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Not to diminish in any way Jardin des Plantes, the grand park just a few yards right down our own street, but the two most famous parks in central Paris are Luxembourg Garden, where Hemingway took his oldest son to play a century ago, and the Tuileries, where French kings played until two centuries ago. On a beautiful early autumn Saturday, we walked them both. Plus the length of the Louvre.

Altogether, Lynn figured out it was about 5 kilometers, although I think it was closer to five miles, considering we walked the entire length of the Louvre and the Tuileries.

Luxembourg Garden was built starting in 1612 by Marie de Medici, widow of Henri IV, to remind her of the green spaces she had grown up with in Florence. The original palace, now Petit Luxembourg and a small museum, was temporary quarters until she could finish the larger Luxembourg palace, which now serves as the French Senate.

Nothing had much changed since we were last there. It’s a wondrous place. The grounds and flowers are still beautiful, despite the advanced season; the children love to sail their petites bateaus, moving them with a long bamboo stick when they are not wailing in the water at the fish and the ducks; adults sit along the Grand Bassin catching the last sunshine before the cold, gray, wet Parisian winter comes in not too far ahead.

Somewhere, the ghost of Hemingway is catching a pigeon with Bumby to take home and eat. Or at least that was his story.

Our plan was to walk down from Luxembourg to the Batobus stop at St. Germain des Pres, then boat around to the Louvre. Well, that was the plan, anyway. By the time we reached the Seine, we had gone almost to the Louvre, so we simply walked down rue Dauphine past the two hotels where we once stayed, crossed the Pont Neuf and over to the back door of the Louvre.

We turned down rue de Rivoli, the shopping street that parallels the Louvre, in search of a new retail center that Phannette had described. We never found that, and we never really found much of anything new. The souvenir shops still offer scarves for 4 euros (three for 10), berets (7 euros), aprons, umbrellas, postcards, Eiffel Tower statuettes, t-shirts, sweatshirts, trays and other assorted items that bear the name and images of Paris. But this year there were no customers. The arcaded street was virtually empty.

Once we passed the Louvre, we gave up on rue de Rivoli and walked across the street to the dappled sunlight of the Tuileries, the spectacular elongated garden that was home to French kings until it was burned in the riots of 1870. (Imagine that–it survived the French Revolution but not the Commune!) Like Luxembourg, the Tuileries was built by a Medici, this one Catherine de Medici in 1564. She commissioned a Florentine landscape architect to create an Italian Renaissance garden. Funny how those Florentine queens longed for their home in Italy and did what they could to recreate it in France.

Like Luxembourg, the Tuileries hosts a large grand bassin, where parents rent little sailboats for the kids, and dozens of statues stand guard all along the shaded walks. Unlike Luxembourg, the Tuileries offers four separate concession stands, really outdoor restaurants, and we chose one of them that offered table service. As in the past, we ordered the charcuterie plate, which was plenty enough for the both of us, washed down with cold, tasty, 1664 beer.

Properly fed and watered, we walked down to the end of the park and the Place de la Concorde, perhaps one of the most stunning intersections in the world. But now we wanted our Batobus, and Lynn spied both the boat and the stop from the bridge. We hustled to make sure we made the boat on time. Once I saw that the line of passengers was fairly long, I knew we would make it, as we only had to show our pass sanitaire to board.

Donning our obligatory masks, we took our seats on what we hoped would be the shady side of the boat. But in mid-afternoon, there is no shady side of the boat. Our masks were suffocating in the sun, warmed further by the plexiglass canopy above us. We watched wistfully at the other excursion boats steaming up and down the Seine full with unmasked and comfortable passengers, many of who were packed like sardines on the upper open-air decks waving at us with their bare faces in the sun.

This boat trip was much more crowded, since it was Saturday and families were out with their small children to give them a view of Paris and a chance to torture adults by banging the folding chairs in the center to their delight and our audible misery. Jardin de Plantes stop could not come soon enough.

Desembarking our Batobus, we did not waste time wandering through a third park this day but made straight for our apartment and well deserved naps. Dinner would be pizza and more delicious French wine. We may spend as much as 5 euros on the next bottle.

We slept late on Friday with the intention of catching the first Batobus on the Seine nearest our apartment at the Jardin des Plantes. Batobus hours are reduced to basically midday to 6 p.m. and only Wednesday-Sunday at this time of the year. All the ticket kiosks are closed except for Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. This gives you an idea of how reduced tourism is here in Paris.

The boat was nearly empty when we boarded and never filled.

I had to explain my way on to the boat, because my phone decided not to download the PDF of the ticket file, even though it had worked just fine the night before. No problem to them since we had to exchange tickets at the Eiffel Tower stop anyway, where they were able to track my PDF and issue old-fashioned paper ducats for subsequent rides.

We ascended the stone steps from the Batobus landing to the Eiffel Tower and the desecration of security fencing surrounding it. As we rounded the corner past the souvenir hawkers (few though they may be these days), we saw the line to enter the grounds and just out of curiosity, joined in.

Well, lo and behold, the Eiffel Tower is open! That is, the grounds are open and free to visit; tickets are needed only to ascend to the upper floors, either by elevator (long lines) or stairs (no lines).

Visitors must first show the pass sanitaire to enter, then go through security, but that only takes a few minutes, since there are so few tourists. You can tell that tourism is way down by the dramatically reduced numbers of shit-sellers on the surrounding streets and sidewalks. They hardly even bother to hawk their wares at the few people passing by.

The Eiffel Tower itself is now surrounded by an attractive park inside the ugly, disgusting security fencing. Further marring the scene is a series of stacked containers, living quarters for the dozens of workers who are repainting the entire structure for the first time in 40 years. These are the same boxes that are placed around Notre Dame, housing the hundreds who operate the cranes, assemble the wood frames supporting the buttresses and carefully cataloguing the burned pieces of stone and wood.

But it was such a relief and a joy to wander on the grounds beneath the giant steel erector set we know and love. We reveled in the sights and took time for a baguette lunch at the little outdoor cafe, where there again was no line.

Now that we know the drill, we will return. But for this afternoon, it was time to head back to our apartment via Batobus. The Eiffel Tower is the first of nine stops along the river, and a group of two women and a man boarded at the next stop, all three maskless. That is a no-no in Paris.

The boat attendant made the obligatory announcement that everyone on the ship, inside or outside, was required to wear a mask, but the threesome ignored him. Then the attendant walked to the back to talk to them personally, and they continued to ignore the rule, especially a plump blonde squeezed into stretch pants a size or two too small. (And why do they insist on carrying their phone in an outside pocket?) She was wearing no mask at all, much less the under-the-chin option. And none of them obviously intended to comply with the rules.

Within minutes, four black-clad police showed up in a black RIB alongside our boat. Three of the gendarmes climbed aboard our boat, while the RIB driver hovered adjacent to us. The three police walked purposefully to the rear of the Batobus, singled out the offending passengers, chatted with them for a minute, then escorted them politely but firmly off the boat at the next stop. (I don’t think Paris police operate under any sort of consent decree, so careful what you say.)

The blond seemed most militant of the three, and she argued from the stern to the dock, presumably why this rule did not apply to her. She must have been French, because she carried on an animated if one-sided discussion with the cop as he herded her off the boat and on to the dock. And then sent her on her way but not on our boat.

Lesson learned–Wear. Your. Mask. I hate it too.

Last time we were in Paris was just two weeks after Notre Dame had burned. The old scaffolding was still smoldering and temporary chain link fencing had been hastily erected, so we could walk around the back and get a close-up view of the damage. At that time, we were also able to walk up to the front to see the pieces being carried out of the ancient cathedral to the front courtyard, where they were identified, labeled and stored away on site.

Now, some two and a half years later, the work has progressed from salvage to restoration. A large solid metal barrier has been erected from the front of the cathedral all the way around the side street across from the souvenir sellers. The barrier displays an impressive story of the restoration work with large scale photography and a descriptive narrative. And behind the eight-foot metal wall, we could see the new wooden braces that support the buttresses.

Overall, it is an impressive, if sad, display, and the restoration work seems to be moving ahead. However, none of the narrative speaks to the goal of having the cathedral restored by 2024 and the Paris Olympics. Perhaps they have given up on that ambitious target.

The street alongside Notre Dame is all but empty of souvenir sellers and their tourist patrons. Paris is virtually empty of tourists, and we hear very few American voices.

We walked reverentially past the cathedral and toward the Palais de Justice and the world’s greatest repository of stained glass windows in one setting, the church of St. Chappelle. But times have changed. A reserved, timed ticket is required to pass through the barricades, which are guarded by uninformed police checking for the ubiquitous pass sanitaire.

We decided to wait on our Museum Pass, which will no longer get us right through lines but will provide a timed, reserved entry. I later checked the entry times for St. Chappelle and saw that that the same entire day was open, another indication of how few tourists are visiting Paris these days.

Traffic was as heavy as usual on the streets around the Palais de Justice, however, so we picked our way between cars, police vans and ambulances to start our walk back home. We took the route around the hill to the end of rue Monge and near the Marie & Pierre Curie campus of the Sorbonne, which is the French MIT.

We needed wine, so we made our way to rue Mouffetard and the Cave, where the store featured a Cabernet Franc, a Cote du Rhone and a Gamay–all for 20 euros.

Dinner that night was at one of our all-time Parisian favorites, La Forge down near Montparnasse. The little restaurant is warm, rustic and welcoming. The couple who own it greeted us like old friends, and gave us our choice of tables. They feature a Morgon wine, which I instantly recognized from the last time we dined there. It was delicious, all 32 euros of it. We chatted about their Covid experience, and he explained they had been closed for a full year during the worst of the pandemic.

Lynn chose the steamed cod in vegetables, and I couldn’t resist the entrecôte with pepper sauce and buttery, crispy potato slices. As good as ever, although I looked with envy at the duck confit served to the table next to ours. You can only have one plat per sitting, I suppose, but I may have their cassoulet next time. Or the duck. And we couldn’t resist a creme brulet for dessert before waddling up the hill to home and off to bed too early for a good night’s sleep.

We are still acclimating to the time, but we are almost there.

We did not want to wander too far on our first full, non-jet lagged day, as the cable guy was scheduled to arrive midday. So we spent the day re-aquainting ourselves with the surrounding neighborhood. The magic had not left.

First on our list was a visit to the butcher on rue Monge for sausage to make Lynn’s famous sausage and peppers dish at the apartment, our first home-cooked meal in 11 days. Then it was off to the vegetable market two doors down for peppers, onions, and garlic. After depositing the groceries in the apartment, we were ready for a stroll around the ‘hood, starting with the huge Jardin de Plantes at the end of rue Lacepede.

The Jardin des Plantes was clearly past its prime season. The botanical gardens were overgrown, weedy and mostly brown. The rose gardens, so solid with color in the spring, were for the most part going bare, with few blooms left. But it is also maintenance season, as we watched the workers trim the huge sycamore trees like shrubs.

After a baguette lunch and the cable box replaced, we walked over to our original neighborhood near the Pantheon to check out Pomme d’Eve, which seems to be active, although not open during the day. We will visit George soon–if we can stay awake that late.

Farther down rue Laplace, we confirmed that one of our favorite restaurants, Chantairelle, is gone, replaced by a prix fixe restaurant offering 3, 5, 7 and 9(!) course dinners. We also located The Bombardier, an authentic British pub that should be able to make a passable Bloody Mary come Sunday. They are hard to find in Paris, and I am not up to paying 24 euros each at the Ritz for a Bloody Mary.

From rue Laplace, we walked back down and around the hill to Jussieu and the university area where we had found an apartment a few years ago. We realized that we had forgotten to buy pasta for the peppers, so stopped in a Carrefours City, a tiny urban supermarket that offers everything the bigger ones do except in much smaller shelf space.

In Paris, you are never far from a patisserie or a grocery store. Between the hyper-markets like Monoprix and conventional stores like Carrefours, there are all sorts of smaller versions, including Franprix and the everything-frozen Picard, which is a true foodie wonder itself.

The fashion statement of the day is to wear a mask completely under the chin, ready to be deployed when entering any sort of establishment. I’m not going there.

France also requires showing your “pass sanitaire,” digital proof of your vaccination, whenever entering a restaurant or a museum. It’s the same as LA Wallet. We applied for ours several weeks ago and received them online in only about 12 hours for each of us, and I had been shamelessly showing off mine all over New Orleans and Newport.

Following our unfortunate discovery of internet problems, we took a much needed post-Atlantic nap before venturing out to the neighborhood. Our first stop was the Franprix grocery on rue Monge, where we stocked up on the bare essentials of coffee, milk, eggs, lardon, soap and of course, paté for the evening snack. A petite baguette came from the patisserie at the corner.

After a glass of wine or two with the paté, we were ready to explore for dinner at our favorite haunt, rue Mouffetard. Pandemic or not, every restaurant, bar and crepe stand was packed from rue Lacepede all the way down the hill to rue Royale.

We reveled in the re-discovery of our street—our favorite wine store; two Franprix grocery stores within 100 yards of each other; the seemingly endless row of restaurants, all filling up on the sidewalks with cocktail hour customers; the cheese stores; two seafood markets; the large vegetable market on the corner displaying  huge containers of apples on the street; clothing stores; the Greek crepe stand with a line that extended down the street and another extensive vegetable stand on the far corner. And that is just a cursory description of perhaps the liveliest street scene in Paris, or at the very least, the Left Bank.

We walked all the way down past Mouffetard to find our favorite restaurant, La Forge. Lynn swore that the owner recognized us from two years ago, as we made reservations for Thursday night. But tonight would be TournBride, our first discovery on rue Mouffetard, years ago on a freezing cold January day when French onion soup warmed the belly and the soul.

TournBride’s specials were duck confit with sausage (really rich), cod and chicken. As good as they looked, nevertheless Lynn ordered the regular duck confit with potatoes, and I couldn’t resist the lamb with ratatouille. Washed down with a pichet of Bordeaux, both dishes served as a fitting welcome to Parisian cuisine. Lynn’s duck confit was falling off the bone, and her potatoes were crispy yet buttery at the same time. My lamb medallion was equally flavorful sitting in a bed of savory stewed vegetables. Nothing better to erase the memory of dreadful airline food made even worse by the pandemic depression international flights suffer these days.

Bienvenue, Paris.

Our flight was not full but nevertheless very quiet due in no small part to the requirement that all passengers must wear masks. It’s uncomfortable and unnecessary if we are to believe their claims about how fresh and clean the recirculated air is on commercial flights. But it’s “federal law,” whatever that means. I’d love to have a public affairs attorney check on that.

Delta has seriously downgraded their meals on international flights. They used to serve a full meal shortly after takeoff that included a choice of entrée, a vegetable, a salad, roll, butter and a little dessert. It wasn’t good but at least it was reasonably complete. Our meal on this trip consisted of a choice of baked chicken the consistency of cheese or a ravioli in some institutional version of marinara sauce. Salads consisted of a small bowl of chopped tomatoes and cucumbers with a vestigial, almost tasteless dressing. And dessert was a prewrapped chocolate chip cookie for me. Nothing for Lynn. That was all.

And the wine was served in plastic cups. But at least we had wine.

Breakfast in the morning before landing was the most tasteless Egg McMuffin ever concocted. The “cheese” was an unidentifiable but certainly not natural extrusion of melted whiteness over an egg that was no more than an eighth of an inch thick. And it was all held between two slices of what was charitably described as an English muffin but was really microwaved cardboard.

I managed to consume about half of mine; Lynn did not get anywhere near that far. It was no way to treat a stomach after flying nearly seven hours overnight.

By then, we were ready to land, and I was ready to shed a mask and breathe real air without resuscitating my own carbon dioxide. I had pulled on my New York Yankees gaiter early in the flight for some measure of comfort without tugging on my ears for seven hours, but as we approached landing, the flight attendants announced that surgical masks MUST be worn departing the aircraft. They made it sound like they would send you back home on the return flight if you insisted on wearing anything but the standard baby blue synthetic surgical mask that any doctor will tell you is utterly useless in shielding germs and aerosol transmission. (Surgeons wear them in surgery to protect them from blood splattering.)

Immigration control was remarkably benign, and unlike our last trip to Paris, our baggage arrived on time. In fact, ours was among the first to hit the carousel.

We made our way through Customs, then out into the cool midday air, where our six-foot female taxi driver loaded our luggage into the trunk of her Kia. I butchered the pronunciation of rue Lacepede where our apartment is located, so I wrote it out for her to punch into her phone and navigation equipment. The Paris expressway was pretty free flowing in late morning, unlike the early morning rush hour we have experienced in the past. Lesson learned—arrive in Paris later than 8 a.m. The ride into the city is now a flat rate, like New Orleans and New York to Kennedy—53 euros to the Right Bank and 58 euros to the Left Bank. Why the Left Bank is five bucks more expensive is not explained.

Phannette and Phillipe greeted us at the apartment with genuine excitement. Although we correspond in French, thanks to Google translate, we converse in English. We spent a pleasant time comparing notes about Portugal, from where they had just returned, and some of the new restaurants around Paris they recommended. 

As they were leaving, we tested out the WiFi network, only to discover that Internet and TV were not working at all. Good thing we learned this while they were still in the apartment. Phannette spoke to the cable company (yes, spoke and didn’t wait on hold for hours), who determined that perhaps the fiber had been cut or at least compromised, so they will have to come out to fix it at noon the next day,

Try to get that response in the U.S. from your provider.

After a wonderful week in Newport for the NYYC Invitational Cup (what happens in Newport stays in Newport), we departed to New York on the scenic Northeast Amtrak route down the Connecticut coastline and into Penn Station. The ride was as good as an American train ride can be, somewhat bumpy on the tracks, with lots of stops at scenic towns along the way.

Newport had been a wonderful week by any standard. SYC turned out by far the largest contingent, so big that we were mentioned in the news releases. The Admiral Fitzroy is a splendid B&B, and our fellow members staying there couldn’t be better travel companions. Once again, we showed NYYC how to party and once again WE WON! For the glorious details, I refer all to nyyc.org>Invitational Cup. Read it and indulge.

Our stay in New York was on a strange timetable, as we were there for a truncated 24 hours. There was time enough for dinner at Patsy’s, where we split a huge plate of chicken Carbonara, essentially an Italian version of Chicken Bonne Femme, and a Caesar salad, both mammoth dishes that no single person should ever consume.

I had booked a room in the City Club Hotel, literally next door to the Iroquois on 44th St. and just a few steps from NYYC’s Manhattan clubhouse. The City Club was, let’s say, “interesting.” It is clearly dated, but our room was huge by New York standards, with a marble floored bathroom and a toilet that sounded like thermonuclear fission when flushed. The City Club’s restaurant is one of our favorites, DB Moderne Bistro, which is sadly still closed. Therefore, the hotel has no coffee service at all, forcing me to run across the street to Gregory’s for $8 worth of small cups of java.

I could not get the TV remote to work properly, which I’ll bet my room rate that it was due to weak batteries. I dropped it off at the desk while we had breakfast last the Red Flame, and picked it back up working perfectly. Sounds like weak batteries to me.

Having most of a full day in New York but not really a full day is a bit unnerving. We visited the Public Library, which had no exhibits at all, then the Fifth Ave. branch less than 100 yards down the street. Nothing. Well, except books.

With no plan, we wandered around Midtown, visiting Rockefeller Center, walking past Radio City Hall, strolling down Fifth Avenue and pretty much doing nothing but wasting time until we needed to head to JFK for our flight.

44th St. was once again closed down for Con Ed repairs so we were forced to haul our bags to Sixth Ave and hail a cab. Luckily we were extremely early. The ride to JFK took an hour and a half, mostly because our driver kept jumping off the expressways and driving through surface streets of Queens, which caused us to stop interminable times at red lights. We were ready to jump out of our skins by the time we actually got on the Van Wyk to the airport.

The international Delta check-in lines were thick, populated by Americans traveling to Europe and Africans traveling home with six and eight bags per person. Their luggage charges much have exceeded our ticket prices. Covid does not seem to have depressed international travel from New York for Delta Airlines.

Once we finally checked in, we proceeded immediately to the TSA Pre-Check line, where I discovered to my horror that my boarding pass was not marked TSA Pre-Check. Lynn salted through the empty line, while I hustled back to Delta, stood in a separate line and begged for my privileged boarding pass. Turned out it had been operator error, as I had entered one wrong digit of my Global Entry number. Once that was corrected, I was able to sake through security with the privileged few, shoes on, jacket off and virtually no line ahead.

Finally through TSA, we headed straight for the Delta lounge for free drinks and snacks and most importantly, for just a little while, mask free too.

Next stop–Paris.

Our last full day in Lisbon was was the warmest and most beautiful that we had experienced during our visit. The sky was blue above, even as the fog rolled across the Tagus River so thick we could barely make out the huge cruise ship that pulled in around 7:00 a.m.

It’s Sunday, so we all know what that means, departure or not.

Our getaway day schedule was changed to accommodate the lack of the elevator up the hill. I had booked a room at the Radisson near the airport for Sunday night to avoid hauling our impedimenta up the 79 steps in darkness to the Miradouro to summon an Uber to the airport. The extra expense of a hotel room near the airport was worth the warmth, convenience and a long hot shower before enduring the torture of some 20 hours in transit back home.

But first there was the issue of breakfast and Bloody Marys on Sunday in Alfama. We climbed out for Audrey’s in the Santiago Hotel just a block up the street from Miradouro Santa Luzia. Audrey’s is a most civilized place, British in feeling but frequented by Americans, including the couple we had met at the restaurant Farol Santa Luzia earlier in the week.

Audrey’s breakfasts are quite good and reasonable, 10 euros for a single Eggs Benedict and 14 for the double. Their Bloody Marys are large, very tasty and tart, though not quite as reasonable at 10 euros. But who was to complain on our last day in Lisbon?

We lingered over our Eggs Benedict and Bloody Marys for a while, then walked down the hill and the flights of stairs to our apartment for final packing and preparation for the slog back up the hill with five bags: two suitcases, one duffle, one briefcase and Lynn’s mom bag.

I closed our apartment door behind us, swearing that we will return to Alfama but never return to Monica’s apartment.

Fifteen minutes later, we had dragged the luggage up the 69 side stairs to Miradouro Sao Vicente to summon Uber among the throngs of visitors and residents enjoying the view of the fog over the river.

Our Uber driver turned out to be a chatty, enthusiastic resident of Alfama, living with his entire extended family of parents, wife and children right in the ‘hood for the last 18 years. He even parks his car in the very garage we stood in front of when he picked us up. He loved Alfama, and we agreed. A quick 15 minutes later, he dropped us off at the front door of the Radisson Blu just minutes from the airport and squarely in the takeoff flight pattern, from what we could hear.

The hotel checked us right in, so we had the afternoon to explore our new neighborhood and the park right across the street. The park offered three different restaurants: a two-story, drive-up McDonalds; a small restaurant in a box of a building that was closed for the season; and Casa da Lago, a welcoming place in the middle of a pond in the middle of the park. We chose Casa da Lago.

We enjoyed a very nice chicken and goat cheese salad with a bowl of fries on the side and two cold draft beers.

Finished our light lunch, we walked around the park one more time and retired to the hotel to await dinner, which was just fine too, actually better than expected in a transient hotel. It was a quiet way to end an active trip and prepare to head home.  It’s been fun.

 

At last the sun.

We had not seen sun in at least three days, so the faint glimmers through thinning clouds across the river were so, so hopeful and welcome. Saturday was our last full full day in the apartment, the last day for walking about and exploring our favorite sights of Lisbon.

Our plan was to walk up the hill from our apartment to the major sights: Sao Jorge Fortress, Sao Vicente Church and the Pantheon that rises over the hills overlooking the Tagus River.

We made it up to the fort more or less directly, although it is a fairly steep climb in some parts of the route. We had already been inside the fort, so there was no need to pay another admission to walk around tumble-down stone walls. The fort itself is worth visiting only for the views.

Instead, we walked into the church adjacent to the fort, Santa Cruz do Castelo. As European churches go, Portuguese churches tend to be dark and gloomy, built of large, solid walls without windows. Santa Cruz was no exception.

Probably the reason is that virtually all buildings, including churches, were reconstructed after the devastating earthquake of 1755. Therefore, the churches post-date the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo architectural styles and reflect the need for solid structures that would withstand the next earthquake. The result is relatively simple interiors with decorative fronts. Santa Cruz do Castelo was no exception, as they promote their tower which they claim is Lisbon’s highest historical tower.

We, however, did not need to see those sights, and Lynn was not about to climb another set of stairs to view them. So off we went to the Pantheon.

Portugal’s Pantheon is relatively new; it was not formally dedicated until 1966, although parts of the building were constructed as early as 1682. After construction languished for years, then-dictator Salazar in 1964 ordered the building completed in two years. Obviously, it’s good to be dictator, because the structure was indeed completed two years later. The first remains were moved from the St. Jerome Monastery to their respective galleries be the end of that year.

The Pantheon resembles the French Pantheon and St. Peter’s Basilica with a prominent dome crowning a boxy, somewhat classical main structure. The original structure was built as the Church of St. Engracia but converted to state use as a pantheon in the early 20th century. Construction proceeded at a snail’s pace until the dictator dictated that he wanted it finished.

Today, it is a most handsome building. The central interior contains cenotaphs of the greatest heroes of Portuguese history, including both Prince Henry the Navigator and explorer Vasco da Gama. Off the main gallery are side rooms containing four tombs each of notable Portuguese, mostly from the last two centuries, including ill-fated leaders from the early 20th century, writers, artists and one footballer.

The upstairs floors include an interesting display of the history of the site from the gruesome martyrdom of St. Engracia to the dedication some 60 years ago. If you climb up another set of stairs, you reach an expansive terrace offering a 360-degree view of the river and the rest of Lisbon.

As I walked around, I saw over the balustrade a large flea market that beckoned us to visit. I immediately made my way down the 115 stairs to the ground level to meet Lynn who had decided to forgo the stairs and contemplate the dead on the ground level.  We walked out and over to the Sao Bento market, the Super Bowl of flea markets.

The Sao Bento market happens every Saturday and stretches for blocks along and inside the Sao Bento market building. Tents and booths sell every imaginable item, including pornographic CVDs. The market stretches from well behind the Pantheon right up to the rear walls of the St. Vicente church and monastery.

So our walk alone the market led us to St. Vicente and its pretty garden, where we spent a very few minutes. And from St. Vicente church, it was a very short walk along the streetcar tracks around the corner and down the hill to Miradouro St. Vicente and our apartment.

We felt so gratified in our successful wandering that took us through three of Lisbon’s lost famous landmarks that we rewarded ourselves with a cold beer at the Miradouro.

Refreshed, we summoned Uber for a 3.13 euro ride down to the Time Out Market for another lunch at Felicidade. The market on a Saturday afternoon was completely full of diners, even as the fresh market on the side was already closing up. Once again, we ventured to the outer perimeter and found two seats at Felicidade, where we had so enjoyed lunch a couple of days earlier.

Lynn ordered the goat cheese salad, always one of her favorites. This one came out with a hockey puck of grilled goat cheese placed on top of a bed of lettuce with vinaigrette dressing and blueberries, whose flavors perfectly complemented each other. The goat cheese slab was topped with a scoop of honey ice cream, which itself was topped with drizzled honey and crushed almonds. Lynn declared it the best goat cheese salad she had ever tasted.

I opted for the pork cheeks served over a bed of mashed sweet potatoes with small cubes of ham mixed in. The richness of each ingredient worked perfectly together, and the pork cheeks were tender, savory and falling apart. Chef Felicidade herself upsold us on our choice of wines and engaged in a lively discussion about food, restaurants and travel.

She reported that she had visited New Orleans a few years ago, but only had the chance to eat in one restaurant, the name of which she could not remember. She was on a worldwind tour of the U.S. that included Savannah, Orlando, Miami, New Orleans and even Mexico. We encouraged her to visit New Orleans again, gave her our contact information and promised to introduce her to some local chefs when she gets to town.

The day was just too pretty not to walk all the way back to the apartment, following the route we had taken a number of times before. From the market, we walked to the huge Praca do Comercio square, which on a Saturday was not as crowded as we had anticipated. Then we proceeded along Rua do Arsenal, which runs one block off the river through the old downtown and tourist area.

The street then changes name and leads to the newly constructed open area and plaza in front of the House of Spikes, which is one building in a handsome row of colorful facades.

A block past the plaza, the storefronts become more gritty leading to the alley where we turn up the hill and walk to the apartment past a number of Fado restaurants, which we learned the last time offer mediocre food at higher prices in return for tired musical performances of traditional Lisbon music.

On a sunny day, even though cool, it was a most pleasant walk and a good way to say good-bye to our neighborhood.

But not before one last dinner at Canto da Vila. They welcomed us right at 19:30, as we were the only diners to arrive that early, old North American time.

Canto da Vila outdid themselves this time. Lynn ordered the veal loin, which came out cut like a roast and had that same rich flavor. I uncharacteristically ordered the vegetarian dish of tagliatelle with light tomato sauce and roasted eggplant. It too was delicious, and we swapped plates half way through dinner, so we could enjoy both dishes.

On our way out, we promised to return next time we visit Lisbon. And we will. Eagerly.

 

 

Up early (for us), we rolled out of our apartment just a bit past 9:00 a.m. bound for Rossio train station and Sintra.

Sintra was the second major outlying attraction we wanted to see in our extended exploration of Lisbon. It is part of a national forest up the mountains northwest of the city, conveniently accessible by a 37-minute train ride from the Rossio station situation right in the middle of town.

We had made it to the station for the 9:41 a.m. train to Sintra on another ridiculously inexpensive Uber ride (3.43 euros plus tip).

The inbound train was packed with Lisbon workers commuting form the suburbs to their jobs in the city. Our outbound train was pretty much populated by fellow tourists leaving for the same destination. We stopped every few minutes at suburban stations along the way, passing nondescript, late 20th century high-rise residential buildings that stretched for mile after mile on the way out of the city.

In fact, according to World Population Review, Lisbon is the largest urban land area in the EU, with a total population of nearly three million. As we watched row after row of tall buildings go by on the train, we could believe it.

When we reached the end of the line at Sintra, passengers poured out of the train to walk out into a horde of people selling tours in Tuk Tuks, every color of bus line imaginable and private cars. There were as many of them waiting as there were of us walking off the train. We made our way past the phalanx of hawkers and down the street about 100 yards to the 434 bus that costs 6.90 a person (cash only) and stops at five major attractions in and around Sintra scattered throughout the forest.

Unfortunately for us that day, Sintra was shrouded in a dense fog.

The bus was packed to capacity. We were squeezed in front, and the driver called out for everyone to move to the back, but there was absolutely no room. At least half the bus was Chinese. The views up the mountain would have been great, except for: 1) we could barely see anything through the crowd inside the bus and 2) the fog obscured everything outside the bus.

We reached the first stop of the HoHo, and we departed, thinking this was the nearest point to the Pena Palace, the main draw. We were wrong. As a Chinese tourist aggressively pushed me aside to depart at precisely the same time through the same exit, we noted that only less than half the bus got off with us.

The ticket office was another 450 meters up the hill, so we trudged through the fog and the chill, Lynn complaining bitterly about the cold and discomfort every step of the way. When we finally reached the ticket office, there was another sign for the 434 bus stop; indeed, we had gotten off one stop too soon.

The ticket agent was kind enough to explain that the Moorish fort was nothing worth seeing or buying a ticket for in the fog, so we spent 26.50 euros for the Pena Palace alone. Sinatra tours are not cheap.

The path to the palace was, incredibly, another 500 steep meters up. In all, we had walked nearly a kilometer to reach the entrance to the Pena Palace. Through the fog and the cold, as Lynn reminded me frequently.

The Pena Palace is indeed pretty impressive, even in the fog. It is situated on extensive grounds with multiple sites, but under the foggy and cold conditions, there was no way were were going to wander through the woods past the place itself.

The palace dates back as far as the 12th century, when a chapel was built there dedicated to Our Lady of Penain. It grew into a convent of Our Lady of Pena when King Manuel I donated it in 1503 to the Order of the Hieronymites. In 1838, King Fernando bought the place after the religious orders were expelled four years earlier and restored it into his personal palace over the next 20 years.

The palace and grounds were acquired by the Portuguese state in 1890 near the end of the monarchy and converted to a museum in 1911. Today, the entire area is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Basically, Pena Palace is a house museum on steroids. It is furnished in the style of the last king and queen to live there near the end of the 19th century, right down to the monogrammed copper pots in the kitchen and the series of bathrooms for the residents, including the royalty, chamberlains and others living there. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed inside, but trust me, this is as close to Versailles as the Portuguese ever got. It is lavish, but we saw no heating at all, indicating that this was strictly a summer palace for the king and his queen.

Finished our tour, we walked back to the 434 stop and boarded a now-empty bus. As we boarded, I reached for my bus ticket–and it was not on any of my pockets. Mortified, I searched my pockets full of other tickets, but the HoHo ticket receipt was not there. It must have fallen out during our packed ride up the mountain. The driver was kind enough to wave us through, but I knew that  our ride would end back at the station unless I bought another ticket.

Besides, it was cold and foggy, as Lynn reminded me.

So we alighted and decided to walk around the little village surrounding the train station. Right around the corner we found a delightful “wine gallery” named Incomum that offered a lunch of quiche, soup, dessert and a glass of wine for eight euros. That was a bargain not to be missed. And it was delicious.

By now, the fog was lifting but we felt like we had climbed enough and seen enough of Sintra to take the train back into Lisbon, where we explored the area surrounding the train station and discovered St. Dominic Church, dedicated in 1241 and the site of the coronation of Portuguese kings. It suffered a devastating fire in 1959, and it did not reopen until 1994. Even today, 60 years later, the scars of smoke and damage to the structure are still apparent all over the interior. The overall effect is spooky.

Dinner was a revisit to Le Petit Cafe, and it proved to be even better than the first time. Our dinner this time consisted of a caprese salad with just a touch of pepper to heat it up, followed by two duck dishes.

Lynn ordered the roasted duck breast, which was presented in a way I had never seen before that resembled a roast rather than the thin slices of duck usually seen. The different cut seemed to bring out a richer flavor in the duck than usual, and it was among the best we had ever tasted.

My own duck was confit, and it too was among the best–maybe the best–I have ever enjoyed. The skin was crispy, and the meat underneath fell off the bone at the touch. It was served over a pile of risotto that I actually liked, which is pretty rare for me. And our Nepalese and Brazilian staff was as friendly and accommodating as ever.

After a dinner like that, we didn’t even mind walking back to the apartment in light rain, which we hope will be the last we see in Lisbon.