I have been working and just generally doing the day to day of living in a small medieval town - drinking coffee, walking the streets, writing in my 1500AD apartment... What a fortunate life!
I thought I should check out Portugal and flew to Lisboa for the weekend... I am in lurve! I was in the old city near Praca de Restaurades which is down by the massive river Tagus (which begins around Toledo) as it goes into the ocean. It is low, shabby and absolutely delightful! THis is in the old city and this viewing tower lets you look around Lisboa...
The food is absolutely amazing plus... every single morsel was divine... The pasteralia is everywhere and the windows are stacked with lovely treats including the portugese tart of course, but all manner of savoury delights as well.... I also ate at little bars where you stand, have a pastry, a beer, and then at the appropriate time, they begin cooking meats etc... how much crumbed pork fillets did I have, but even a lettuce and tomato salad was exquisite...
My little hotel (very funky!) was down here near some restaurants. I could see lobster in the tanks, but could small a gorgeous charcoal cooker but didn't ever quite locate it...
Just a couple of blocks from my place was the Praca Commercia right on the river... still wet and cold here even in Southern Europe... Even got offered some hashish on the streets! Lots of San Francisco touches like the red bridge (designed and built by those who did Golden Gate), as well as trams and furniculars up the hills that go on either side of the streets above Rua Avaica (I think)...
It looks like there is some sort of bike ride up and down the streets where the furniculars run...
Apparently there is a new city centre built for expo but they are trying to rejuvenate the old city centre and the buildings are just divine. Of course with the financial crisis, and after the decades of dictatorship etc etc, the young people who would usually do up these old buildings have of course had to move overseas for work... so there are quite a lot of abandoned buildings... this one is not totally abandoned but you can see just how lovely they are... The outside is all blue tiles - gorgeous! other colours are pink and yellow and being by the sea/river its just lovely
Lots of African muslims as well adding to the city scene - Portugal of course had Mozambique, Angola and some other African nations in its empire...
Gorgeous Jen
ReplyDelete