Another private collection and another splendid dinner

What an active day we had as we near the end of our winter adventure.

Lynn found the Casa Museo Medeiros e Alameida online, an unusual house museum, because the collections are more important than the house. Sr. Madeiros was a major industrialist in the first half of the 20th century in Lisbon. He made his first fortune importing Morris cars from England (you may recognize the brand as Morris Garage or MG) to Portugal, creating and dominating the auto industry in his country. He later went on to pioneer commercial aviation in Portugal. (If you watch the ending of Casablanca, the logo on the airplane taking off for Lisbon was his airline, even though the aircraft itself was not.)

The Museu Medeiros e Alameda occupies a prominent corner in a prominent neighborhood of fine homes.

In 1943, he and his wife purchased an 1896 Parisian-style mansion in central Lisbon. The prosperous years following WWII gave him both the funds and the time to collect a prodigious amount of art and artifacts. He even purchased and installed his own chapel.

Doesn’t everyone have their own chapel purchased from a 17th century monastery?

By the early 1960s, the couple made plans to keep the entire collection intact by simply donating the house and all its contents to a foundation. As part of the project, they commissioned an architect to design and build a new house on the grounds of the adjacent garden, where they lived out the rest of their lives. Today, the entire compound has been utilized as the museum.

The Old Wing of the house is preserved as they lived in it, complete with all their possessions, some 2,000 individual pieces distributed through 27 galleries.  The collection includes furniture, paintings, sculpture, textiles and sacred art, including their chapel.

This is just one wall of four in the watch and clock room. He had collected hundreds.

One entire room is devoted to his clock and watch collection, including a Breguet pocket watch owned by the Duke of Wellington. In another room is a silver service that was used by Napoleon during his exile. Clearly, Sr. Medeiros had an eye for the best. And the funds to afford the best.

One of the more elaborate clocks in the room actually has a face on both sides.

After a pleasant tour of both sections of the house, we summoned Uber to take us to the Ribeira Time Out Market across the street from the Casa de Sodre station where the trains leave for Cascais. (4.42 euros before tip–no kidding; Uber in Lisbon is cheaper than public transit.)

The market resembles Mercado Centrale in Florence and is obviously built on the same business model. On one side of the ground level is a traditional fresh market offering the full selection of fruit, vegetables, fish and meats of all kinds. But the fresh market was closed the first time we visited after Cascais, and it was closing up this time, even though it was not even 2 p.m.

The Time Out Market fills only half of the large building, as the fresh foods are on the other side.

The big draw is the prepared food market. The large space is ringed with restaurants that surround the main floor of community tables. Patrons line up at the counters and take their orders to the long tables. Bars offering wine and beer are right at hand to quench the thirst. Like Mercado Centrale in Florence, the Time Out Market is privately owned and operated, so all the napkins, for instance, bear the market name and all the food stalls have the same visual design. The prevailing atmosphere in the entire place is energetic and fun with a high-end culinary calling.

As good as the food was, a large part of the experience was watching the crew work this little tiny facility.

We found Cozinha de Felicidade, a food stall offering counter seating on  two sides overlooking their kitchen, so we pulled up two seats and ordered a delicious lunch of duck croquettes (essentially duck confit rolled into a ball, breaded and lightly fried) with a shared dish of black pork chunks with asparagus, sweet potatoes and another croquette that may or may not have been bacalao but did not taste fishy at all. With two glasses of wine, it was a perfect lunch for us.

We did not want to eat too much, because we had an early dinner reservation at a tiny place right down the street from our apartment called Canto da Vila. It is impossible to find if you are not specifically looking for it, largely because it has no sign on the street and is tucked into a little corner lot. The only identification is a small logo a the top of the menu board standing outside the door.

But what food.

We started with the coperta, which here included the customary olive oil, olives and specially flavored chef’s butter to go with the bread, which was toasted, a first for us in Portugal. The coperta also included another first–roasted peppers in olive oil. The selection was good enough to make the entire meal, but we had also ordered padron peppers, which came out in a huge bowl. Those were the first padron peppers we had ever seen in Portugal. And they were good.

But we had to stop eating those too, when our main dishes came out. Lynn had ordered the chef’s special fish of the day, which our Nepalese waiter (yes, another one!) described as dorado/grouper/sea bream/bass. (It’s all the same fish, moist and flaky and tender.) Lynn’s fish was served en papillote, which keeps the fish extra moist and even more flavorful. It was served over a compote of vegetables and potatoes that mixed into a broth with the liquids coming from the filet of fish.

I ordered the saltimbocca, a rarely found dish consisting of chicken strips fused with ham strips into a single, salty portion subtly accented by cheese. I loved and ate every bite. To finish off the night, our Nepalese friend poured small glasses of some special sort of Port. It tasted  more concentrated than regular Ports, and served as a most fitting cap on perhaps our best meal in Portugal.

Even with the coperta totaling nearly six euros, the total bill with a bottle of wine was 54.60 euros. Try finding that anywhere else but Portugal. And remember, Lisbon is more expensive than Porto.

The gang at Canto da Vila.

We promised to return. But it was time to walk up the hill and down the 79 steps to the apartment to watch the Australian Open with portuguese commentary overdubbed before retiring for an early start the next day up the mountains to Sintra.

 

 

It’s not a small world–it’s tiny

After a day visiting the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum way up in the middle of Lisbon (more about that later), we decided to dine at Farol Santa Luzia again for two good reasons: 1) it’s good and 2) it’s right across the street on a drizzly, chilly night.

Dinner was excellent. We ordered the restaurant’s signature dish for two: a copper pot steaming with shrimp, clams, pork, onions, tomatoes, and a host of other vegetables all swimming in a rich savory sauce. A bowl of white rice was served on the side, along with another bowl the size of a small football helmet filled with brabant potatoes. The main course was a perfect dish for a cold winter night and perfectly flavorful. Our only comment was that the chunks of pork were overdone and dry, but that seems common in these parts. (I fact, we agreed later than the pork was superfluous in an otherwise perfect seafood dish.)

As we ate, we overheard the conversation between an American couple sitting at the table next to us. They spoke in a recognizable New York accent, but when the gentleman mentioned something about Shaquille O’Neal and LSU, our ears perceptively pricked up and we glanced over their way.

We four introduced each other and when we compared where we lived in the U.S, both of us answered–New Orleans.

He is a semi-retired health care consultant who had a lot of business in New Orleans, and still does, he noted. They live in Algiers near Tall Timbers and visit Portugal frequently. On this trip, they are on the opposite track to ours: they head to Porto from Lisbon right when we leave for the U.S.

We compared restaurant recommendations in Porto and hotels in Lisbon, because they were staying in the very hotel where we had enjoyed lunch the day before. If we come back to Lisbon for a short stay, we will definitely book into the Santiago Hotel right up the block from where we have been living. It will save us 69 or 79 steps to the street.

The long, low Mid-Mod entrance to the museum, celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Earlier in the day, we had visited the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, the really, really rich patron’s private collection housed in a Mid-Century Modern masterpiece designed and built to house them all. The museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and the galleries include original architectural drawings from the inception, which are fascinating in themselves.

Can you say Mid-Century Modern? The museum includes a large conference center connected to the exhibits.

The collection represents a small fraction of the objects collected in his life by Gulbenkian, who was born in Armenia, made a fortune in early 20th century Mid-East oil and died in 1955. He spent the majority of his adult years acquiring fine antiquities from Islam, Armenia, China, Japan, ancient Egypt and Rome and Europe from the 12th through the 20th centuries. He also personally knew and was a major patron and customer of Rene Lalique, who made exquisite Belle Epoch and Art Nouveau jewelry.

The collections are eclectic and extensive, including three rooms of mostly 18th century Oriental carpets and artifacts.

Gulbenkian moved to Lisbon at the outbreak of WWII and lived there for the rest of his life, creating the foundation at his death that would form this museum. Today, his collections are displayed in spacious, accessible galleries that include several buildings spread over a large compound and garden in the middle of downtown Lisbon.

One entire gallery is devoted to a series of 18th century paintings of Venice. La Serenissima hasn’t changed much, despite hordes of tourists invading each day. Venice was more successful in repelling the Saracens.

Other than the Maritime Museum and the St. Jerome Monastery, Lisbon really does not have any major art museums, but this one comes close. As one that represents the collection of a single individual, the Gulbenkian Museum is worth noting and visiting next time you are in town.

Venice today looked pretty much the same  then except for the infidels clogging the bridges while they shoot selfies.

 

A delightful day at the beach in Cascais

We were ever so ambitious on this day, leaving the apartment at the so early hour of 9 a.m. bound for Cascais, via the Metro station under the Praca do Comercio. We paid six euros each for a daily transit card good for 24 hours after the first use. Transit in Lisbon is considerably more pricey than other cities like Paris, Nice and Barcelona, where the going rate is 1.20 euros per ride, discounted to one euro with a book or card of ten rides. A single ride in Lisbon is three euros, so you need to ride more than twice to get your money’s worth out of a day pass.

At any rate, we were bound for the tram to the Cais de Sodre suburban train station, only two stops from the Praca but too far to walk. At the train/Metro station, we bought two round trip tickets to Cascais for ten euros. It’s a 40-minute ride along the Tagus riverfront to the Atlantic beaches of the resort town. (Compare to our train fare of 19.50 euros for the three-hour ride from Porto to Lisbon a couple of days earlier.)

The suburban train to Cascais leaves every 30 minutes and takes about 40 to make the trip.

We were in luck. Our train was leaving in two minutes, so we hustled to the platform and boarded without delay on a very crowded train bound for the Lisbon suburbs and eventually the beaches of Cascais.

Forty minutes later, we walked off the train into the colorful, delightful beach town of Cascais.

Even in the winter, Cascais was bright and shiny, inviting and friendly. Souvenir stores and clothing boutiques lined the streets, empty for the most part. We could only imagine the crowds that throng the streets and shops during summer season.

The wide streets are designed to accommodate swarms of sun-seeking summer shoppers.

Despite the windy chill, boats were sailing out of Cascais Yacht Club, more formerly named Clube Naval de Cascais. We walked up the hill to the fort and spied the entrance to the yacht club, where we were greeted by a friendly employee who most graciously invited us to explore the facility and even have a drink at the bar. Which we did.

It must be a yacht club–Optis are stacked outside in the dry storage.

Turns out Cascais is a major club, sponsor of one of the TP52 series in the Mediterranean that draws the biggest names in the world. The club competed in the 2011 NYYC Rolex Invitational Cup and was the home of a Volvo Around the World competitor, Turn the Tide on Plastic. 

A Volvo competitor from the last race was based out of Cascais. the club operates a large youth program that apparently runs year ’round, because four boats were out on this day, swapping crews of high school age sailors.

They also have reciprocity with a number of major clubs around the Mediterranean, as well as Royal Thames in London. Our friendly host gave us copies of their hefty, professionally produced bi-lingual quarterly magazine that we could read later.

After exploring the Cascais club, we continued our exploration of Cascais town and found a string of British themed restaurants.

Choose your pint and fish and chips from a number of British-themed restaurants and pubs.

Likely a large number of Brits gravitate here during the summer months to bake in the sun and bathe in the waters of the Atlantic. We chose Chequers for cheeseburgers (I just needed a fix), and our very helpful server explained that she only spoke English, very few words of Portuguese, since she is a native of Bangladesh. She came to Cascais via Sweden, where she had worked for several years before escaping the bitter cold  long, dark days of Nordic winters.

We were the first to sit inside, while the outside tables were filled with patrons enjoying the cool sunny climate. Shortly, other customers filled into the dining room, two groups of Chinese and one seemingly American couple who played cards while waiting on their order.

Our beers were cold, the hamburgers were expertly prepared, and we walked out satisfied and ready for more exploration. Upon walking out the door, I discovered the Ferris wheel was in operation. Who could resist?

Who could resist? Certainly not me.

For five euros each, we rode five minutes on the Ferris wheel, enjoying the elevated views of Cascais and the Atlantic below. As we rotated around, it occurred to me that our train fare from Lisbon to Cascais was five euros each. There was a lesson there, somehow. Fun is more expensive?

The view from above. The old building is the Captain of the Port. The building to its left is a five-star hotel, of which there are many around town.

After a bit more walking the streets of Cascais, we decided to start working our way back to the station and the next train to Lisbon. On the way, we walked past a group of volleyball players who decided to sun themselves on the beach. In mid-January, they were in bikinis and shorts. We were bundled in heavy coats and sweaters. It’s all a matter of perspective, I suppose.

 

 

Back to the Maritime Museum

First thing in the morning (that’s 10 a.m. for us), we walked down the path full of stairs and ramps past Sao Miguel church to the waterfront to discover that the construction at the bottom had indeed been completed.

What was a major construction site last time is now a finished open plaza on the way to the Praca do Comercio.

Where before we had to divert our path around fenced work sites, now there was a broad plaza at the riverside that led us along the House of Spikes and right to the Praca do Comercio. The walk now took less than 10 minutes.

The House of Spikes includes a Roman ruin inside.

Our goal was the Maritime Museum way down river in the Belem area. The idea was to use the Yellow HoHo boat to go down and buy transit passes to return. But when we walked up to the boat’s ticket booth, we were informed that the boat did not cruise until 1 p.m. She informed us, however, that our boat tickets could be used on the modern tram to take us to Belem, so we skipped buying the 6 euro daily pass, figuring we could buy one on the way back.

Our destination  was the Portuguese Maritime Museum, which we had visited the first time in Lisbon three years ago.

The first halls of the Maritime Museum relate the story of Portuguese explorations to India and beyond.

It is massive, occupying half of the Monastery of St. Jerome building, wrapping around a grassy courtyard to  a modern hangar-like pavilion where original royal barges, Olympic sailboats and pioneering aircraft are on display.

As expansive as the museum is, it’s fairly easy to get through, since Portugal’s significant naval exploits pretty much ended after 1700 and the establishment of its empire. But the initial sections on the generations of discovery and routes to the Far East around Africa are fascinating.

Never met a maritime museum I didn’t like, but Lisbon’s is one of the best even though there is not much to tell after the first couple of centuries.

At the same time as Columbus was trying to reach the Far East by traveling west across the Atlantic (there be Dragons), the Portuguese were launching voyages of discovery along the coast of Africa and around the Cape of Good Hope to reach India and the riches of the spice trade before Spain could get there traveling the other way.

And thus did royalty live on the royal yacht.

At the end of the static displays is a small gallery where cabins of the royal yacht belonging to the 19th century King Carlos and his Queen Amelia have been reconstructed. The cabins were preserved after the yacht Amelia was dismantled in 1938, and later outfitted with all the porcelain, crystal and silverware that were used on another royal yacht, Sirius, according to the museum’s brochure.

The barge pavilion includes Olympic sailboats and antique aircraft as well.

The barge pavilion includes an elevated walkway along the length and width of the huge hangar, so visitors can see the royal barges and other craft from above.

This is a Snipe. Remember them? This beauty was all wood.

Otherwise, the boats are so large, you can see only the hull below the waterline. All in all, this is a bargain museum at 6.50 euros for an adult and half that for a senior.

Little known fact: the Portuguese crossed the Atlantic by plane before Lindberg. They flew from Lisbon to Brazil non-stop in 1922, connecting their former colony by air.

The barge pavilion leads to the shop, naturally, and the cafeteria, where we stopped for a quick lunch of salad, empanadas, beer and wine. They were just fine, although the food would have been better if heated.

Refreshed and fed, we took a long walk along the riverfront to the Tower of Belem, the 15th century fortress that was part of the protection of Lisbon from invaders.

Sadly, the Belem Tower was closed, but later I read that you can only go into the dungeon.

The park setting around the tower attracted a large number of people, visitors and students alike, but the gate to the fortress blocked entrance. So other than a photo of the exterior, our ambitions for Belem were suppressed.

By them, it was mid-afternoon and time to head back to our apartment on the tram. I paid six euros for a transit ticket that would have been good for the modern 15 tram as well as the historic 28 streetcar. Except we could not locate the 28. So we walked.

As we pointed ourselves back to Alfama, we stumbled across the Pingo Doce supermarket again, which gave us exact directions home. As long as we were there, we picked up two more bottles of wine–you never want to run short–and walked down the hill to Miradouro Santa Luzia and the non-operational elevator. Seventy-nine steps later, we flopped on the couch for a bit of rest before dinner at Le Petit Cafe, which is just down our street.

Le Petit Cafe turned out to be the best restaurant we have enjoyed on this entire trip. The decor was sophisticated, the staff was extremely friendly, and the food was nothing less than five-star. Our server was from Nepal, and she counted two other Nepalese on the staff, plus the chef, who was not Portuguese either, she noted.

We shared salad featuring grilled portobello mushrooms flavored with garlic and a hint of truffle oil surrounded by fresh green lettuce. It was plenty for the two of us, and ranked as one of the great salads we had ever had.

My octopus and rice dish was served in a hot black iron crock, ready to be spooned into the bowl little by little to conserve the heat. I had expected some simple grilled or steamed octopus served over white rice. This was anything but. It was a mix of savory broth, a combination tomato and seafood flavor with just a tiny bit of curry mixed in. The octopus was obviously cooked for a long time, because it was tender yet still flavorful. The entire dish was huge, hot and delicious and I ate almost every bite. Meanwhile, Lynn had ordered the tagliatelle richly flavored with bacon. It too was as good as any she had tasted in any restaurant on this trip.

Stuffed, we waddled out into the chilly night and the other Sao Vicente stairs, promising to return to Le Petit Cafe. The duck confit awaits me.

A day of delightful discoveries

Sunday was a day of discoveries, all to our delight:

  • We figured how to operate the heaters in our apartment. They radiate minimal warmth, but are better than nothing. Monica the manager/owner(?) said they work on a timer, so I just pulled the timer off.
  • We located a major supermarket, thanks to the directions from a friendly worker in a patisserie where we stopped on our way out of the apartment. In fact, we discovered that the Pingo Doce supermarket is only a seven-minute walk up a relatively gentle hill from our apartment, passing by a First Century A.D. ruin of a Roman amphitheater.
  • Upon reaching the wide Praca do Comercio facing the river, we saw a Yellow Bus Hop On Hop Off boat cruising the Tagus River. That was so us. And so new. We took the ride on Sunday and planned to use the boat as our taxi to Belem and the Maritime Museum down the river on Monday.

    The Roman ruin is on one side of the street, and on the other is a museum showing more.
  •  We solved the dilemma of how we are to depart for the airport early Monday morning after lugging our baggage up the 79 steep steps. We will check out of the apartment Sunday afternoon, move to an airport hotel and be done with the broken elevator once and for all. It’s an extra expense, but well worth the more leisurely schedule of departure and the angst of dragging our bags up on a deadline.

    The ramp to the Yellow Boat HoHo.

Our apartment faces east, looking out over the roofs of Alfama and the Tagus River just beyond. Dawn is a pretty sight as the sun rises over the river and paints the white walls below us in various pastel shades of pink and cream.

We launched out of the apartment and up the stairway to the right, which is less steep than the elevator staircase. Our intent was to follow the tram tracks down to the huge Praca Comercial square flanked by bright yellow buildings much like the Pontalba in New Orleans.

The Portuguese are pretty casual about taking down their Christmas decorations.

The square is highlighted by a huge central arch in the building facing the river and a statue of King Jose I on horseback wearing a helmet topped with huge feathers. Why sculptors wanted to top off their subjects with feathered helmets is beyond me, because inevitably, the pigeons and seagulls roost there, giving the honored heroes a goofy look at best.

The entire complex was built after the disastrous earthquake of 1755 and now is lined with tables selling souvenirs and restaurants selling overpriced food and drinks to patrons sitting outside in the sun.

As we walked through the square, crowded on a warm, beautiful Sunday, we spied the Yellow Bus Boat, which we had not seen last time we visited Lisbon. In fact, it was not there last time we visited Lisbon. Neither, for that matter, was Yellow Bus itself as a company. The Red Bus had a monopoly for years until the Yellow Bus company started operating just a couple of years ago. We availed ourselves in Porto, because they offered a river cruise, and we availed ourselves of their river cruise in Lisbon. Who could resist?

We had an hour to wait for the next boat, so we ducked into one of the restaurants along the side and shared a very large Greek salad that was quite good. The chicken was roasted well and shredded like spaghetti with large chunks of warm, soft feta cheese mixed throughout. Lynn deemed this among the best Greek salads she had ever eaten. I did not disagree.

Timing was perfect. We boarded the Yellow Boat, took off down the river and quickly learned it was a HoHo as well. Its first stop was across the river to a destination that featured an ancient galley ship that seemed de-rigged from what we could see.

The new Belem Tower overlooks the Tagus a few hundred yards up the river from the old 15th century fortress.

Then it was back across the river to the Belem stop, perfect for us the next day. We planned to use the Yellow Boat as our taxi to Belem the next day and buy a transit card to get back. Thrifty of us.

The river trip was interesting, as we could view Lisbon from a different perspective, as water trips always provide. Our only problem was that we could not hear the commentary, because a group of Germans sitting directly behind us were talking loudly non-stop without any thought of the audio overhead.

The long walk to the Metro station under the plaza. Could this be any more plain? Surely they could sell ads at least.

Back at the plaza, we walked up to the supermarket for some serious shopping: wine, pasta, vegetables, meat skewers and all the fixings for a couple of dinners at home. Lynn had ambitious plans for the chicken breast we took home from dinner the night before at Farol de Santa Luzia, a very good restaurant that did not quite live up to her expectations from our last visit. (It lived up to mine, for sure, with one of the best pieces of grilled grouper I have ever enjoyed.)

We returned to the apartment via an elevator in the supermarket that goes up to a street that led us straight back home on a relatively gentle slope without steps. What a find.

The very pleasant Miradouro Santa Luzia bar is only 69 or 79 steps from our apartment, depending on which way we go.

We were so enthused by our discoveries of the day that we could not resist a glass of wine at the Miradouro overlooking the little pool underneath a gargantuan bougainvillea. Sheltered from the breeze in the bright setting sun, it was fitting way to conclude our day of discovery before retiring for the evening to watch tennis and enjoy Lynn’s cuisine, which exceeded the original dish from Farol the night before. Takeaway never went to a higher reward.

 

Good bye Porto, hello Lisbon–oops

Our departure for Porto was uneventful. A light rain was falling as the Uber driver passed our apartment and parked in the little plaza a few yards ahead in the same place that our arriving driver dropped us off. He helped us muscle our bags into his Toyota Auris and we drove around Porto for about 15 minutes  to reach the Campanha railway station only a mile away as the crow flies from our apartment.

Total Uber bill was 4.21 euros, including .22 cents waiting time.

Exterior from the 19th century, interior from the late 20th.

The Campanha station is about as nondescript a railroad station as any we had seen in Europe. It more resembled Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans than any of the grand old stations in Europe. Although the exterior was built in 1877, the interior was renovated in the late 20th century and looks as antiseptic as any.

Our train to Lisbon left on a far platform, so we lugged our bags down the escalator and along the underground hallway to Track 7.

The crowd begins to build for the train to Lisbon.

At first, the crowd was only a few people. But it built quickly and by the time the train arrived, hundreds of travelers were hurtling for the doors. Luckily, the first class cars stopped right in front of us, so we were able to board, deposit our bags and find our seats without too much drama.

Our first class accommodations were quiet, except for the guy across the aisle listening to a video on his phone without ear buds. The seats were well used but comfortable, and thankfully faced forward. I hate riding backwards.

The first class car was quiet and comfortable, if a bit worn at the edges. The total fare for first class to Lisbon was 19.50 euros each using the senior discount. No one asked what age qualified for senior discount so I just applied for both of us.

All was well until we reached a stop just past Gaia across the Douro River, when a couple walked up and said we were sitting in their seats. I showed them our tickets, and they pointed us to the next car. My mistake, although I could have sworn the first car was numbered 11.

The good news was we escaped the passenger playing his video. the bad news was our new, correct seats faced to the rear. Did I mention I hate riding backwards?

Otherwise, the three-hour ride was pleasant, even though the train’s WiFi was painfully slow.  The gentleman sitting across from Lynn asked where we were from, and when we answered New Orleans, be broke out into a wide smile and said “Mardi Gras.” Ten years ago, he had attended a convention in New Orleans during Carnival, and he said the memories are still with him. “What a party,” he said. He departed at the next stop, so we could not advance the conversation.

Lisbon has two major train stations, Orient and Santa Apolonia. The first is far from town but very close to the airport, so most of the passengers departed there, probably to catch flights out of the country. Santa Apolonia is right in town, not far from the new cruise ship terminal and Alfama, our neighborhood. The winding route from the train station to Miradouro Santa Luzia, where the elevator would take us the four flights down to our apartment took about 15 minutes, even though it could be walked in about the same time.

Our driver dropped us at the Miradouro (scenic overlook) Santa Luzia where the restaurant was full of people overlooking a little pool surrounding by bougainvillea that leads to the public elevator. It’s a truly pretty place, and we were excited about taking the elevator down and meeting Monica to check us into our apartment.

And then we learned the elevator is not in operation.

Not on the top floor, not on any of the intermediate levels, not on the lowest floor. And from the looks of the torn barrier tape and handwritten sign, the elevator had not been operating for some time.

Lynn at the bottom of the 79 stairs carrying luggage to our apartment. You can see the joy in her face.

The only option was to physically carry our bags down four flights of stairs, all 79 of them, to the apartment. Monica expressed surprise that the elevator was not working, although she had to have known. The elevator had been out for more than a year, I later learned through You Tube. We were not happy, and worse, we would have to carry our luggage back up those 79 steps when it is time to leave for the airport.

The apartment was pretty much the same as we had remembered, except for one major change–Monica informed us they took out the clothes washer. That would be a problem for staying eight days. She blandly explained that most people stayed there only one or two nights, so they did not need the washing machine. Yet the ad for the apartment says the machine is there. Otherwise, we would have rented something else. We were not happy.

Lisbon was not starting out well.

 

Last day in Porto

By our fourth full day in Porto, we had found the best walking routes to avoid the steepest climbs up the hills. Indeed, Porto is pretty compact, so the walk from our apartment down to the riverside neighborhoods was not more than 12 minutes or so.

Since we would not be taking an extended river cruise up the Douro, because we had been told (mistakenly, it turned out) they do not run in January, our day was pretty much unplanned.

The market is shrouded and gutted. Too bad.

Our first objective was the large market just a couple of blocks from our apartment that Bernardo had recommended. We always like markets everywhere, because they are always interesting mixtures of tourists and locals, fresh produce and usually lots of touristy stuff too.

Alas, the market was undergoing a full gut-level renovation, which seems to be quite common in Porto.

One of the dozens of buildings all over Porto that are being gut-renovated while saving their historic facades. This one was directly across the street from the market that is undergoing its own renovation.

Buildings all over town are empty, their facades braced, as they are totally renovated into something modern on the inside with historic features preserved on their exteriors. No market today or perhaps for a couple of years, if their experience is the same as San Antonio in Barcelona.

One last church we wanted to see was the Carmelite complex, similar to the Franciscan in that it is composed of a church (this one still working), museum, catacombs and a tiny, narrow apartment on three levels.

The apartment, called “The Hidden House” because for years it was unknown to the general population, is on three levels accessed by narrow flights of steep stairs.

A steep set of stairs leads through the “hidden House.”

Each level is one room only: a kitchen, a bedroom and a meeting room. According to the brochure, the Hidden House was used for 250 years for various needs and notables of the Carmelite order.

The kitchen in the Hidden House: one room per floor.

The church itself is another example of Portuguese Rococo excess. It is small, but no less elaborate than the others we had visited in Porto. In the pulpit is a statue of Jesus carrying the cross set up so that visitors to the pulpit from the stairwell could kiss the foot of the fallen Savior.

The little liturgical complex is organized very well for tours, with arrows pointing visitors on a route starting with the Hidden House, then to the pulpit, and finally the church itself.

Photos were not allowed in the church but I snuck one anyway.

Inside the church, visitors are directed around the side altars and out to the catacombs that show only a small collection of bones;  the Great Hall that was hit by shells during the siege of the city in the early 19th century; the Vestments Room displaying priestly garb from the 18th and 19th centuries; the Habits Room, where the Board kept its regalia; and finally the Sacristy with its own small altar.

The entire tour takes only 30 minutes or so, but for 3.50 euros is well worth the price of admission.

Finished with our last church tour on our last day in Porto, we wandered around a large plaza and park setting near the main building of the university in search of lunch. Our choice was Italian, as we had not eaten pizza since the unfortunate experience on the Queen Mary 2. Nonna Piazza was just fine, as we shared the 7 euro special topped with Tuscan sausage and chorizo with a couple of super cold Super Bock drafts. The place was much larger than it seemed, and it was fairly full of diners ranging from students chomping on individual pizzas to business executives in suits eating large helpings of spaghetti and the tortellini special of the day.

After lunch, we strolled home along the now familiar streets and pretty much spent our late afternoon reading and preparing to pack and leave. Dinner was to be an early 1900 seating at Taberna Santo Antonio.

Taberna Santo Antonio was our last supper in Porto.

Our walk down toward the river took us along now-familiar streets and right to the restaurant. The family welcomed us in and showed us to a small table along the side of the tiny dining room. Our waiter spoke fluent, unaccented English and explained that he also spoke French, Spanish, Italian, a little German, a smattering of Korean and a few words of Mandarin. This last in advance of the coming storm when the Chinese discover Porto.

The atmosphere inside Santo Antonio was truly festive and familial. Our waitress came up and explained in her own unaccented fluent English that she was from Brazil. She warned us not to go while their current president is in office. At least Brazil’s president is not being impeached at the moment.

Lynn ordered the grilled sea bass, and I was directed to the paneed pork in the traditional sauce and under melted cheese topped by a fried egg that forms the famous Porto sandwich, the francesinha, a huge pile of meats, cheese and sauce that should be a heart-stopper for anyone attempting to eat it. But it is one of the staples of the Porto diet. My pork dish included the elements without the stacks of meats and bread. I can’t say it was the most delicious meal I have ever had, but the pork was cooked perfectly under the sauce.

Since it was our last night, we ordered dessert, the chocolate mousse, which our first waiter assured us had been judged the best in Porto for seven consecutive years. It came out dark, rich and dense. We could see why it was considered the best.

Exploring day

Porto is very hilly, but the only hill we had really navigated on foot was the one where we live. For the first two days, we let the HoHO bus do the climbing for us. By Thursday it was time to explore on foot, all the way from our apartment at the top of the hill down to the river, a descent of more than 50 meters. Easier going down than trudging back up later.

Church of the Clerics interior is typically ornate Baroque architecture.

The walk down the hills toward the river went past a couple of churches to visit, stores to window shop and marvel at the prices, and restaurants to compare menus.

The narrow winding cobblestone streets of Porto were alive, if not bustling with the movement of a normal workday.

Like every European city we have visited, the growth of tourist apartments continues. Here is en entire building.

We saw very few tourists, most of whom were Asian, and lots of students, since Porto is home to a number of universities.

The facade of the church of Santo Francisco is austere with a Gothic rose window at the entrance, but ornate over the top on the inside.

Our goal was the church of Santo Francisco, a huge Baroque/Roccoco structure near the river that also includes a catacomb, a private chapel, a museum and a display of valuable religious objects in silver and gold in the old sacristy. The church itself, built in the 17th and 18th centuries but started as early as the 15th century, has been deconsecrated, so the complex charges 7.50 euros for a ticket to everything. (Usually churches are free, as they stay open to worshipers.)

The private chapel of the Franciscans is pretty fancy in its own right.

No photos are allowed in the church, which is too bad, because the interior is a riot of Roccoco sculpture and art. Every square inch of the walls, ceiling and altar are festooned with elaborate gilded and polychrome wooden carvings from from top to bottom. This is all contained within a building that is a large but unremarkable, vaguely Gothic structure.

Each side altar has an explanation of its dedication and history in English on cards that are too wide to read comfortably. The interior is quite dim, which may be why photography is prohibited, because the constant flashes would damage the surfaces over time. Music is piped in throughout, giving the total experience something of a Phantom of the Opera feeling, reinforced by the sight of recumbent Christ covered in gauze underneath one or more of the side altars. Combined with the wigs on some of the statues, the entire effect is fairly creepy.

The underground mausoleum has a few spots remaining, but not likely to be sold, since they were outlawed more than a century ago.

The catacomb-like cemetery under the adjacent building is really an underground mausoleum established in the second half of the 18th century and utilized by prominent families until it was banned about 100 years later. Some of the vaults are still empty, perhaps available for purchase in the 21st century.

The private chapel is no less ornate, with side rooms displaying old Franciscan certificates and the former sacristy showing gold and silver monstrances, chalices and other religious artifacts, mostly from the 19th century.

After our tour of Santo Francisco, we started our trek back up the hills of Porto in a roundabout manner and stumbled upon Taverna Santo Antonio, which had been recommended to us by our hosts at Tabua Rasa when we ate there earlier in the week. Santo Antonio is a tiny place, so we could understand the need for reservations.

Since it was about mid-day, we were in need of refreshment, so we stopped in at the bar and set next to a gentlemen eating a typical Porto lunch of beans, sausage and tripe. The story goes that the citizens of Porto were forced to give all the good cuts of meat to the king to feed his army, so they kept the tripe and the offals for themselves, and thus they became the traditional meat dish of Porto. We determined that the natives can keep their traditions to themselves.

While we enjoyed two frosty beers from the tap (1 euro each), we chatted with the owner and made reservations for Friday night. I asked for 1930, he wrote down 1900, and that was that. Our reservation was for 1900.

Rain was forecast all day, but more likely in the afternoon. We had dodged the raindrops until we were near the base of the hill up to our apartment. As it started rain harder, we ducked into a restaurant Marinhei, next door to where we had dined the night before. This was clearly a locals place. We enjoyed a seafood lunch of hake for Lynn and plaice (European flounder) for me. Both were delicious.

By the time we finished lunch, it was mid-afternoon. The rain had slacked off enough to walk back out and up the hill to the Froiz supermarket to buy chicken and provisions for a home-cooked dinner. This evening would be our first and last dinner at home in Porto.

Our first and last home-cooked dinner in Porto. It will not be our last once we reach Lisbon.

 

Port in Porto

Well, isn’t Port what Porto is all about?

After Lynn prepared a delicious breakfast of European eggs showing deep orange yolks accompanied by European bacon, mostly meat, we lit out for the Yellow Bus and another trip around Porto across the river to Stop 9 and the port wine tour. Lit out means we walked out our door a few minutes after 1000.

For the first time in several days, blue sky and sun appeared, and I realized I had overdressed, even as I had underdressed the day before. Wearing a flannel shirt with a vest under my heavy coat, I was warm in the sun, even though comfortable when the clouds rolled over.

The old wine boats, called rabelos, that delivered to Porto are now excursion and display boats.

The Yellow HoHo stopped across the Douro in the town of Gaia on the street overlooking the riverfront, and we walked down the hill to the waterfront stretch of port wineries on the shore side and market stalls on the river side.

The Port wineries line up along the street overlooking the river.

At the end of the street stands a small modern market with at least a dozen restaurant stalls and many more tables to sit and drink and eat. Although we were not hungry from our substantial breakfast, I couldn’t resist a cone of cheeses and mini-sausages. We passed the time waiting on the next English speaking tour of Calem eating from our meat cone and checking out menus of the waterfront restaurants.

Meat and cheese cones, the best fast food there is.

We did not succumb–pictures of food, waiters hawking passersby, inflated full meal prices. We’ve seen the same everywhere in Europe. Besides, we had our cone of little sausages and cheese bites to tide us over.

At the appointed hour, we showed up at Calem for the tour in English. Our group included a lone American woman from Denver, three South Koreans and a young Ukrainian couple.

Inside the Calem museum, a three-dimensional model of the Douro Valley explains the geology and terroir of the wine-growing country.

The Calem port winery tour is a sophisticated operation. Visitors start in a museum with electronic projections of the geography and terroir of the Douro region on a three-dimensional map, moving on to displays and explanations of the grapes and the process that makes port wine.

The biggest of the wine vats are so large they use them as projection screens.

Then our tour guide walked us into the cellars where rows of huge barrels holding 77,000 liters of wine each stand upright, waiting to be dispensed into smaller barrels stacked for aging. We saw smaller casks dating all the way back to 1958, 1961 and other ancient years.

Our guide explained that the juice comes in from the vineyards by truck already liquified. The brandy that creates Port is added when the wine goes into the barrel, stopping fermentation, so the cellars of the Port wineries are pretty much storage facilities. There was not much to see or hear once we walked through the maze of monstrous, medium and normal sized barrels, each handmade from various woods, mostly oak but some other types depending on the winery’s intent for the final product.

The short tour finished with a tasting of two ports in a huge tasting room obviously designed for much larger group than our six.

After our walk through the forest of casks, we were led into the tasting room, where two glasses of port, one white and one tawny, awaited each of us on the long table. Both were delicious. Your guide did not offer any more than what was set out in advance for us, so once we finished, we walked down the stairs into the shop. We purchased a couple of samplers offering six different flavors of their product. We had no particular purpose for them but knew they would eventually come in handy.

We decided to walk directly back up the hill to wait on the bus instead of visiting the market again. Once we arrived back in town, we walked backwards up to the Santa Caterina pedestrian mall and the 18th century church of Santo Ildefonso.

The impressive wall of tiles on the front of the church need serious renovation. They were painted in 1932.

It is a relatively small but impressive church, badly deteriorating tiles on the exterior and a heavy does of Baroque on the interior. It is named for Santo Ildefonso, who was a 7th century archbishop of Toledo in Spain and for all we could see had no connection to Porto or Portugal.

Now that is a seriously Baroque altar.

Nevertheless, it is impressive, although there are larger cathedrals dotted around the city, but not nearly as many as similarly sized European cities like Nice.

For dinner we chose a place at the bottom of our hill call Lagostim. We had looked at the menu earlier, took a photo and researched on Trip Advisor, which did not rank it extremely high. We made reservations and confirmed to our disappointment that it was a tourist restaurant most of all. Three stars at best.

Lynn’s grilled sea bass was quite good, but my veal was stringy with ordinary sliced button mushrooms in a sauce that tasted of wine but had the consistency of coming from a can. The waiter offered bread with a saucer of butter and other items like cheese spread, sardine pate and a little piece of real cheese, all of which we paid for individually. Together, the price of the bread and condiments came to 6.60 euros before we had our first taste of wine or salads or entrees.

Not the best we have enjoyed in Porto. In fact, the most ordinary we have encountered in Porto. My fault for ordering a meat dish in an obviously seafood restaurant. Even with the extra charges for bread and condiments, the total bill, including a bottle of wine was 41.70 euros. Nevertheless, cheap does not make up for mediocre.

 

 

 

First day in Porto: shopping, touring and, of course eating

Our street is lined with restaurants. There are no fewer than three on one side of our front door and another on the other side. Plus a good ten or more down the hill. We couldn’t try them all if we ate lunch and dinner on our street every day that we are in Porto. But we planned to sample enough of them.

Three restaurants are located immediately to the left of our apartment door, and another one is to the right.

Before grocery shopping on our arrival day, we lunched around the corner at a truly local diner where I ordered the traditional dish of bacalhau: shredded cod, potatoes and onions. Everyone else in the place was eating the same thing. I deemed it delicious. Lynn thought it tasted too fishy.

After our quick lunch, which cost all of 14 euros including beers, we worked our way around the corner and down to the supermarket Frioz inside a covered mall, where we provisioned for the rest of the week with eggs, bacon, water, paté, bread, coffee (the wrong size pods, it turned out) and of course wine.

Groceries put away, we explored our street and surroundings a bit more, then researched the HoHo tours available.

Every flavor of tour bus lines up in the same spot along the Praca da Liberdade.

Porto has no fewer than three different bus lines offering tours: Yellow, Red and Blue. Red is the traditional city tour, Blue is Gray Line but Yellow was highly recommended because it offered a two-day ticket that included a boat cruise up and down the Douro River, a free port tasting and two different routes, all for 28 euros each.

Our homework done, we marched down the street for dinner at a Brazilian restaurant, where Lynn enjoyed big hunks of steak on a skewer, and I had the little tiny bites of grilled beef. Both were hearty and plenty, so we took a box home for snacking later in the week.

The bar at Salve SImpatia seems to be sponsored by Heineken.

Rolling out as we do about 1000 the next morning, we made the eight-minute walk down our hill, past Hard Rock Cafe and across to the large Praca da Liberdade, where all the tour buses line up in front of McDonald’s. Then it was off on the Orange line through the historic center of Porto, down to the half-hour river cruise, across the bridge to the area of the port wineries and back in time for late lunch. We saved the wineries for the next day, as we had not eaten breakfast and were pretty hungry by mid-day.

Very handsome interior of our river cruise boat. Dozens of these boats ply the waters of the Douro all day long.

We alighted from the Yellow bus after our two hours of busing and river cruising in search of a place to grab lunch. As we always do, we walked a block off the square to find a small place where the locals eat. And we discovered Tupi.

It was a crowded lunch place with a long counter and small tables set individually and along a banquette. Clearly, we had stumbled into a local spot.

Tupi, home of the 7.80 euro feast. Wine was 90 cents a glass.

The English-speaking waitress recommended a plate of meats, vegetables and boiled cabbage, which we assumed would be something like corn beef and cabbage. She recommended that one plate wold be enough for the both of us.

A few minutes later, she walked out with a huge plate of potatoes, large carrots,  mounds of cabbage, all covering every sort of boiled meat you could imagine, including a few we did not recognize. Most came from pigs, including what looked and tasted like boudin noir, but some of the pieces seemed to come from chickens. It was more, much more than we could polish off between the two of us, as we gawked at the locals who downed an entire plate by themselves. That included a fairly slender woman sitting at the counter who wolfed down her heaping plate and left before we could even make a dent in ours.

Can you believe it?

And then came the bill. Including two glasses of wine, the tab was 7.80 euros. Wine hit us for 90 cents a glass.

We waddled out, needing a nap but on a mission for the Purple Route of the Yellow Bus to take us on a two-hour journey out to the beaches and the Atlantic. Where the Douro flows into the ocean was a raging surf leading to a completely different city where the beaches stretch along the Atlantic seashore.

Surf was up where the Douro River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Fairly deserted in the middle of winter, we had been assured they would be packed come summer time. Despite the huge surf and cold wind, we could see two kite boarders out enjoying the waves and the breezes.

By the time we returned from our two-hour Purple Route, it was time for wine and consideration of the next place to eat. We set forth about 1945 for Tabua Rasa, which luckily was also located only a few yards away, because by then it was raining. And not the misty little showers we had experienced on the Atlantic and in London–this was real rain coming down hard and wet.

We ducked in and found ourselves the only patrons on this cold, wet night, so we were able to strike up a most pleasant conversation with the two proprietors. Tabu Rasa specializes in boards of cheeses and meats. In fact, that’s about all they offer. The menu lists boards for one, two or four people.

Lynn gazes at the spread before us, which is for one, they say. Two more dishes were yet to come out.

We ordered the board of three cheeses and three meats for one person, then two side orders of sardines in olive oil and lemon and a portion of special pork sausage that for all the world resembled boudin. The meats were sliced extremely thin and flavorful. Our hosts explained the origins of each flavor of cheese and meat, including the special black Iberian ham made only in Portugal.

They also gave us a valuable lesson in the geography of Portugal and the differences in the regions. The short version is divided by wine regions–north is Douro, middle is Dao and south is Alantenejo. They are all delicious, as was our meal, which predictably was more than we could eat in one sitting. As we ate, two French women sat down, and our proprietor welcomed them in French as fluent as he had spoken to us in English.

Our delightful hosts at Tabua Rasa also gave us recommendations for another restaurant in Porto and one in Lisbon.

Five stars for Tabua Rasa. Two restaurants down on our street and many more to go.