across the ocean, but we know so much more now about the ocean than 100 years ago.  Now we know that the ocean has changed because of people.  It has acidified absorbing our carbon dioxide causing bleaching of coral reefs and the thinning of oyster shells.  Fragments of plastic form islands on the ocean and microscopic fragments mix in the waves becoming an unnatural but now perhaps unseparable component.  Thoreau does mention the depletion of fishing stocks even as he describes the deliberate beaching and killing of hundreds of “blackfish” for their blubber, a practice now outlawed in most of the world.  The ocean hides its changes from us under the waves, but advances in technology and science let us see what our eyes cannot. 

Lisbon Part 1

We took the train from Porto to Lisbon admiring the seashore, small olive groves, eucalyptus and pine plantations, small gardens, corn fields, and cork oak trees from the speeding train.  Or at least I admired while exchanging text messages with a friend in Maryland while Jake read a novel. We took the fast train, the Alfa Pendular, which reaches speeds of 200 km/hour, getting us to Lisbon in 2.5 hours.  From the Oriente train station in Lisbon you get a Viva Viagem card for either 6 euros/day or pay by the trip to take the metro.  Just beware that the metro does not take US credit cards and the machines were not giving out new cards that day.

Invasive plants along the railway - Arundo donax and pampas grass

A field of sunflowers along the train route

Our street in Lisbon

Jake decided we should walk from the metro to our apartment.  It should take 15 minutes, but it was more like a ½ hour by the time we figured out the streets.  Easy for he with backpack, not so easy for me with rolling suitcase on cobblestone sidewalks!  We were both dripping sweat by the time we found our street but hey, we found it!  At least it was mostly downhill in this very hilly city. We called our contact and within 10 minutes she arrived to let us in and show us around the place.  We are in the Sao Bento neighborhood near Praca das Flores (Plaza of the Flowers - no, not a flower to be seen, but lots of trees).  We are also close to the National Assembly Building, but I haven’t yet learned anything about the state of Portuguese politics beyond noticing a Communist Party billboard in Porto.

We had dinner at a little café on the plaza, Pao de Canela.  The menu was somewhat limited at the early dinner hour of 7pm, but we each got a very nice salad.  Mine had chicken and mango with a yogurt sauce and sesame seeds.  Jake’s had chicken and pesto with some pasta.  We watched an episode of the BBC series Spooks on tv and went to bed. 

Today, Wednesday, we breakfasted at a local café with fresh squeezed orange juice (very common and delicious here), chocolate croissants (usually filled with Nutella), and coffee.  Then we set off downhill for the riverfront market.  It has undergone a yuppie transformation of sorts in the last few years and is owned by TimeOut Magazine.  It still sells vegetables, meat and fish in the mornings, but the entire central part of the market has been transformed into an upscale food court, more about that later.

At the food market in Lisbon

We caught a bus to the suburb of Belem across the street from the market.  Belem has a lot of museums and the President’s house.  We went to the UNESCO world heritage site of the San Jeronimo monastery.  This sand-castle like confection now houses an archaeology museum and a navigation museum in addition to a museum about the monastery.  We found that if you pay 2 extra euros you can gain entrance to the monastery and the archaeology museum in a very short line compared to the very long line in the hot sun just to see the monastery.  The archaeology museum was quite interesting too with exhibits on Portuguese explorations, gold and iron jewelry from the Bronze Age to the Roman conquest, on archaeological finds from a town in Portugal, and an exhibit on Roman objects from Lusitania.  The church attached to the monastery houses the bones of Vasco de Gama, the Portuguese explorer who first found a route to the Indies.  The museum did not answer the question of how the Portuguese ended up speaking a different language from the Spanish even though they are on the same peninsula.

Monasteiro Jeronimo

Vasco de Gama's eternal resting spot

We had lunch at a little café just around the corner from the monastery, the daily specials of monkfish and braised pork.  I then convinced Jake to go to the Tropical Botanical Garden, just behind the President’s mansion.  Jake found a shady bench to take a nap on while I explored the garden.  The garden has a neglected air, but is charming nonetheless.  It is full of ducks, chickens, and peacocks for one.  I came across groups of ducklings of various ages in the knot garden, roosters crowing proudly while hens pecked at palm fruits, and peacocks sleeping among the shrubbery.  I asked the one guard/ticket vendor about the garden.  It was started by the government in the late 1800s mainly to feature plants from the African colonies.  It has undergone a period of decline but may have recently been taken over by the University of Lisbon.  I hope it has better days ahead. 

Jake enjoying the botanic garden

Avenue of huge cacti

Touch of former elegance

The Japanese water garden with no water

Cats, ducks and chickens

Majestic avenue of palms

portrait of an ugly duck

After a reviving coffee and piece of carrot cake at the Navigation Museum cafeteria, we visited the Navigation Museum.  I think it may have the largest concentration of ship models I have ever seen.  There is lots of information about Portuguese explorers, the Navy, fishing vessels, and finally a huge display of royal barges. 

Royal barges

Exhausted by museums we caught a bus and then a very slow funicular back up the hill.  It has been very warm in Lisbon in the middle of the day, August weather someone said.  It cools down at night though fortunately. 

After a shower and a short break, I took a short walk uphill to the Botanical Garden.  This garden is better maintained and features quite a collection from all over the world. One section is an Arboretum with various collections of palms, cycads, pines, etc.   Another section is a rather unruly garden that used to be organized by plant family, but now seems to be organized in some sort of haphazard fashion that I didn’t get.  Still, lots of interesting plants if you’re in to that sort of thing!  Good thing I left Jake back at the apartment.

Cacti at the botanical garden

Stone mushrooms at the botanic garden

This evening we took a cab (yes, a cab!) back down to the riverside market to check out the food court. The food court was filled with people of all ages and nationalities. We started with 2 oysters and a glass of vinho verde.  Then a bowl of “stone soup” (bean and ham I think) while we chatted with a young immigration attorney from Baltimore.  Followed by a California roll and octopus salad.  I also tried the local sour cherry liqueur (too much like cough syrup) and a white port.  For dessert we split a dark chocolate éclair.  Caught a cab back too.  Cabs are not very expensive and easily obtainable (or at least they were tonight).

Porto Part 2

On Sunday we got a late start enjoying the quiet of our apartment (on weekdays there has been a lot of construction next door).  We took a bus out to Serralves, a park and modern art museum.  It turned out it was their fall festival, so there were a lot of families in the park enjoying science, craft, and farm-related demonstrations and activities.  We particularly enjoyed the exhibition of macro photos of natural objects and a small farmer’s market.  The park and gardens are quite lovely with big trees and lots of garden styles.

Macro photo of Liriodendron tulipifera!

Not tripe, but waffles!  Should have had lunch here,

Mushrooms at the farmer's market at the festival at Serralves

Kids enjoying the straw at the fall festival

Serralves park

cork oak at Serralves

modern art museum

Group of maybe 200 motorcyclists seen from the bus, most dressed in suits and ties, lost of vintage motorcycles

The modern art museum is very modern.  A big angular white building with various terraces.  We planned to eat at the restaurant but they were doing a buffet lunch for the weekend and we weren’t that hungry.  We had a mediocre lunch in the bar on the lower floor.  I can’t say any of the exhibits really grabbed our attention, but it just wasn’t my favorite style of art.  If I were more in tune with modern art, maybe I would have thought it was great!

For dinner we wandered down to the riverfront, but outdoor seating was mostly reserved or required a long wait.  We ended up in the interior of an older café watching 90s music videos on tv.  My order of clams in cilantro sauce was pretty good, Jake’s fried calamari were just okay.  It was a lovely evening though and wandering through Porto’s narrow streets seeing people out dining and musicians playing on street corners was a treat.

Today was our day of decadence.  We walked over the bridge to the Vila de Gaia, the port wine production area on the other side of the river from Porto.  We wended our way down from the bridge to the riverfront and found a small winery, Quinta dos Corvos, just off the main street offering a tour in English (the first place we stopped had no tours until afternoon).  It was just us and a couple from Spain on the tour.  Our guide was a young sommelier who had learned English in school and in Brooklyn for 2 months.  The facility they have is mostly for show and sales as the wine production all takes place in the Douro Valley and they store their barrels of port at the estate. They have been in operation since the 1700s.  It was a good tour for learning about the history of port wine and the different types of port.  At the end you try 3 ports in the tasting room, a white port (aged 7 years), an L. B. V.  (Late bottled vintage) ruby port aged 2 years, and a 10 year old tawny port.  White port is a lot like sherry.  LBVs can be purchased relatively inexpensively but then you’re supposed to keep them 10+ years in your cellar turning them seasonally.  Vintage ports of defined years increase in price with age.  The Port Association defines in what years ports can be declared vintage based on good growing conditions. Tawny ports can be aged for decades and can be kept for a few months maybe after opening. There was also info about which ones are aged in barrels versus bottles and about blending versus single harvest and I have to say I sort of lost track at that point. We did try a 30 year old tawny port which was really, really good.  We would have tasted the 40 year, but they had sold out recently and had yet to open a new cask to bottle.

morning glories on the way to the bridge

Traditional boat used to ferry casks of port from upriver to the warehouses

Port tasting at Corvo

From there we stopped for a takeout expresso to sip as we strolled along the waterfront.  We made our way uphill to Graham’s, a larger winery started by two Scotsmen in the 1800s.  Graham’s commands an amazing view looking upriver and they have a lovely restaurant.  We had a table on the sunporch looking right out over the valley.  We both got the executive menu, 3 courses with a choice of 2 beverages.  I got a glass of the house red wine, made by the winery from tempranillo grapes (called something else, like the national grape, here in Portugal).  The food was pretty good and the service exceptional. 

Graham's warehouse

Lunch at Vinum

After our leisurely lunch, we went on the 3pm tour of the Graham’s facility.  They do in fact store all their barrels and bottles here in a big old stone warehouse with a tile roof.  The tour is half a video about the families that have owned and operated the winery and half a tour of the casks and bottles.  They have port stored there since the mid-1800s.  At their tasting room I opted for the vintage tawny tasting which was a reserve, a 10 year and a 20 year tawny port.  They do get progressively fuller in taste.  Jake mostly abstained from this second tasting.  There are many other port producers here, but we just couldn’t taste any more.

Aging port

Aging bottles of port

Tawny port tasting

View of the port warehouses from the teleferico

We walked back down to the riverfront and caught the teleferico back up the hill, little ski gondolas.  The other couple in our gondola were from Mexico and Argentina.  I had assumed they were from Spain, they assumed we were European.  We haven’t really seen (or heard) many other North Americans here.

Porto - Part 1

Jake was waiting for me in the lobby of the Campanha train station in Porto when my train from Lisbon arrived!  He looked much the same, still looking good after his 190 mile trek on the Camino Primitivo in Spain.  We had a short wait for the local train to the Sao Bento station downtown, then a short walk to our apartment. 

We are in the heart of the old part of Porto on a steep windy street that has limited access to cars.  The apartment was renovated in 2014 and received awards for its ecofriendly redo.  There are lots of nice architectural touches like some exposed rock and wood walls and original beams, all whitewashed to make them look bright and clean.  The kitchen cabinet doors are old windows with most of the paint scraped off leaving a sort of marbled looking pattern.  The stairs coming up from the ground floor and within the apartment are fairly steep and narrow, but nothing for a Camino Primitivo walker!

Jake had acquired a head cold after hiking and a craving for lots of vegetables, so I found a little grocery up the hill on our street and bought carrots, zucchini, broccoli, onion and garlic to roast.  Later I found there is a larger, more modern grocery down the hill, but for vegetables and meat I think the smaller one may be better.  Also within a block or two are a butcher, a pastry shop, numerous restaurants of all sorts, wine shops, and other stores. 

On our first full day in town we explored the old part of the city and went to the indoor municipal market.  There are numerous old churches, palaces, forts, etc. around this part of town.  Many buildings have beautiful tile facades.  The city is situated above the Rio Douro with great views from many parts of town.  Near one of the old churches, a large group of students was doing some sort of initiation of freshmen.  The sophomores were all dressed up, women in black skirts, hose and shoes and a black jacket with a white shirt and black tie, men in black suits with white shirts and black tie and both sexes wearing Harry Potter like black shawls.  The freshmen were wearing red sweatshirts.  I’m not sure what was going on but a lot of sophomores were yelling and brandishing bottles of wine at the master of ceremonies.  And sometimes small groups of freshman would be invited up on the stand and offered a black cape.

Tile facades along the waterfront

Superman and Batman live here

Freshman Initiation

Sao Bento train station

Along the ramparts

The municipal market is not as great as some other European markets we’ve been to, but it had its charms.  There are a couple stalls to buy bread and many seafood stalls with octopi spilling out of bins and sardines of all sizes on display.  We sampled a fried codfish ball from one place and then had lunch at one of the seafood restaurants in the market.  They hand you a menu that is basically a photo album of what they serve, suitable in any language!  There was basically one waitress and one other person who would set and clear tables and bring food over.  Both were extremely busy but the food came out pretty quickly.  I got a glass of the house white wine and grilled dourado fish.  Jake got grilled sardines.  Both were very good, served with buttery potatoes and some lettuce and tomato. Before the meal they bring a little plate of fried stuffed things with a few olives.

At the market - note the green custard apple fruits by the vendor - relatives of paw paws

On day two we decided to walk to Foz de Douro, the closest beach.  We first went through the Garden of the Crystal Palace.  There used to be a glass dome there, but now it is a huge cement dome and I’m not sure what it’s used for.  But it is surrounded by a pretty park.  We got an expresso and a chocolate muffin at the little coffee kiosk and chatted with the guy about where New Mexico was.  He had heard of NM and knew it was near Texas. 

Oddly pruned London plane trees

Life adding to art

At the Palacio de Cristal

Garden at the Palacio de Cristal

Graffiti artist Costah, not sure if the nose is by him too

Stone paved roads from the garden to the riverfront

From the park it was a long walk along the river to the beach, but pleasant looking out over the river and walking on a paved pedestrian/bike path.  The beach isn’t much of a swimming beach, but there were people sunning themselves on the sand.  We decided to have lunch at one of the outdoor restaurants along the beach.  You never know what you’ll get when you ask for lemonade.  This time we got a glass with lemon juice in it, some packets of sugar, and a bottle of water.  This is kind of a nice way to serve lemonade really since you can make it just as you like.  We got an order of grilled padron peppers as an appetizer, sprinkled with flaky sea salt.  The peppers were not at all spicy, but had that great grilled flavor.  Sandwiches were pretty good and it was a very pleasant spot to while away an hour while resting our feet.  We caught the historic tram back into town.

Along the Rio Douro

Ruin overrun with bougainvillea

Heron and fishing boats

Our lunch spot

Inside the tram

In the late afternoon we went back out in our neighborhood to some craft/flea markets.  The old part of town is buzzing with tourists from all over.  We had a cup of tea next door to a famous bookstore, but the bookstore is so popular they now sell timed tickets to even get into it.  Who would have thought there would still be lines of people going to a bookstore!  It is famous more for its architecture than its books though.

We had an early dinner at a tapas restaurant just up the street, Caldereiros.  Jake was in the mood for vegetable rice or soup, and ended up with a soupy vegetable rice, so that was satisfying.  I had shrimp cooked in garlic and white wine, fried octopus fillets, and black eyed peas with a parsley topping.  We shared a ½ liter of red sangria.  Apparently with the octopus, you boil it in salted water for an hour or more, cool it, then fry it.  It had the consistency of a chicken tender.  The fillets come from a certain part of the octopus though, not all parts are cooked the same.