Lisbon - Part 3
December 23, 2010 Written December 27 Friends and Families , This is the third part of our Great Lisbon Adventure. Wednesday, December 23, Walk, Fish, & Tiles Marianne and I are generally morning people and that's true on vacation too so we got up early and explored our neighborhood. Our apartment was in the Baixa district, a couple of blocks from the Cais do Sodre ferry terminal and not far from the Praca do Commercio, the port where Vasco de Gamma returned from his famous travels. This is a gritty neighborhood, but in early morning it certainly was not threatening in any way. The local shops were just opening and we managed a good cafe con leite (milk coffee) and a roll with butter -- very local. This is a good way to start, even if it was a bit of walking. We were back on our two-museum-per-day schedule and today's plan had us heading to the Lisbon aquarium and to the tile museum. We hit the Oceanario first because it was a straight-forward metro trip from our Cais do Sodre base. The aquarium is out in a relatively new neighborhood that was rebuilt for the 1998 World's Fair and it was a contrast to our ancient Baixa neighborhood. The Oceanario de Lisboa is the second largest aquarium in the world and the largest in Europe. I went nuts taking pictures -- over 250! However, the link here has only a fraction. I think my favorites were the colorful sea anemones, or maybe the bright yellow, blue and green frogs. After all that walking over, under, and through the world's oceans, we enjoyed a big Brazilian lunch. Marianne and Alice had "moqueca", a fish dish from northeastern Brazil. I tried a cod (bacalau) dish, my second for the trip. This is very traditional for a Portugese Christmas, a tradition dating back to the days of Portugese fishermen off the coast of Greenland. They would fish all summer, preserving their catch in layers of salt and would return shortly before Christmas with a winter's worth of protein for the folks back home. I have to say that both my bacalau dishes were quite good although that is something of a tricky thing. Salted cod can be as foul tasting as it sounds, but not this time. Tile Museum (Museu do Azulejo) Fortified with food and caipirinhas, we headed back toward town to the Tile Museum. It is set in the 16th Century Madre de Deus (Mother of God) Convent. Many of the tile "displays" were simply the decorated walls of the old building. Both the building and the colorful tiles were worth the stop. After a complicated bus trip back to Cais do Sodre, Chuck and I split from the wives. They went shopping and we went to our neighborhood internet cafe. To each their own. Just one day left, Christmas Eve Day. Our plan was to go to the town of Sintre, northwest of Lisbon and reportedly the location of many elaborate old home of the 18th Century royalty. Unfortunately, Marianne's hip began to hurt, after a day of dawn to dusk walking so our last day in Lisbon would be unplanned -- but that's another story. John and Marianne |