Hot Lisbon – Day 3

(Read about the second day in Lisbon.)

Yesterday (Sunday) it was proved to me again and again that it is not advisable to visit a big European city during the weekend. The Westerners behave totally different than us. Their cities are deserted during the weekends, shops are shut and the only passers by are the tourists, easy to recognize by their cameras and rather confused faces.


This is how the day started for us: empty streets, quietness, happy sun in the sky. We set off to Bairo Alto district, to Sao Roque church, a place that is worth visiting, then to Igreja do Carmo, badly damaged at the 1755 earthquake, which consists actually in some roofless ruins only. Interesting, but we could have easily skipped as well.


After that we set off to Belem, the fourth old disctrict of Lisbon (after Alfama, Baixa and Bairo Alto). We bumped into a cross-country race, probably a half-marathon. I think there were a few thousands participants and the traffic was diverted. I don’t know how we manage to bump into a cross-country race like this every where we go lately: Rome, Paris, Barcelona and now here, at Lisbon. I think we were spared in Brussels only. Beside the fact it was Sunday, we now had an extra explanation for this deserted city: all the policemen were watching and all the valid persons were running on Avenida 24 de Julho.


I can’t even tell you how much we had to go around on diverted routes because of this cross-country race. We walked a lot, we took taxi’s and trams, it was a nightmare. Finally we got to Torre de Belem, a 5 century old tower, built for guiding the ships coming from the ocean up on river Tejo.




One hour later we got to the most extraordinary place I have seen lately, Mosterio dos Jeronimos, an amazing monastery, so beautiful that it takes your breath away; its courtyard is also a true gem.
If you ever get to Lisbon, don’t miss it! It was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen to that moment and I think the trip to Lisbon was woth it even if we were to come for this only.


Let’s get back to Portuguese cuisine. We ate at a restaurant close to Mosterio dos Jeronimos, called “Os Jeronimos”, on 74/78, rua de Belem. Small, with about 40 seats only, it was packed. There were some interesting traditional dishes. We skipped anything with bacalhao and ordered a soup and a fish stew for each of us.


The portions were huge, especially the stews and, even though they were yummi, we could not finish them. They brought us a “creme de marisco”, a cream thick soup, some sort of bisque, with shrimps, very tasty, and a soup of the day, “sopa di dia”, with short pasta and chicken, delicious.


A “caldeirada de peixe” - a fish and potatoe stew, and an “ensopada caçao” – a bread and lots of coriander stew (there were slices of bread on the bottom of the plate and layers of fish and potatoes on top of them) followed.


The stews came with some very spicy, flavored oil, with a lot of chillies in it, on the side. I think that everything we ordered now caught the very essence of the Portuguese cuisine, filling, strong, straight, with rich taste and flavors. This was the best meal we had in this trip.

Then we ran next door for dessert, very famous and celebrated by all travel books: “pasteis de Belem”. These small tarts, with vanilla cream, topped with a lot of cinnamon and powdered sugar, have been prepared here ever since 1837 and are famous all over the world. They are prepared in all countries and territories with Portuguese influence, from Brazil to Macau, and in all the cities with a strong Portuguese community, from Toronto to Paris and Brisbane.


It seems the tarts were taken over from the jeronim monks just a few hundreds meters away. These “pasteis” are pretty good, but I think a rightly made cremsnit is far far better.


In addition, celebrity is expensive, a very small, 2 bite tart, is 0.9 EUR; I think they sell a few dozens of thousands every day (there is always a 20-30 person queue), so they are a very profitable business.


In the evening we visited Castelo de Sao Jorge, which is just 50 meters away from our accommodation and which we purposely left for an occasion when we would be too tired to go down to the city. Its park is very beautiful, and the city view from the top is superb. The castle is worth the time to visit and the 5 EUR entrance fee.


Now I am sorting the pictures and finishing the Port wine I bought on Friday night. Tomorrow will be an easier day and we will visit, among others, Mercado de Ribeiro, a food market I only heard good things about. It seems that the restaurant on top of the building housing the market is worth the full attention, so tomorrow is promising. Fingers crossed!



And so the third day passed…
I will get back to you with details on our fourth day in Lisbon.

Respectfully yours,
Radu Popovici