I've returned from a 16 night trip to Portugal, the first trip abroad I have taken since covid and my first visit to that country. Our flight from Washington to Lisbon was only 6 hours and 20 minutes, the fastest time I have ever reached Europe. We left at 10pm from IAD, which is a pretty good time to leave, because 1. IAD is not busy and you can breeze through security, and 2. you arrive in the morning when things are actually open rather than desperately and wearily searching for a place to have a coffee before you can check into your hotel, or in our case, catch a train. I had made it a plan to immediately get on a train to Porto, as we'd be jet lagged so we might as well get some travel over with. The Lisbon Metro was simple to use, and we got to the train station easily. Three hours later, we were in a taxi to the hotel, and then it was a groggy walk to find some dinner in a city we knew nothing about.
But we couldn't find a restaurant.
Oh sure, there were plenty of places with outside tables full of lively conversationalists sipping beers and wine and evening coffee. They were all pastry shops or what could pass as bars. No food. We kept walking along one of the busier streets in the neighborhood, each curve revealing an empty promise once we got around it. There wasn't all that much to see, either. Just this next curve, I said, and then said it again and again until we reached a park that reminded me of the area around the canal of Paris with a church that sparked some momentary interest, and then we noticed a Metro station. My idea was to take it a few stops where some points of interest were located. We hopped the train and headed south.
When we arrived to the area one could see that this was the theater district. There would be restaurants around here, right? LOL. More pastry shops. Every twist and turn of the streets brought pastry after pastry after pastry. We were grumpy at that point and wondered if people in Portugal really ate or if that was a myth concocted by Bon Appetit magazine and the New York Times food section.
Eventually we found a table at a restaurant called Vaccarum where I had a fish called scabbard. It looks like this:
 |
| (Not my photo) |
Not to worry, it looks like this on your plate and tastes delicious:
The dinner was fantastic.
After we finished, we wandered around a bit and stumbled upon a religious procession of some sort whose purpose no one could seem to explain. Someone said "scooters." (I think it was for boy scouts.) We took an uber around the worshippers to the hotel and slept that first night after a transatlantic flight kind of sleep.
In the morning, I went for a coffee and a gander alone. Having a cappuccino outside at a European cafe is among my favorite things in life. We have far too few of those places here. I do miss American style drip coffee when in Europe, but I would gladly give it up if it meant cappuccinos in Europe every morning. I had something resembling a croissant before heading out to orientate myself to this new city. I fell in love with the tiled houses.
I had to get reacquainted with my Nikon, as I hadn't touched it in three years, so my first shots seem out of practice. Here are some photos of my first morning in Portugal.
 |
| How's it going, Francis? |
 |
| An anti-bullfighting organization |
 |
| The store is called Pepper and Chocolate and the door looks like a chocolate bar. LOL |
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment