Day 9: Lisbon on foot/ Lisbon á pied
There was rain - big drops of water from
the sky but it did not affect us as it had disappeared by the time we were
ready to go out. We ended up with a nice
sunny day.
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| Building dedicated to a Nobel Laureate |
We went to find an information centre in
the railway station near us but it was closed when we got there so I took Bev
on a nice little hike paralleling the waterfront until we got to this huge
square where there was a large statue to an important historical figure. The square faced the sea and was surrounded
by some very big buildings, in one of which we found the information
centre. We got maps, directions and
information about public transport.
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| Praca do Commercio |
Our next stop was at the Mercado da Ribeira
a fresh produce market and a food hall.
It was developed by the owners of Time Out magazine from what was a run
down building that used to be the produce market. It is huge!
The produce market had closed by the time we go there but the food hall
was very busy with hardly a free space to sit.
I had read that local chefs had each created their own small
eatery. There were quite a few of them
around. The meal we had was superb and
at very good price.
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| Time Out Food Hall |
While we were eating a couple of young
British men sat opposite us. They were
on a stag weekend and talked to us about their travels to Australia and New
Zealand as well as telling us about a bar in Lisbon on the top of a parking
building. I had read about this one and
they told us how to get there.
Apparently it was near a funicular.
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| Happily dancing |
We decided that we would wander off and go
visit it. I got out the map to find the
funicular and worked out the streets we needed to walk to get there. The area we were going to was called the
Barrio Alto and is another older part of town much loved by tourists. Along the way we came upon a band playing
some very interesting music using both conventional instruments and
unconventional ones. The most unusual
was a contraption using bent plastic pipes to provide the base rhythms.
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| The band with the odd base machine |
There was quite a crowd there and at one
point a middle aged woman began dancing what I can only assume was some kind of
Portuguese dance which we also found entertaining to watch.
We continued on up the main road to the
funicular. It was very cute with the cab itself remaining horizontal as it went
up the very steep slope. Most
unusual! We could not find the parking
building nearby so I looked at the map and realised we had to retrace our
steps. In writing this I realised that
there are two funiculars and it was the second the men were talking about.
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| One fish out of water at the rooftop bar |
There is no sign saying there is a bar in
the parking building – so it must have been word of mouth that enabled people
to find it. We took the lift which (was
enhanced by graffiti) to the top of the building, found some less than
welcoming stairs, climbed a up floor and came out to a place that had to be the
bar. Sure enough it was. It was humming! We were the oldest by about three
decades. There was another group of
young Englishmen who were also clearly on a stag do. I felt very much like a fish out of
water.
We had a beer and then took the long route
back to our apartment which included going through a whole lot of pedestrianized
streets, finding a decent supermarket on the way and a viewing area where we
watched the Queen Mary 2 depart. Dusk
was falling as we arrived back at our apartment.
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| The funicular |
After a brief relax we went out to get a
meal ending up at a little wine bar and restaurant around the corner. It had a limited menu, which apparently used
the produce that was available on the day.
We shared a started of local dried sausage and cheeses which were really
nice. Bev had fish stew and I had stewed
rabbit. The food was good but not
outstanding. It was by Portuguese
standards relatively expensive.
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| Local colour |
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