Portugal - Lisboa - Out and About

Last night, we had a fantastic dinner. Our intent was to find a fado bar in the Bairro Alto area of the city, where we could here some music, have a few drinks and something to eat. Another goal was to figure out the Metro system. Our hotel was far enough outside of the center city area to make it quite obvious that we would need a better way for getting there than walking, taking a taxi or a bus. We did successfully figure out the Metro system, and made our way down to the Restauradores neighborhood without any problems, and it is quite a nice Metro. On our way to the Bairro Alto area, we saw a restaurant that had fresh fish laid out, and a nice cozy authentic portuguese seafood kind of atmosphere, so we couldn't resist. Dinner consisted of a small bottle of white wine, cheese, bread, olives, mixed vegetables, and a huge platter of 4 grilled fishes, and shrimp. For dessert, we had a tangerine sorbet, and vienese layered ice cream. Everything was delicious! By the time we finished, we were ready to call it a night, and opted to go back to the hotel instead of to a fado bar.

Today, we got up early enough for the complimentary breakfast, a first. After breakfast, we popped into a cyber cafe for about a half hour of free kiosk Internet access and reserved our next hotel for two more nights in Lisbon, and bought our plane tickets to Barcelona on Monday. Then we got the Metro back down into the Restauradores area, and walked to the Alfama part of the city. Alfama is known for its narrow winding roads, giving birth to Fado music, and the Castelo do Sau Jorge. On the way, we found a correio, or post office, and mailed all of the postcards we've been hoarding since we arrived 2 weeks ago. On the way to Alfama, we discovered a fabulous art gallery, probably the most beautiful one I've ever seen. It was an old building, completely restored, with perfectly white concrete walls, recessed and track lighting, exposed brick, arched entryways, concrete floors, and glass floor inserts. I asked if I could video the gallery, but was told I couldn't, which I expected. We continued on towards the castle and found it pretty quickly. The castle was full of beautiful little nooks, trees, stone walkways, towers, and ramparts. We walked the entire area, but forgot to visit the multimedia display, and when we tried to get back in later to see it, they would not let us. We had a coffee, dulce de leche pastry, and vegetable roll for a snack at a friendly small cafeteria and visited some of the shops. One was selling portuguese wines, spirits and port. Some of their port was produced in the late 1950's and sold for almost 800EUR per bottle. Needless to say, we left that shop empty-handed, but it was quite interesting. After our failed attempt to get back into the castle grounds to see the multimedia history of Lisbon show, we walked to the monastary. It was in pretty poor condition on the inside, though still pretty, and they had a dedicated visitors area that we skipped because it would have cost 4 EUR each to get in and it did not seem all that compelling. I really wanted to find the Museu do Fado, and I asked an old man smoking a cigarette in what I assumed was the doorway to the front of this house if he could tell us how to get to the Museu. He was very friendly, and very willing to offer us directions, and we eventually found our way there. The Museu was extremely impressive, with beautiful displays, lots of audio and video, and collections of record albums, photos, magazine and newspaper clippings, and even a life-size fado bar. We continued walking around the Alfama area, going into some shops, a few more churches, plazas, and took alot of pictures. Ending up down in the Baixa area, we considered taking one of the cable cars for a ride through the city, but missed the last one, and it turned out to be pretty expensive anyway. We enjoyed the Praca do Comercio, with the huge equestrian statue of Dom Jose I, and the opposing Arco do Rua Augusto. The downside though was that I was aggressively solicited to buy a pair of sunglasses, and then within the next half hour, solicted 4 times to buy cocaine, marijuana and hash. Not the best feeling in the world. We thought about riding the Elevador de Santa Justa, but decided against it, as we were feeling somewhat insecure and watched. We also wanted to buy some of the street artist's paintings, but we really have nowhere to put it, and decided not to. Soon, we took the metro back towards our hotel, stopped into a supermercado for some snacks, and then went to our room to indulge in some wine, bread, cheese, fruit and beer. This'll be a quiet night, as we've just decided that we're not feeling real good about being out on that same part of the town after our experiences late this afternoon.

Some of our general impressions including the following. The people in Lisbon are polite enough, but don't seem to have a joy about them. This has been our consistent experience in each place we visit. The folks are not mean to us, or impolite, but just not very friendly either. I'd be willing to say that we don't feel quite welcome here. Not because of being American, but more because we are obviously not from Portugal. We also feel the least secure here of any place that we've been. People are not afraid to stare, and we have a constant feeling of being watched, and being measured up for an opportunity to be taken advantage of. We both felt that this might be the main reason why we were not able to fully absorb the magic of this city. The city has so much beauty to offer, but it is all with a rough edge to it. I'd compare the beauty to that of dried flowers. Dried flowers are beautiful, but not in the same way as freshly cut flowers. Not necessarilly more or less beautiful, just a different kind. Lisbon is like this. Beautiful in a melancholic and unique way.